As was first reported by Robert Murray on X (Formerly Twitter) on Tuesday evening, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in agreement with free agent first baseman Rowdy Tellez on a one-year deal. The completion of the deal is still yet to be officially confirmed and would be pending the results of a physical.

Tellez has been with the Brewers since 2021 where he had a .226/.305/.428 slash line across those three seasons. He hit 35 home runs in the 2022 season. While a peek at his stats doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence, a lot of Pirates fans will remember him playing very well against Pittsburgh. He has a .905 OPS and a 136 wRC+ at PNC Park. He has five home runs in 21 career games there as well. It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the course of an entire season.

First base was an area that needed to be addressed for the Pirates this off-season. The free agent market at first base wasn’t exactly exceptional. There were certainly better options available than Rowdy Tellez, though. In fact, he may have been one of the lesser desired options in an already less-than-stellar market. Regardless, this appears to be the Pirates’ new first baseman. I’m sure he’ll be working out of a platoon situation with Connor Joe depending on the opposing pitcher.