Justin Schultz hasn’t been as dynamic as last year for the Penguins.
Photo via AP

It’s been a real chore to watch the Penguins at times this year.  Phil Kessel has pretty much been excellent all year, but for the rest of the team it seems that they’ve been going through the motions for large swathes of the year.  That lethargic play is reflected in their very pedestrian record of 17-15-3 that sees them currently on the outside of the playoff hunt.

Kris Letang has been awful for most of the season and looks completely out of sorts in the defensive end of the rink.  We’ve already discussed how his accumulation of injuries may be catching up to him in a previous article.  However, virtually the entire defensive corps has been sub-par this season, not just Letang.

In one respect, it’s good that five of the Penguins’ current top six defensemen are signed long-term, with Ian Cole the only pending free agent.  But that’s only a good thing if you have the right players signed long-term.  For the 2017-18 season, the Penguins have committed quite a bit of money to their top six defensemen of Letang, Justin Schultz, Olli Maatta, Matt Hunwick, Ian Cole, and Brian Dumoulin.  The $25.3M cap hit for these six is the 2nd highest in the league, behind only the Winnipeg Jets at $27.4M.  Unfortunately, the Penguins aren’t receiving a whole lot of return on investment.

Through the Avalanche game on Monday, the Penguins’ top six d-men have a combined 13 goals, 48 assists, and a cumulative -28 in plus/minus.  To put that in perspective, the 13 combined goals by these six guys are just three more than defenseman Zach Werenski (10) has scored by himself for the Blue Jackets.  While Letang is 6th among defensemen with 24 points, 22 of those points are assists.  Furthermore, both of Letang’s goals and 13 of his 24 points have come on the power play, which is indicative of the Penguins’ struggles as a whole in 5-on-5 play.  Both Matt Hunwick and Olli Maatta have scored more goals (3) than Letang to date.

Lost in all the noise of this somnambulant season for the Pens is the fact that Olli Maatta appears to be back in fine form, perhaps the best form since his rookie season.  His 14 points through 35 games would put him on pace to eclipse his career high of 29 points set in his rookie year.  His skating will never be his greatest asset, but his play overall in the defensive end is much crisper than in past seasons while he was struggling with and recovering from injuries.

Not only are five of the six signed for next year, the same five are signed through the 2019-20 season, as well.  The Penguins have made sizeable commitments to this corps of defensemen, as evidenced by this chart from Capfriendly.com [link].

If changes are coming to try and kickstart the Penguins, it wouldn’t surprise me to see either a Brian Dumoulin or Olli Maatta heading out.  Kris Letang’s performance and injury history are too cumbersome to move right now, Justin Schultz is currently hurt, and Matt Hunwick doesn’t move the needle.  The move to get Jamie Oleksiak on Tuesday sure seems like insurance for a future move coming in the near future and not just if currently-in-the-doghouse Ian Cole is shipped out.

The Penguins bought themselves peace of mind by signing their defensemen up to long-term deals, but that only works out if they all keep producing at the same level.  It’s a real problem when all of them crater out at the same time, as is the case with the 2017-18 Penguins right now.

An ill wind is blowing through Pittsburgh.  There’s a chance that someone on the Pens’ defense gets swept out with it.

The post The Penguins & Their Expensive Defense Corps Moving Forward appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

Gerrit Cole and Sonny Gray have very similar careers, which means probably similar trade values.

I’ve very clearly staked out my position on what the Pirates should do this offseason — augment the team and make an earnest run in 2018, then re-evaluate in July.  I still feel that way.

But here we are a week out from Christmas and Neal Huntington is still making statements that appear as if he and his staff are dithering on whether to re-load or re-build.  What were they doing in October and November?!

The Yankees have been sniffing around Gerrit Cole and he’s a desirous asset, as young grasshopper Alex laid out for your reading pleasure last week.  Now I could wow you with numbers about surplus value and prospect worth and grind out how much Cole should return.  Heck, I still might do that before I finish this article.  But I don’t have to because Gerrit Cole was already traded last July.  Huh?

Everyone likes to make comps between Player A and Player B.  The vast majority of the time, those comps are tenuous, at best.  But in the case of Gerrit Cole and Sonny Gray, they are amazingly accurate.  Both Gray and Cole were drafted in 2011 (Cole went 1-1, Gray went 1-18 to the A’s) and both made their debuts in 2013 midseason.  So these stats encapsulate the same 4+ season timeframe.

Let’s look at some overarching stats between the two:

• Innings pitched — Cole 782.1, Gray 770.1
• K/9 rate, career — Cole 8.44, Gray 7.78
• BB/9 rate, career — Cole 2.34, Gray 2.94
• HR/9 rate, career — Cole 0.77, Gray 0.85
• ERA/FIP, career — Cole 3.50/3.27, Gray 3.45/3.67

Just with those five criteria, we’ve built the same pitcher.  But what’s even odder is that both have achieved those stats in relatively similar fashion.  Both of them have only reached 200+ innings twice in those four full seasons.  Both of them had their peak year in 2015.  Cole’s 2015 was very shiny (2.60 ERA/2.66 FIP, 5.4 WAR) and would have won him the Cy Young in some years, while Gray’s 2015 was exceptional in its own right (2.73 ERA/3.45 FIP, good for 3.8 WAR).  Both had down 2016 campaigns due to injuries.

Cole has the slight advantage in career WAR — 15.9 to Gray’s 12.0 — mostly because of his phenomenal 2015 campaign and his dominant debut in 2013.  Both have had whispers of ‘ace’ surround them for years and both have fallen short of that in the minds of many in their respective fanbases.

