First Big Payday

Starling Marte is the latest of the Pirates' rising young stars to sign a lucrative long-term deal. Coming off his first full season in the majors where he batted .275 with a dozen homers and 41 stolen bases, he's part of a core that also includes Andrew McCutcheon, pitcher Charlie Morton and second baseman Neil Walker that helped the Pirates end two-decade-long absence from the playoffs.
Are the Pirates doing it right, locking in their young players, even before they're eligible for arbitration, to long-term contracts? We'll see over the next few years. But with a sparkling ballpark and renewed regional interest in the team, ownership seems eager to avoid what happened in the early 1990s, when an exodus of talent turned the Pirates into one of the game's weaklings.

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