Who will cost what this winter, and who actually makes us better?

The owners’ proposal: a $171.2M payroll floor and a $245.3M cap on the luxury-tax basis. It is a proposal in the CBA talks, not a rule. Under it, money spent while payroll is below the floor costs the club somewhere between nothing (if nothing else would use it: the club has to reach the floor anyway) and its face value (if it displaces an equally good use, such as a Paul Skenes extension). The list spends the gap on the most wins, and its cost is shown at both ends. Prices are today’s estimates scaled by 0.88, Keystone’s assumption that a cap compresses the market. The proposal would also cap contract lengths; its terms aren’t in our sources, so deal lengths are today’s estimates under either lens.

When (today’s-price test): Options and qualifying offers are due about Nov 1–5, and free agents can sign with any club from about Nov 5 (the current CBA as Keystone reads it). A player who gets an offer has until about Nov 11–15 to answer it; no one on this list is likely to get one. The CBA expires Dec 1 and a lockout is expected about Dec 2, which would freeze signings until a new deal. Signed before Dec 1, a deal is at today’s prices: this list costs $38.2M a year, $4.1M over the room, and buys 0.83 wins per $10M against the market’s 1.11. None of its picks clears that on his own, so the plan waits for the CBA to sign it. The owners’ prices apply only if a new CBA brings them. The floor brief has the call.

Not counted: a Paul Skenes extension (open until Dec 1; the Skenes brief decides). 5 years at the market estimate would add about $13.5M to 2027 payroll under the owners’ proposal ($15.4M under current rules) in place of his $7.0M arbitration salary, 40% of this room.

Replacement-level time, now → with the list: rotation 176 → 91 IP, bullpen 60 → 112 IP, lineup 620 → 281 PA. Off the 26-man (still on the 40-man): Ronny Simon (bench), Isaac Mattson (bullpen), Brandon Eisert (bullpen).

Keystone allows one rotation-depth signing per list: a judgment that a club signs one depth starter, not two, rather than a measured cost. With room for a second, the list would be Jake Bauers, David Peterson and Patrick Sandoval: +3.3 wins, 0.18 more, beyond the 0.15-win near-tie line. Innings left to replacement level: rotation 3, bullpen 171 (174 in all) with that list; rotation 91, bullpen 112 (203 in all) with this one, so that list leaves 29 fewer. The wins count those innings.

Lineup after the list: 3 L, 5 R, 1 S (now 3 L, 5 R, 1 S).

Near ties (within 0.15 wins, net of draft picks): Jake Bauers + Alex Vesia + Brady Singer + Miguel Rojas (+3.1, $33.2M, $53.2M committed); Jake Bauers + Jack Flaherty + Steven Okert (+3.0, $32.5M, $57.6M committed) (owners’ prices). Choose between them on years, health and fit, not on a tenth of a win.

Rules: each pick has to make the 26-man and add at least 0.3 wins to the finished list; one signing per position group, pitchers counted by the innings they’d pitch: one rotation starter, one rotation-depth arm (a bullpen spot whose innings are mostly starts, taking the starts the rotation can’t cover) and 2 relievers; no more than $6M a year at today’s prices for a bench role (under the owners’ prices too); no one who ended 2026 hurt (medicals first) or whose free agency the contract data can’t confirm; Pittsburgh’s own free agents are left to the plan (Brandon Lowe’s qualifying-offer decision and the plan’s let-go calls cover them); deals of 2 years or less while the CBA is unsettled, unless the list says otherwise. Past 40, the lowest long-term value off the 26-man leaves the 40-man (never a newly protected or 45+ FV prospect, an acquisition, $2M+ of 2027 money the club can’t walk away from: guaranteed, a player option or opt-out, a vesting option; or a first-round pick still under club control. International signings aren’t covered: they have no draft record). Wins come from the depth chart inside one season of team playing time (6,102 PA, 1,436 IP). The plan’s 40-man covers 5,482 PA and 1,200 IP; the rest goes to replacement level, so a bench signing adds only the time the starters can’t cover, at the positions he fills. A free agent likely to get a qualifying offer costs Pittsburgh its third-highest pick too, about $5.8M ($4.0M–$9.3M) net of the pick’s bonus; lists count it at $9M a win. Likely means two in three or better: the share of last winter’s deals priced like him that came in high enough to clear the offer (an estimate until offers are made, about Nov 1–5). One in three to two in three is a toss-up (QO?), and lists count the pick at those odds. That is the current CBA as Keystone reads it.