Last July, the A’s traded Sonny Gray to the Yankees at the deadline for a package that was laden with upside, but swimming in risk.  It didn’t have the knockout, can’t miss, blue-chip prospect in it that so many expect in a return for Gerrit Cole.  The A’s received three players back for Gray:

• RHP James Kaprielian (ranked #87 preseason by Baseball America, missed all 2017 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery)
• SS Jorge Mateo (ranked #85 preseason by Baseball America, a steep drop from his 2016 preseason rank of #26)
• OF Dustin Fowler (while being showcased by the Yankees he ripped his knee after his 1st Major League at-bat.  The A’s still took him.)

That’s it.  Two injured players and a shortstop that has a ton of speed, but not a great hit tool, that is a declining asset in the prospect world.

Alex tossed out names like OF Clint Frazier, LHP Justus Sheffield, and 3B Miguel Andujar in his article.  At this point, a one-for-one Frazier-Cole deal would actually be an overpay on the Yankees part.  What’s even crazier is that Neal Huntington is, as his M.O., shooting straight for the top of the pile in any negotiation.

Pirates have wanted Gleyber Torres in a Gerrit Cole deal. Can’t see yanks giving GT up. Frazier a more likely centerpiece, but would need to be more than 1 for 1. Perhaps andujar or Adams could be 2nd piece. Still negotiating.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 16, 2017

I love Gleyber Torres, but he’s a top 5 (maybe top overall) prospect in the game.  And as much as I think Gerrit Cole is a great pitcher, he doesn’t have that much control and that good of a resume to warrant asking for Torres in a deal.

Sheffield was ranked #91 prior to 2017, so he’s in the same range as Kaprielian and Mateo, but his 2017 was somewhat uninspiring enough that I could see him falling out of the Top 100 altogether.  Andujar is intriguing to me and I would be happy to see him as part of the return.  It’s possible that Andujar sneaks in the back half of the Baseball America Top 100.

Another name being bandied about is Chance Adams, unranked on the Baseball America Top 100, but should be in the back half of this year’s list.  Jordan Montgomery debuted this year for the Yankees and provided 155 innings on the Major League level.  His production looks like that of a low-end #3/high-end #4 pitcher, but his appeal is that he’s obviously ML-ready with six years of team control remaining (he’s a near-certainty to be a Super Two arbitration player, as he accrued 153 days of service).

A package of Andujar and Montgomery would lack the zesty names that many people would easily identify with as a return for Cole.  However, it’s probably one that is roughly equivalent in value to the one received in the Sonny Gray trade just this past July.  Something like Sheffield, Adams, and Andujar would be more equivalent in terms of matching prospect worth at that specific moment in time.

Receiving a pitcher like Jordan Montgomery back doesn’t really move the needle much, either in 2018 as he’s similar to a Chad Kuhl, or down the line as his ceiling is probably where he is right now.  The 23-year old Miguel Andujar could be the answer at 3B, but he’s certainly not the can’t-miss prospect that many observers would be hoping to receive in return for trading Gerrit Cole.

I still believe that Gerrit Cole can tap into his 2015 form again.  It’s there.  He’s shown it.  If he can, he’s the only pitcher on the Pirates’ staff (yes, including Taillon) that has that ceiling and ability to front a playoff-contending rotation.  I’d keep him and his compatriots and re-assess in July.  If the Pirates are out of it, the calculus of the discussion changes entirely.

The post Finding Gerrit Cole’s Trade Value Is Easy, Just Look At Sonny Gray appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

Glasshouse will be a popular residential spot for young professionals.

On Wednesday, there was a groundbreaking ceremony for a new development adjacent to Station Square.  It was for a 5-story development called Glasshouse that will have 319 apartments overlooking the Monongahela River with retail space on the ground floor, scheduled to open in 2019.

It will be in the same location that housed various nightclubs and restaurants over the years, like Woodson’s Grille (run by ex-Steeler Rod Woodson), Hooters, and the nightclub Matrix.  The Hooters holds a special place in my memories, as we went there the night of my high school graduation in 1994 via a limo my friends and I rented.  It was there that night that we simultaneously watched the Houston Rockets play the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, while O.J. Simpson went on his freeway chase with the L.A. police.

What some may not realize is that Glasshouse will be on the site of one of Pittsburgh’s many glass factories that used to exist in the region.  Pittsburgh was the epicenter for steel production, as evidenced by the name of our football team and the moniker The Steel City, but in the 1920’s, Pittsburgh also produced 80% of all the glass made in the United States.

Pittsburgh-made glass was found on the tables of five U.S. Presidents, the windows of the Statue of Liberty, and tiles within the Lincoln and Holland Tunnel in New York City, as per this article from WESA.  The most enduring and well-known company was Pittsburgh Plate Glass, which later streamlined its name to PPG and now resides in the most visually-striking building in downtown Pittsburgh.  But there were hundreds of other factories up and down the rivers.

Glasshouse should be a very desirous residential location.  Not only is it within walking distance of downtown Pittsburgh via the Smithfield Street bridge, but it will be located directly across the street from the Station Square T stop, in the event that residents will work in either the South Hills or on the North Shore.  Residents of Glasshouse could also use the T/Subway to reach the North Shore for Pirates and Steelers games or get moderately closer to Pens games on wintry Pittsburgh nights, instead of walking.  The inclines are also present for access to Mount Washington.  Hiking and biking trails are right outside the front door of Glasshouse. Theoretically, residents do not even need a car.

Hopefully Glasshouse will spur a re-thinking of the moribund Station Square complex.  If you go on a warm summer day, there is plenty of activity around Station Square, as the Ducky Tours and Segway tours are buzzing.  There are chain restaurants that attract visitors or locals who are entertaining out-of-town visitors with a beautiful view of the city.  But the inside of Station Square is a hollowed-out husk of shops with no appeal and large swathes of unused or underutilized space.  With 320 potential young professionals living right next door, you would think that the owner of Station Square, Forest City Enterprises, would attempt to revitalize the Station Square space to something more forward thinking.

