Free-agent outfielder/designated hitter Andrew McCutchen is signing a minor-league deal with the Rangers, per the Dallas Morning News. If and when he gets called up, he’ll likely serve as a DH platoon with lefty-swinging Joc Pederson.
Last season, McCutchen, 39, hit .239/.333/.367 (95 OPS+) with 22 doubles, 13 home runs, 57 RBI and 51 runs in 551 plate appearances.
Much more interesting here is the split between McCutchen and the Pirates. He was drafted by Pittsburgh in 2005 and spent the first nine years of his MLB career with the ballclub. In that time, the Pirates broke the longest drought between winning seasons in professional sports and made the playoffs in three straight years. He was an All-Star in five consecutive seasons, winning an MVP and finishing in the top five of MVP voting three other times. He was the first truly beloved Pirates player in decades.
Then he was traded to the Giants and bounced around for a few years, only to return back home for the past three seasons. It looked like he would retire a Pirate, but he wanted to keep playing for the 2026 season and, apparently, the Pirates didn’t want him back.
“I wonder, did the Cards do this Wainwright/Pujols/Yadi? Dodgers to Kershaw? Tigers to Miggy? The list goes on and on,” McCutchen posted on social media in January as part of a since-deleted longer message. “If this is my last year, it would have been nice to meet the fans one last time as a player.”
There was an existing divide. The Athletic reported in February:
The Pirates screwed up. They know they screwed up, according to multiple people in the organization who were granted anonymity for their candor. But if they were as direct as they should have been with McCutchen, informing him last season or even last offseason that 2025 would be his final year with the club, he probably would not have reacted well.
There’s certainly a fine line to toe between an organization doing what it thinks it needs to do to win games and taking care of a franchise legend. The Pirates had one of the worst offenses in baseball last season. They finished 30th of 30 teams in runs scored. This offseason, they added Brandon Lowe, Marcell Ozuna and Ryan O’Hearn in an attempt to turn things around. Coming off nine straight seasons of finishing in either fourth or fifth place and not contending for a playoff spot, they felt Cutch wasn’t in their plans.
It’s a shame there couldn’t be a nice retirement tour for the most impactful Pittsburgh Pirates player since the Bonds/Bonilla/Van Slyke/Leyland era. Instead, Andrew McCutchen will try to bring another World Series title to the Rangers.
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