Brandon Lowe is a likely qualifying offer candidate as Pirates weigh a career year

Brandon Lowe is headed for free agency, and per MLB Trade Rumors' Steve Adams, the Pittsburgh Pirates can and should extend him a qualifying offer before he gets there.

What happened

Steve Adams addressed the question in the MLBTR Mailbag, noting that his colleague Anthony Franco had already listed Lowe as a "likely" QO recipient in a recent rundown of this year's prospective qualifying offer crop. The only thread of uncertainty, per Adams, was not whether Lowe merited one — it was whether the Pirates, whom Adams describes as "ever-frugal," would actually put it forward. Adams writes that if Lowe were on virtually any other club, the question would not exist at all, pointing to Pittsburgh's historically modest payrolls as the source of whatever hesitation might exist. This year's $105 million payroll, Adams notes, is somehow a club record.

Why it matters

The qualifying offer is one of baseball's more peculiar annual rituals: a one-year tender set at a fixed threshold that a player almost never accepts, but that attaches draft-pick compensation to any team that signs him away. For a club like Pittsburgh, extending one to Lowe would cost nothing if he declines and walks — which is the expected outcome for a player of his caliber — and would yield a compensatory draft pick in return. The calculus, per Adams, is straightforward.

What makes the broader conversation more interesting is the trade that brought Lowe to Pittsburgh in the first place. Adams calls it "one of the best trades made by any team last winter" and places it among the finest moves of general manager Ben Cherington's career, Boston tenure included. In a three-team deal, the Pirates sent Mike Burrows to Houston, while Pittsburgh received Lowe, reliever Mason Montgomery, and outfielder Jake Mangum. The Astros, for their part, sent outfield prospect Jacob Melton and minor league right-hander Anderson Brito to Tampa Bay. Adams' verdict: a heist.

Burrows, the piece Pittsburgh gave up, struggled after the trade and has been out since July 7 with elbow neuritis, per Adams. Montgomery, meanwhile, has been what Adams calls "a monster" in the bullpen and is controlled through 2030. Mangum has hit .281/.337/.366 in a larger role than anticipated, stepping into center field while Oneil Cruz recovered from a pair of broken fingers. And Lowe has delivered the career year that makes the qualifying offer conversation necessary in the first place.

The numbers

Lowe has hit 31 home runs — his second consecutive 31-homer season and his third career 30-homer campaign, per Adams. The offensive production alone would make him a notable free agent. What has elevated the conversation is what happened on the other side of the ball.

After ranking as what Adams describes as the worst defensive second baseman in the game in 2025 — posting -14 Defensive Runs Saved and -14 Outs Above Average — Lowe has, per Adams, flipped those defensive grades entirely. He now sits at +14 marks from both DRS and OAA, placing him among the best at the position. That is a swing of 28 runs in each metric from one season to the next, the kind of number that tends to make evaluators squint at their spreadsheets for a while before accepting it.

FanGraphs pegs Lowe at 4.4 wins above replacement. Baseball Reference has him at 4.9. Adams notes that second basemen are not typically compensated at the top of the free-agent market, but frames Lowe as a bat-first player whose position is secondary to his offensive profile — and one whose defensive renaissance will not hurt his case.

Where the club stands

The Pittsburgh Pirates enter the weekend at 77-77 (.500), sitting third in the NL Central, 19 games back in the division, and eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race. They carry a two-game winning streak into Saturday's home game against the Kansas City Royals at PNC Park, with Bubba Chandler lined up against Noah Cameron. Sunday brings another matchup with Kansas City, Michael Wacha on the mound for the Royals with Pittsburgh's starter to be determined. The homestand continues Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals, with Andre Pallante scheduled for St. Louis and Pittsburgh's starter again to be named.

The standings context matters here: with the postseason no longer in play, the remaining schedule is largely about individual milestones, roster evaluation, and — as Adams' column makes clear — the offseason decisions that are already taking shape. A 77-77 record is not the backdrop anyone drew up in spring training, but it is the backdrop against which Pittsburgh will decide what Lowe is worth asking back.

What we don't know yet

Adams is careful to preserve uncertainty throughout. The qualifying offer has not been extended. No club announcement has been made. The question of whether Pittsburgh will actually follow through — given its payroll history — remains open, even if Adams' own view is that they should. What Lowe would do if offered the QO is also unresolved; Adams notes that the expected outcome for a player of his caliber is to decline and test the open market, but that is analysis, not a reported decision.

What the market will look like for a 31-homer second baseman with a dramatic defensive turnaround and back-to-back seasons producing WAR figures of 4.4 and 4.9 is genuinely unclear. Adams notes that second basemen are not historically rewarded at the top of the free-agent scale, but also frames Lowe as someone whose bat will drive his valuation more than his position. How those two forces balance out will be one of the more interesting threads of the coming offseason.

Pittsburgh's broader roster picture carries its own uncertainties heading into the final weeks. Two days before Adams' column ran, Pittsburgh placed outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain — the severity described as unknown at the time — and recalled Ronny Simon. The club is navigating the end of a season that will not end in October baseball, which makes the Lowe decision, and the draft compensation that could follow, among the more consequential remaining items on Cherington's desk.

What to watch

The qualifying offer deadline arrives after the postseason concludes, which means Pittsburgh has time before a formal decision is required. What to monitor in the interim: any indication from the club about its intentions, and whether Lowe's final weeks add to or complicate the case Adams has already laid out. The defensive numbers are striking enough that they will draw scrutiny — a swing of that magnitude in both DRS and OAA is the sort of thing that invites questions about sustainability — but for now, per Adams, the grades are what they are, and they point in one direction.

The qualifying offer itself is a relatively low-stakes lever for a team in Pittsburgh's position. The cost is the offer; the likely return is a compensatory pick. For a franchise that Adams notes has routinely operated well below the league's financial median, it is, as he frames it, a decision that should not require much deliberation at all.