The architecture firm for Glasshouse, Hord Coplan Macht (headquartered in downtown Baltimore, with offices in Alexandria and Denver) has conceptually designed a space that will be an aesthetically-pleasing addition to the downtown mix.  This development is not just a housing space for 320 people.  Rather, it is a connection of people to the riverfront and the transportation network that services Pittsburgh.  Without specifically calling it a transit-oriented development, that is in essence what Glasshouse will be.

The post Those In Glasshouse…Will Like This New Pittsburgh Development appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

In Thursday’s Rule 5 draft, the symbolic end to every MLB Winter Meeting, the Pirates made a trade that was somewhat bold and innovative.  I’m writing about it because ‘bold’ and ‘innovative’ are two words that I have not had to use lately to describe GM Neal Huntington.  The Pirates made their own selection in the Rule 5 draft, the uninspiring choice of Jordan Milbrath from Cleveland, but then traded $500K of international slot money to the Phillies for the rights to Nick Burdi, who the Phillies selected earlier in the Rule 5 draft themselves from the Twins.  This was a strategy that we advocated the Pirates pursue two weeks ago during the fallout from the Braves scandal and Ohtani fever, so better late than never.

Nick Burdi has long fascinated me from a distance.  He was selected in the 2nd round of the 2014 draft by the Twins and was being fast tracked as a pure reliever by them.  No messing around with him as a starter to work on his pitches.  Just have him rear back and let that fastball fly, which he did with speeds regularly at or around 100 mph.  But unfortunately, injuries have put Burdi on the slow track the past two seasons.

In 2016, he only pitched 3 innings all year as he dealt with a bone bruise on his pitching elbow.  Then after coming out of the gate strong in 2017 at AA (20 K, only 4 walks, 9 hits in 17 innings), he tore the UCL in his pitching elbow in May and required Tommy John surgery.  Somewhat logically, the Twins thought that would scare teams away from selecting him in the Rule 5 draft, so they did not add him to the 40-man roster last month.

But as we’ve seen with Tommy John patients Drew Smyly and Michael Pineda on the big league level, teams are willing to sign impact players and nurse them through their recovery year to gain their services the next year.  In the case of Burdi, if the Pirates can bide their time in 2018, they’ll have him for 6 future controllable years.

There’s actually no downside to this for the Pirates.  He’s on the 40-man roster right now, which may or may not affect moves in the remainder of the offseason, but once the season opens, they’ll stash him on the 60-day disabled list and free that spot back up.  The stipulations of the Rule 5 draft are that the Pirates must keep Burdi on the 25-man Pittsburgh roster in 2018 for 90 days, or else they must have him open the 2019 season on the Opening Day roster to make up whatever days are necessary.  If you presume that Burdi won’t start a minor league rehab assignment until June, the Pirates could bring him up from July 1st to October and most likely meet the 90 day requirement.  But if he comes up later, especially in September if they want to game the roster requirements, and impresses them suitably he’d be on the 2019 Opening Day roster anyway.  If he’s terrible, they offer him back to the Phillies or work out a side deal to stash him in the minors.

Now, there’s no guarantee that Burdi can stay healthy enough to do anything of note for the Pirates.  In his four professional seasons, he’s totaled only 104 innings.  But a blazing fastball of 100 mph that he appears to have reigned under control in 2017 is a valuable asset.  In his 2015 season, he ran a BB/9 rate of 4.95; last year in a small sample it was just 2.12 BB/9.  He complements it with a biting 88-90 mph slider.

Let’s fast forward to 2019 for a quick second.  Imagine a bullpen with Felipe Rivero as the closer and Nick Burdi as the 100 mph setup man.  Now you can have George Kontos and Dovydas Neverauskas in the 7th inning.  If health holds up well, that has the makings of a very solid back end of the bullpen.  There’s a lot of miles and games to go between now and then, though.

So I tip my hat to the Pirates for doing the right thing today in the generally terrible Rule 5 draft.  They used their large pool of international money to obtain an interesting prospect.  Now if they’ll only augment the 2018 Opening Day roster with some MLB talent…

The post Pirates Do The Right Thing & Get Burdi In Rule 5 Draft, Amazingly appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

Adam Lind would boost the bench with the bat, but limit it with the glove.
Photo by Alex Brandon/AP

There’s a lot of ways you can slice this pizza, but the end result is always the same — the Pirates’ offense in 2017 was bad.  Not mediocre.  Bad.

• 27th in WAR with 11.0 (Astros 1st with 33.0)
• 28th in wRC+ with 85, meaning they were 15% below an average team in creating runs (Astros 1st with 121)
• 28th in runs with 668 (Astros 1st with 896)
• 27th in batting average with .244 (Astros 1st with 282)
• 29th in Isolated Slugging with .142 (Astros, again, 1st with .196)

And in a year where hitters were blasting homers, due to both the probable changes to the seams of the baseball and the revolution of altered swing mechanics to hit more fly balls, the Pirates were in 29th of total homers with just 151.  And hey!  The Astros didn’t lead this category, the Yankees did with 241!  (The Astros were 2nd with 238.)

So in a way to find some more offense for the Pirates, while also keeping a close eye on the bottom line, we’ve proposed a couple of moves in previous articles.  First we looked at a potential Gregory Polanco for Corey Dickerson swap with the Rays.  Then we looked at waiting out Zack Cozart’s market and trying to get him on a lesser deal than expected.  Both of those moves have a high degree of uncertainty — the Polanco-for-Dickerson swap would involve GM Neal Huntington making a bold move to a perceived core asset, something he’s been loathe to do, while the Cozart signing might mean waiting until mid-January to try and improve the offense.

Enter Adam Lind.

All it would take to get Adam Lind on the Pirates is for him to sign his name on a contract, probably for 1 year, maybe with a club option for a 2nd.  He would cost U.S. dollars to sign, but not a ridiculous amount of them.  He hits for average, hits for power, so what’s wrong?

