"We felt we were better served to reallocate the resources elsewhere on the club," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said. "We'll look to continue to explore the free-agent and trade markets, see what we might be able to do to back-fill now that we have an opening at first base."
So who will it be? Who will follow Jeff Clement, Lyle Overbay, Garrett Jones, Gaby Sanchez, Travis Ishikawa and Alvarez? Here's a look at their existing options, available free agents and the trade market.
Existing options
By the end of the 2016 season, the solution might be Josh Bell, ranked by MLBPipeline.