As recently as a month ago, when he was an error machine in the field and nothing more than acceptable at the bat, Pedro Alvarez, it was widely believed, was winding down his disappointing Pirates career.
He was due to hit free agency after the 2016 season and there was no way the Pirates were going to pay this particular player something approaching $8 million next year. His value was so low, in fact, the team might have to non-tender him to get out from under that final year of arbitration.
The past 30 days have had the effect of considerably changing that opinion.