He’s basically a DH at this point, at best a below-average 1B defensively.  And the Pirates already have a good offense-bad defense 1B on the payroll in Josh Bell.  Coupled with the fact that Bell is a switch hitter, there really wouldn’t be a lot of starts available for Lind.  The left-handed Lind has also been poor against left-handed pitchers throughout his career (.217/.263/.329), so he’s a platoon player.

But maybe that’s OK.

Lind will be in his age-34 season in 2018, so his thoughts of being a full-time starter have probably long evaporated from his mind.  He gave the Nationals 301 quality at-bats last year and produced a robust line of .303/.362/.513 with 14 homers, good for a 122 wRC+.  He masqueraded in LF occasionally for them, but saw the majority of his field time at 1B.  All for the low price of $1.5M.  The Nationals did not pick up their end of the mutual option for 2018, so Lind is on the market now.

After a long run with the team that drafted him, the Blue Jays, Lind has become a ronin of sorts these past three seasons.  From 2015 to 2017, he’s played with the Brewers, Mariners, and Nationals.  He was traded each offseason from the Jays to the Brewers, then the Brewers to the Mariners, all while playing on his original team-friendly extension he signed early in his career.  Always playing solid, but never interesting enough for another team to trade for him at the deadline to augment their bench.  In those three years, he’s run wRC’s of 120, 92, and 122, respectively.

Lind’s wRC+ of 122 would have tied for the team lead with Andrew McCutchen.  His .210 isolated slugging would have been just behind Bell’s .211.  This is a guy that can put a bat on a ball and make it turn into positive results more often than not.  The Pirates could use his bat.

But….what about his defense?  The Pirates love to try and prevent runs (it’s cheap) and positional versatility.  Lind isn’t good at either of those things, so Huntington and Hurdle would have to be willing to go outside their comfort zone to have a guy be rooted to one position and, essentially, be a late inning pinch-hitter when they need some offense.

When you look at that array of offensive offensive (not a typo) stats I posted at the start of the article, H&H should be willing to try anything to inject offense into the Pirate lineup.  After playing for $1.5M in 2017 as a free agent for the first time in his career, the Nationals turned down his $5M option.  So Lind’s value lies somewhere between those two points.

I’d sign Lind for $3.5M during this week’s Winter Meetings and not think twice about it.  That would then trigger trying to move David Freese and his $4.25M salary in 2018, as he would be superfluous at 1B and redundant at 3B with Sean Rodriguez still on the roster as a backup (or starter…shudder).  So in a sense, the Pirates could actually save payroll by signing Lind and trading Freese, but simultaneously boosting the offense.  That should delight all parties at 115 Federal Street.

The post Adam Lind Would Boost The Offense, Not The Versatility appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

If Cozart’s market dries up, the Pirates could scoop him on a deal.
Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty

Could the Pirates use Zack Cozart?

In the purest sense of the word ‘use’, yes.  Anyone who can come in and help kickstart the offense for the Pirates would be useful.

But Cozart is a shortstop and the Pirates already have one in place in the form of Jordy Mercer.  Mercer is a slightly-below average overall shortstop — his defense is good both on the eye test and by defensive metrics, but his bat routinely grades out around 10% less than average (his wRC+ for both 2017 and his career is 88).  It would be perfectly acceptable to want to upgrade on Mercer, but would that be the best use of the Pirates’ limited amount of financial resources this offseason?

MLB Trade Rumors is projecting that Zack Cozart will get a 3 year/$42M deal this offseason.  The 32-year old Cozart is entering free agency on the heels of a career season in 2017.  Cozart’s defense has always been at an elite level, in the tier right below the otherworldly Andrelton Simmons.  But in 2017, he coupled that with a dynamic bat he’s never displayed before.  His .297/.385/.548 line contained 24 homers and resulted in a 141 wRC+, which is far above his career wRC+ of 90 — right in line with Jordy Mercer’s, as you can see.

Cozart’s previous team, the Reds, have been in the midst of a deep rebuild for a few years now.  They’ve been trying to deal Cozart for a while and even came within 30 seconds of a deal with the Seattle Mariners in 2016, in the words of Mariners’ GM Jerry Dipoto.  (The deal would have returned pitcher Luiz Gohara to the Reds, which would have been a fabulous return.)  With no deal happening in 2016 and no deal happening during his outstanding 2017, it tells me that the market for shortstops is fairly non-existent.

None of the major contenders need a shortstop — Dodgers have Seager, Cubs have Russell, Nationals have Turner, Red Sox have Bogaerts, Yankees have Grigorius, Astros have Correa, Indians have Lindor.  There are a lot of rebuilding teams that could use a shortstop, like the Padres for instance, but it’s hard to see them making a move for a 32-year old at this stage of their rebuild.  For Cozart’s part, he really likes money, but he’d also probably like to have the hint of a possibility of winning, too, so he’s trying to find the sweet spot of a team to pay him that could also make the playoffs.

I’m not saying that the Pirates meet both (or either) of those criteria, but once you start using the process of elimination, you can start to squint and see where a match could happen.  If a match were to happen, though, it wouldn’t be at the 3 year/$42M mark.  The Pirates would need to let Cozart marinate on the open market, which doesn’t seem hard to do with the glacial pace of the free agent and trade markets this offseason so far, and have him drop his price down in both years and dollars.

I’ve been projecting that the Pirates should have a $115M Opening Day payroll for 2018, which leaves them with $15M of wiggle room once you factor in existing commitments, arb-eligible projected salaries, and minimum-scale players.  Cozart at $14M would absorb virtually all of their dollars.  But remember that if the Pirates think of pivoting to Cozart, that means they’ve given up on Kang getting a visa and will keep his $3M on the restricted list, giving them $18M of flexibility.  If Cozart’s market is deflated enough that in January the Pirates could get him for 2 years/$22M, I’d jump on that.

