Pirates were clearly never a true option for Eugenio Suarez after watching Reds presser

The most frustrating part for the Pittsburgh Pirates isn’t that they "missed" on Eugenio Suárez. It’s that, after watching the Reds presser clips and reading between the lines of what he’s saying, it’s hard to shake the feeling Pittsburgh was never anything more than leverage — a name to attach to the market so the eventual homecoming didn’t look pre-ordained.

Because Suárez didn’t sound like a guy choosing between teams. He sounded like a guy choosing Cincinnati again.

Suárez was openly appreciative of his first run there and even went back to the same kind of sentiment he’s shared before — the “maybe I’ll finish here” statement when he was traded from the Reds in 2022 — which isn’t something you casually toss out if you’re shopping for the best offer. That’s legacy and family talk. The local Cincinnati coverage of the presser leaned into exactly that tone, framing it as a full-circle moment that Suárez and his family have carried with them for years. 

And the contract structure backs it up. The Reds brought him back on a one-year deal expected to be worth $15 million, with a $16 million mutual option for 2027 and no buyout. And when Nick Krall talked about Geno, it was pretty clear Cincinnati was always the top choice.

That’s where it gets brutal for the Pirates. If the reporting is accurate that Pittsburgh had a stronger multi-year offer on the table (the number floating around is two years, $30 million) and Suárez still chose the shorter Cincinnati deal, then this wasn’t a normal bidding war loss. This was the kind of loss you take when the player already knows where he wants to live — and your best offer is competing with someone’s heart. 

Pirates’ misleading Suárez buzz looks like leverage in hindsight

From a pure baseball standpoint, it’s easy to see why the Pirates were in the mix. Suárez just detonated 2025 with 49 home runs and 118 RBIs. He also fits in a modern role: mostly DH, with some third and first mixed in, which would’ve let Pittsburgh add thump without pretending it needed to be a defensive master plan. 

But when your best-case outcome relies on landing a bat who’s emotionally tethered to another city, you’re not really building, you’re hoping. And hope isn’t a serious strategy when you’re trying to maximize the years with Paul Skenes on your roster.

Suárez choosing Cincinnati doesn’t automatically mean the Pirates failed to try. It just reinforces a colder truth: Pittsburgh has to hunt for impact bats who are actually gettable — not the ones whose decision is already written in the subtext before negotiations even start.