As I was watching SportsCenter last night, it was announced that the Pittsburgh Pirates had resigned their all-star center fielder, Andrew McCutchen, to a 6-year deal worth $51.5 million. I couldn’t believe it.

Last year, McCutchen hit .259, with 23 home runs and 89 RBI’s. While those may not seem like great statistics, McCutchen’s potential is extremely high. He is only going to get better moving forward.

For the first time in a long time (I really couldn’t tell you how long), the Pirates have resigned one of their best players. Not only did they just resign him, they were able to sign him to a long-term deal worth over $50 million dollars. This has become somewhat of an unheard of move when talking about the Pirates over the last 15 years. The Pirates have acted as a type of “farm system” in recent years in which they would develop highly talented players, bring them to the big leagues (where they would succeed), and then be unable to resign them. This would result in the Pirates either trading these guys, or losing them during free agency. Some good examples of this in the past few years have been Jason Bay (traded to Boston), Nate McLouth (traded to Atlanta), and Nyjer Morgan (traded to Washington). They just haven’t been able to hang on to their best players for more than a couple of years at a time.

Signing Andrew McCutchen to a multi-year deal is a good sign for the Pirates. This is a team that has not had a winning record in 19 straight seasons, and they, plus their fans, are desperate for success. I’d say that keeping Andrew McCutchen on the roster is a decent start.