At that point, the Pirates could have Cozart at SS, move Mercer to 2B, and shift Josh Harrison over to 3B.  The Pirates would have no need for both David Freese and Sean Rodriguez, so trading one could help free up some additional payroll room.  I think Freese and his $4.25M would be easier to move than Rodriguez and his $5.75M.  You still get to keep Rodriguez’s multi-positional flexibility and his cult hero status with the fans and the locker room.

So using $11M on Cozart, coupled with moving Freese’s $4.25M, still allows $11.25M on other improvements like the bullpen and bench.  I’m not saying that the Pirates should hold off on improving the bullpen (or anything else) to wait around for Cozart; rather, I’m saying that they should stay flexible enough to do the scenario above should the market allow them to.

Cozart would allow the Pirates to create a bridge to whichever shortstop in the system establishes themselves as the next starter, whether that’s Kevin Newman or Cole Tucker.  Cozart on a 2-year deal gives the Pirates an extra year of a starting shortstop after Mercer’s team control is up after the 2018 season.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see Tucker force himself to AAA midseason this year and move past Newman on the SS depth chart.

Even if Zack Cozart doesn’t replicate his offensive output from 2017, his elite defense isn’t going to crater.  That would allow the Pirates to have an excellent defensive combo up the middle that could help prevent runs, another way to improve the overall quality of the team.  Let’s say he runs a wRC+ in the 115-120 range.  With his defensive input that’s a player with a WAR in the mid 3’s, giving the Pirates another impact player.  The more impact players you accrue, the more likely you are to make the playoffs.

The post Zack Cozart & Squeezing A Deal appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

The ever-thrifty Rays are looking to shed salary. Alex Colome (L), Corey Dickerson (C), Jake Odorizzi (R) could help the Pirates.

In our previous installments in this series, we looked at teams like the Yankees (trying to stay under the luxury tax threshold), the Marlins (holding a fire sale because of new ownership), and the Diamondbacks (looking at a skyrocketing payroll figure).  But today we’re looking at the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that is basically subsisting on revenue sharing and other MLB-centric funds, like the national TV deals, to exist.

It may seem like there-but-for-the-grace-of-God that as a Pirate supporter I’m calling another team paupers, but the Rays really are a barebones team.  The prevailing theory on why the Rays never have money is that their stadium effectively has cut off the Tampa portion of their fanbase, due to its location in St. Pete via a bridge that is only slightly easier to get to than the island of Dr. Moreau.  Add in the fact that the Trop is probably the worst stadium in MLB (toss up with the A’s, I guess) and that is why their attendance is so bad.  The Rays will come up with a site plan and a cool artistic rendering of a proposed stadium every couple of years, but it always falls through.  At this point, if the latest Ybor City neighborhood location doesn’t work out, I’d be fine with them moving to a city like Charlotte.  Florida is just not a pro sports state, as they support college teams to a much greater degree.

Tampa’s franchise-high payroll was $76M in 2014 and they were said to have lost millions that year in doing so.  Last year, their Opening Day payroll was $70M.  For 2018, once you factor in their pre-existing salary commitments, their arbitration-eligible players, and the minimum-scale guys to fill out the roster, they’re projected at $84M.  Unless owner Stuart Sternberg has a change of heart, it’s safe to say that some pruning to the payroll will be done.  Here’s the projected arbitration salaries, via MLB Trade Rumors:

• Adeiny Hechavarria (5.060) – $5.0MM
• Dan Jennings (4.171) – $2.5MM
• Corey Dickerson (4.101) – $6.4MM
• Brad Miller (4.094) – $4.4MM
• Xavier Cedeno (4.060) – $1.4MM
• Jake Odorizzi (4.042) – $6.5MM
• Jesus Sucre (3.137) – $1.3MM
• Chase Whitley (3.099) – $1.0MM
• Alex Colome (3.118) – $5.5MM
• Steven Souza (3.072) – $3.6MM
• Matt Duffy (3.059) – $900K

The good news for Pirates fans is that the Rays have a whole host of players that could help the team, even after you factor out the ones they definitely won’t deal.  Chris Archer would be an upgrade to any rotation in MLB, but the Rays aren’t going to move him.  He’s young and cheap with lots of team control (options go out to 2021).  Likewise, defensive wizard Kevin Kiermaier would really be intriguing to watch patrol PNC’s center field, but the same theory applies.  The Rays aren’t rebuilding, they’re just having a yard sale.  Franchise icon, 3B Evan Longoria, is also not going anywhere.  Not only is he Mister Ray, but I would be a little leery about taking on his contract that ends in 2022 at $19.7M when he will be in his age-36 season.

JAKE ODORIZZI

At a projected arb-2 salary of $7M, Jake Odorizzi is the Rays’ priciest of their 11 arbitration-eligible players.  He’s also coming off a career-worst season in 2017, by pitching only 143 innings over 28 starts (just a shade over 5 innings/start) and had an ERA/FIP of 4.14/5.43.  Odorizzi isn’t a game changer in the rotation for the Pirates, but at his best from 2014-16, he was a solid #4 pitcher.  Odorizzi is an extreme flyball pitcher (33.7% groundball rate), so that would represent something of a paradigm shift for Neal Huntington.

By adding him to the rotation, while hoping that he can get a bounce going from the AL to the NL, you can bolster the bullpen by shifting either Chad Kuhl or Trevor Williams.  If you believe that Odorizzi can equal Kuhl or Williams’ production, then for $6.5M you fix two issues.  That’s roughly the same $6.5M, plus or minus a million, it would take you to sign either Tommy Hunter or Anthony  Swarzak.  Six of one, half dozen of the other.

