Ke’Bryan Hayes exited the press conference room to start his preparation for the game. At the door was Pirates chairman and owner Bob Nutting. Hayes shook his hand and thanked him again for the show of faith.
“Go win a baseball game,” Nutting responded.
A few minutes before, the two were on the podium, where the team officially announced the 25-year-old third baseman’s eight year, $70 million contract extension, the largest deal in the franchise’s history.
“The organization has been through a lot over the last decade or so,” Nutting said in his first public speaking appearance since 2019. “We've certainly seen some successes and we've seen some challenges. And during that time, we have realized that our greatest success came when we've had a core of young players that we believed in and we were really committed to. Core players that were winners in the field, winners in the clubhouse and strong representatives in our community. Players that make a real difference to the Pittsburgh Pirates. And Ke'Bryan Hayes is one of those players, and today is one of those moments.
“It's time for us, as an organization, to put a stake in the ground.”
Hayes’ contract could represent that. He was under team control for four more years after the 2022 season, but this deal ensures that he will be a Pirate through at least 2029, with a club option for 2030, giving the Pirates a potential award winner to build around this decade.
“The support that I’ve had since I was a little kid, coming all the way up to being in this scene, it’s very humbling for me,” Hayes said. “I want to thank Ben [Cherington], I want to thank Bob, for believing in me to be a cornerstone in the franchise. I feel like we have a lot of young talent in the minor leagues and I feel like we are building something very special.”
For why Hayes opted to commit his prime to Pittsburgh, Hayes listed the relationships he has here that mattered most to him.
"I just felt right for me, where I was at, with what we have going on, I feel like what we are building it’s going to be very special," he said. "I love this city, I love the fans, they have always good to me, the media has always been good to me here. all my teammates have been good to me, the staff, it just felt right. So that was pretty much how I added it up."
Hayes will be in the middle of what the Pirates are building. In Bradenton, he spoke about recognizing that he was going to need to be a leader for this club. With his teammates, coaches, members of the scouting team that suggested back in 2015 to draft him in the first round watching him, it’s just another example of him being in the center of attention.
“This is an important moment for our organization and for Key,” Cherington said. “It’s great to see so many people here and this really does impact all of us.”
“I appreciate what we’re doing and how we’re doing it on both sides,” Derek Shelton said. “Organizationally, we’re making a commitment, and then Key’s commitment… It’s an important day for the Pirates.”
The contract, which is fairly front-loaded with the largest yearly salaries ($10 million) coming in 2022 and 2023, does keep the door open for the club to spend more to retain or acquire other players to support Hayes and the prospects who are coming up through the system.
The latter is where the core of the Pirates' next competitive club is going to need to come from. It's a position that not a lot of 25 year olds would be in, but one he has been embracing.
“It’s funny," Hayes told me during spring training, "I was in that position two years ago, and our team’s so young that guys like me have to coach them and help get the best out of them."
On the podium, Tuesday, Nutting reaffirmed his belief in what Cherington is doing throughout the system.
Talking with the chairman briefly one-on-one shortly after, he said that “we need more talented players” like Hayes.
“We’re going to continue to focus on building a deep organization,” Nutting told me. “It’s critically important to have guys like Key. He’s leading what we want [to do].”
Hayes, though, isn’t feeling the pressure of knowing that he is going to be the guy at the center of what the Pirates are building.
“A few years ago I heard my dad telling someone, ‘Pressure is whenever you don’t know when you’re going to get your next meal or don’t know when you’re going to sleep,’ ” Hayes said. “Me, I am playing a game I played my whole life that I have loved my whole life and been around my whole life, so one thing my parents always told me is, ‘Just be you, have fun and go out there and work hard, find ways to get better each and every day and everything will take care of itself.’ ”
With this contract in place, Hayes could potentially be the face of the franchise for the Pirates throughout the 2020s. If he lives up to the potential the top prospect label brings, his commitment time wise to the team could put him in the top pantheon of players in the franchise’s recent, if not all-time history,
“I just try to be the best human I can be,” Hayes said when posed with that question, not wanting too far ahead about those scenarios.
Right now, he's going to focus on getting better every day. And winning baseball games.
