... but this is insane in the membrane. With several small-market teams planning on raising payroll and with a weak free agent crop this offseason, the Pirates may have trouble signing free agents no matter how much money they were planning on tossing around. (Depending on who they were planning on spending on, this may not be a bad thing, but we can probably all kiss goodbye our already-hazy dreams of seeing Nomar Garciaparra in a Pirates uniform.)
On the bright side, it appears that the market for pitching is going to be obscene, so it's possible that Dave Littlefield could trade veteran pitching for something really nice if he wants to.