ALEX COLOME

Alex Colome is only entering his first year of arbitration, but he’s projected to cost $5.5M, due in large part to the 84 saves he’s accumulated in his young career.  Since he’s also ‘Rays-pricey’, they may be interested in dealing him for an array of young talent to keep their shoestring operation functioning and turning to someone else as their closer, as they’ve already traded Brad Boxberger to the Diamondbacks.

Colome was a starter all through the minors and has started a handful of games at the Major League level, too, but since becoming a full-time closer in 2016 he’s excelled.  The soon-to-be 29-year old has a blazing 95 mph fastball that he complements with a 90 mph cutter to great effect.  Colome would immediately step in to the setup role with the Pirates and form a potent combo with Felipe Rivero at the back end of the bullpen.

Because of his already high salary, there’s not a ton of surplus value for Colome, but he’d still require something like SS Kevin Newman and LHP Taylor Hearn as the return.  Those are the relatively close to the Majors pieces that the Rays covet.  Newman could percolate in the minors in 2018 and then be Adeiny Hechavarria’s direct replacement in 2019 after his team control expires.

COREY DICKERSON

This one gets a little tricky.  Aside from my quest to upgrade the backup catcher position, most of the suggestions to improve the Pirates have been focused on pitchers.  I do see that there’s a need to boost the offense, but it’s hard for me to see where the Pirates would be willing to do so realistically.

Corey Dickerson could represent an offensive upgrade, but he would require the displacement of either Starling Marte or Gregory Polanco to do so.  At $6.4M, Dickerson is getting up there in cost in his second year of arbitration.  Would the Rays go for a straight up Dickerson for Polanco swap?  With what looks like the continued absence of Jung-ho Kang, the Pirates could sure use Dickerson’s 27 homers from last year.  In 3 of the past 4 seasons, Dickerson has hit 24, 24, and 27 homers.  I’d take that relatively proven baseline of power over the potential power of Polanco at this point, who has only crested 20 homers once in his career.

The net savings between Dickerson’s potential $6.4M salary and Polanco’s $4.1M salary in 2017 is a small $2.3M, but the Rays would be gaining a younger asset (Polanco’s 26, Dickerson’s 28) that has more team control out to 2023 with his options.  Those are the types of gambles the Rays frequently take.

While their batting averages and on-base percentages are relatively similar, you get more power with Dickerson at the expense of less defense.  By putting him in PNC Park’s RF, though, you minimize that issue.  Although he primarily batted 1st or 2nd, for some reason, for the Rays last year, I’d put Dickerson in the 5-hole.  You could move Marte to either leadoff or 2nd, where his lack of power won’t be an issue and he can utilize his speed more effectively.  The McCutchen-Bell-Dickerson 3-4-5 would be intriguing to me.

The post Taking Advantage Of…The Tampa Bay Rays: A Cheerful Offseason Series appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

There’s a tremendous amount of international talent in play…and teams desperate to get it.

A perfect storm of circumstances has moved into baseball on the international free agent front.

The most notable is that 23-year old Japanese superstar, Shohei Ohtani, has decided to forgo the chance for a $200M+ contract if he stayed in Japan for 2 more years and will instead be posted this offseason.  That means as an international player less than 25 years old, he is subject to the international pools of money available to teams.

As a potential #1/#2 level pitcher that can also potentially either DH (more likely) or play in the outfield on his off days from pitching, he is anticipated to be the finest Japanese import since Ichiro.  But with bonus pools for only six teams more than $1M, and a plethora of teams unable to sign any international free agents for more than $300K (as a result of exceeding their pools in one of the two previous years), he’s not going to initially make bank.  There’s a whole other discussion about when the signing team can ethically offer him a massive contract extension, but that’s a topic for another day.  The short answer is that Ohtani is a potential game-changer and every team (except for one, to be discussed in the next paragraph) would move heaven and earth to get him.

The second major development is the Sword of Damocles that was dropped on the Atlanta Braves organization.  To summarize it briefly, GM John Coppolella did a wide variety of shady activities on the international front to such a degree that MLB banned him FOR LIFE from working in baseball.  Considering that he’s only 38 and has been in baseball most of his adult working life, that’s a big deal for a GM that was viewed as a rising star when he was promoted in 2015.

There’s a great summary on what happened in detail by Jonathan Mayo in this article and what the ramifications are, but the short answer is that the Braves and new GM Alex Anthopoulous are not going to be able to infuse talent into the organization from international veins for a long time.

What it means in the present is that a whole raft of 12 über-prospects signed in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 international signing periods are now free agents to sign with any team.  The headliner of this group is SS Kevin Maitan, who signed for $4.25M with the Braves in 2016.  As part of the agreement with MLB and the Braves, all of the prospects are able to keep their original signing bonuses, so that will make them appealing to all the other teams.  Well, except for the Orioles, who actively disdain the international market and trade their international money for middling players every year.  Baseball America’s Matt Eddy recently noted that the Orioles have made 8 trades of their international money since the July 2nd signing period opened this year; the other 29 teams have combined for 13 trades.

This all brings us to the crux of this article — never has there been this much freely available international talent available for the Pirates to scoop up at a discounted rate.  As I see it, there are three paths the Pirates can take during this historic period, two of which they could use to take advantage of the situation to better themselves greatly.

PATH 1 — SIGN SOME OF THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL TALENT

As great as it would be to see Shohei Ohtani in a Pirates’ uniform, it’s simply not going to happen.  Pittsburgh isn’t a prime destination for a Japanese player seeking a community to feel comfortable in.  He’s either going to go to a New York team or a West Coast team so that he can be closer to Japan via flight.

But that doesn’t mean the Pirates can’t take advantage of the Braves’ downfall.  In addition to Maitan, there’s a whole slew of position players and pitchers that are very highly regarded.  And since they’ve already banked their money from the Braves, it’s not like they’re going to expect to sign for the exact same bonus amount with a second team.  By my estimate, they’ll probably sign for about 50% of their original bonus amount with their new second team.

There’s a lot of arcane rules that teams can use to sign these players, as spelled out in the Mayo article, but the most interesting one is that the new signing team can push the player’s signing bonus into their 2018-19 period, if they so choose.  As the team with the 4th highest amount of bonus money currently available to them ($2.2M), the Pirates can potentially scoop up a couple of high-impact prospects that previously may have either been out of their price range or not made available to them by pre-existing relationships with the Braves and the busçones that represented these players.

PATH 2 — TRADE THEIR INTERNATIONAL MONEY FOR PLAYERS

If the Pirates don’t want to sign any of the Braves’ ex-players or Ohtani, then they should take advantage of an overheated market for international bonus slots.  There are plenty of teams that are lining up all their chances to make a run at Ohtani.  The Seattle Mariners are quite blatant in their desire to add him, coming straight from GM Jerry Dipoto’s mouth.

The Mariners have already made two trades for slot money in an effort to aggregate enough to entice Ohtani to join them in Seattle.  In the trade with the White Sox, the Mariners moved a very promising reliever that touches 100 mph regularly in the 25-year old Thyago Vieira in exchange for $500K of international money.  Now, not every reliever that throws 100 works out (hi, Arquimedes Caminero!), but I’d rather see them take a shot than not.

The Pirates have a need in the bullpen for more power arms to bridge the gap to Felipe Rivero.  In addition to maybe picking one up in free agency, if the Pirates could leverage a team’s desire to add international talent by getting an MLB-ready arm for cheap slot money, then they should do it.

PATH 3 — STAY THE COURSE

If you haven’t deduced by now, this is the path that I feel would be the worst outcome.  If the Pirates choose to conduct business as usual and use their large pool of international money to sign ‘quantity over quality’, then they’re letting a historic opportunity pass them by.  It would be like not buying Amazon stock a couple years ago when it was $300/share.

The Pirates have only dipped their toe in the deep end of the international market once, when they signed Luis Heredia for $2.6M in 2010.  But keep in mind that 75% of that went to his Mexican club, as a quasi posting fee, and he only received $650K.  The only other Pirate bonus to top $1M went to Harold Ramirez ($1.05M) in 2011.

Gazing around the Pirates’ thinning farm system, you don’t see much of the erstwhile Rene Gayo’s handiwork present on the upper level charts.  There are no Starling Martes or Gregory Polancos floating around Altoona or Indy, waiting to break through and be potential impact players.  Sure, there are some names like Dario Agrazal and Luis Escobar, both recently added to the 40-man roster, but neither are true high-end impact prospects.

The Pirates have never been bold enough to sign an Eloy Jiminez or Nomar Mazara type of player.  Staying the course of safe prospects that typically cost less than $100,000 to sign has not produced a steady stream of talent.  I’d rather take a chance on one piece of gold than sift through 10 tons of ore trying to find one, which is what the Pirates do.

The post The Pirates Have 3 Paths On The International Front, 1 Is Wrong Choice appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

Tommy Hunter and his high-end cutter would be a welcome addition to the 8th inning for the Pirates.

Inspiration for an article comes at odd times.

Since my kids are terrible sleepers and Alex is a night owl, we had a Twitter DM exchange last week at 3 a.m.  We both liked Tommy Hunter, late of the Tampa Rays, but Alex slightly preferred Anthony Swarzak as a target to bolster the Pirates’ bullpen.  His piece on Swarzak ran on Tuesday, so consider this a companion piece.

In 2017, Tommy Hunter enjoyed his finest year as a professional while with the Tampa Rays, who he joined prior to the season on a minor league deal.  The story of Tommy Hunter is a familiar trope: hotshot former prospect with the Rangers as a supplemental first round pick, injuries and ineffectiveness forced him out of starting, found a second chance with the Orioles for a few seasons as a quality reliever.  Hunter had a solid 2016 season until he fractured his back in a freak accident and got caught in an oversupply of relievers in the free agent market.

But this past season, Hunter took his game to a higher level.  His fastball velocity jumped from 94.5 mph in 2016 to a career-high 96.3 mph in 2017.  But as strong as his fastball was, it was the development of his cutter that led to his success.  His 2.61 ERA/3.07 FIP over 58.2 innings resulted in a 1.2 WAR on the season.  Hunter isn’t just a blazing fastball (9.8 K/9 IP), as he also possesses excellent control numbers of just 2.15 BB/9 IP.

His cutter had a well above-average spin rate of 2505 rpm in 2017, good for 20th highest for pitchers that threw 100 or more of them (12th if you count only relievers).  It doesn’t take too many leaps of logic to remember that Mark Melancon rode a very strong cutter to success as a Pirate.  If Hunter could provide the Pirates with even 85% of Melancon’s success, that would be an attractive proposition to acquire him as a setup man in 2018.

MLBTradeRumors estimates Tommy Hunter to be worth 2 years/$12M on the market this offseason.  That’s a shade above the 2 years/$11M that the Pirates signed Daniel Hudson for last offseason to ostensibly be their setup man.  This doesn’t mean that history is bound to repeat itself.  Signing a reliever is a lot like spinning a roulette wheel — just because Daniel Hudson landed on ‘red’ doesn’t mean Tommy Hunter will, too.

The path to the Pirates returning to the playoffs isn’t as fraught as some would have you believe.  I’ll concede that the Cubs are still the favorites in the division, even though their starting rotation is predictably looking leaky at this point.  Feel free to remind me of that last sentence if they somehow sign Shohei Ohtani.  But the rest of the National League, aside from the Dodgers and Nationals, are nothing to be intimidated by.  I expect both the Rockies and Brewers to regress a touch after their impressive 2017 seasons.  The Brewers just have that classic ‘young team need to take a step back to take a step forward’ feel, while the Rockies got a lot of big performances all at the same time from both pitchers and hitters.  In a way, they feel like the 2015 Pirates.  The Diamondbacks are going to lose their talisman, J.D. Martinez, in free agency.

If the Pirates can add one ‘big ticket’ (for them) reliever and a smaller out-of-nowhere bullpen guy, that would take a lot of strain off having to rely on the Neverauskases/Sanchezes/Santanas of the world.  Fiddle with the bench, get a better backup catcher, and make sure key players make mature decisions in the offseason — boom!  They’re back above .500.  In today’s baseball landscape, that’s all you need to have a shot at the wild card.  And as we’ve seen in recent years with some teams, just get in and you can free roll all the way to the World Series.

Is Tommy Hunter that ticket to glory?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I’d feel better with him in the 8th inning than some of the current internal options, that’s for sure.

The post Free Agent Reliever Target — Tommy Hunter appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.

Could Rivero keep the Mark Melancon trade tree bearing fruit?

Let’s establish this right from Jump Street.  I’ve been very vocal that the Pirates should make an honest effort to assemble a playoff-caliber team in 2018.  That entails spending to their correct threshold of revenue-to-payroll, a level I’ve set at $115M for 2018.  If things aren’t looking good in July, then I’m onboard with a full tear-down and rebuild.

A key part of any success the Pirates may achieve in 2018 will stem from closer extraordinaire, Felipe Rivero, coming in and causing nightmares for opposing hitters at the end of games.  He was a revelation in 2017 and finished the year with the 4th highest WAR among relievers in Pirate history.

But if the Pirates intend to just fidget around at the periphery of the team and hope for internal improvements, without augmenting the team and funding it properly, then they should just start the rebuild right now.  If any rebuild happens, whether it is now, in July 2018, or next offseason, the player that has the most potential trade value is none other than Felipe Rivero.  Yes, I love watching Felipe Rivero pitch.  But having a stud closer, one who is easily in the top 3 in all of baseball (and I’d entertain arguments that he could be #1 or #2), on a losing team is a total waste.

If the Pirates are going to be bad for the foreseeable future, then trading Rivero for assets that could be part of the next great Pirate team is the correct course of action.  There have been two recent closers traded that provide good case studies.

KEN GILES

After the 2015 season, the Phillies finally admitted it was time to go full-bore on a rebuild.  In December of that year, they traded Ken Giles to the Astros for a package of five prospects and young players.  As with most trades involving a bulk of players in return, some were chaff soon to be discarded.  Interestingly, one of the pieces in the return for the Phillies was old friend Mark Appel, who the Pirates drafted in 2012 and were unable to sign (thankfully).  He was re-drafted 1st overall by the Astros in 2013 and never developed.  At this point, he’s a long shot to even reach the Majors.

But one of the players the Phillies got back appears to be a key piece for them in their future.  Vince Velasquez is a flame-thrower that has been in the Phillies’ rotation for the past two seasons.  When he’s in the rotation, his stuff has been phenomenal, even if his surface stats like ERA don’t show it.  The problem is that Velasquez can’t stay healthy, which means that a move to a dominant closer/setup role may be in his future.  His fastball will play up and the smaller workload will keep him healthy.  With four years of team control remaining, Velasquez can still be part of the next great Phillies’ team — which I’m predicting may happen starting in 2019.  He was rated only as high as #86 by Baseball America, prior to the 2015 season.

And don’t sleep on Harold Arauz from this trade, either.  He’s still toiling in the low minors of Low/High A, but his stuff is very promising and his K/9 and BB/9 rates portend future success.  If the Phillies can get two assets out of this deal, it’s a clear win for them in terms of extracting value from Giles.

Naturally, the newly-minted World Series champion Astros like their end of the deal, too, even if it took Giles a full season to adjust to the American League after a down 2016 season.

CRAIG KIMBREL

The Padres acquired Craig Kimbrel right at the start of the 2015 season in their somewhat misguided attempt to go for it that season.  It predictably didn’t go very, so GM A.J. Preller course-corrected and embarked on a full-scale teardown at the end of the year.  In November of 2015, Kimbrel was traded to the Red Sox for an intriguing package.  It seemed very light to me, based on how dominant Kimbrel had been in his career (as a point of reference, Kimbrel has had three 3+ WAR seasons in his career).

But the Padres have extracted some value from it.  CF Manuel Margot doesn’t have a dynamic bat, but his defense and baserunning make him a competent ML starter.  Carlos Asuaje is not spectacular, but he’s a solid utility player with great defense that generated 0.8 WAR last year.

Prior to the start of the 2016 season, Margot was rated the #56 prospect in baseball.  I’ve never been very high on his hit tool and I’m not a fan of his squat 5′-11/180 frame, but he was rated as a Top 100 prospect.  Javier Guerra was ranked as the #52 prospect in baseball prior to 2016, but (again) I’ve never viewed him an as impact bat.  He struggled last year in High A and Double A.  Carlos Asuaje was never ranked and Logan Allen was just starting his career when he was traded.  I think Logan Allen could reach the Majors in 2-3 years.  For me, he profiles as a high-end #3/low-end #2 starter, so he could actually be the prize of the whole lot.

***

So these two trades are sort of the template that the Pirates could look to expand upon, in the event they would look to move Felipe Rivero.  They could target two prospects in the mid-range of the Top 100, plus a lottery ticket from a lower level.  Or they could go for a young, promising starter plus a lottery ticket and some fungible assets.  Rivero, even as a Super Two, has immense prospect surplus value.  The Pirates need to be sure that they get at least two starters for the price of one if they move him.

The post Felipe Rivero Should Be The Pirates’ Closer In 2018. But… appeared first on The Point of Pittsburgh.