Much like this creepy picture, Jason Kendall still looms over the franchise. Photo by Jim Ellwanger.

On Nov. 18, 2001, with the promise of a new stadium allowing them to expand payroll, the Pirates inked Jason Kendall to a six year contract worth $60 million. It was the largest signing in franchise history.

16 years, two months and nine days later, it still is the largest signing in Pirates history.

An asterisk may need to go next to that fact soon. If they pick up the option year of Andrew McCutchen’s contract in 2018, his deal will officially pay out $65.5 million over seven seasons. Kendall already has been passed in terms of AAV by Francisco Liriano and Francisco Cervelli.

But over 16 years later, Kendall still has the franchise record for the richest contract with the most guaranteed money. It is tied for the smallest amount for a franchise record contract among all teams (they share that honor with the Indians and their recent 3 year, $60 million pact with Edwin Encarnacion. He can make more with bonuses and a fourth year option).

It’s also the lowest paying AAV for a franchise record contract. Sure, there were rumors of a McCutchen extension years ago and they made a run at re-signing Russell Martin in 2014, but so far, no dice.

So when’s that going to change? I don’t mean that in a grumpy, arms crossed, calling the radio station to complain “when’s that going to change?” I mean, legitimately, when are the Pirates going to give out a new record setting contract? Is their guy already in the organization?

I think it’s safe to say the Pirates’ next 60+ million dollar man will be home grown. Five of the six largest contracts that Neal Huntington has dished out have been extensions of guys already on the roster (McCutchen, Harrison, Polanco, Cervelli and Marte). The sixth player was Francisco Liriano, who resigned after testing free agency.

It makes sense that if Huntington is going to offer a lot of guaranteed money to a player, he wants  him to come through the farm system. They start the deal when they’re younger, so there is less of a chance of being stuck with an albatross at the end of the contract. The organization knows these players the best, warts and all. They can maximize the value of the deal by buying out years of free agency in exchange for giving a small increase in the pre-arb years.

If it wasn’t for these contracts, Marte would be entering his second year of arbitration, Cervelli would have been one of the best catchers available in free agency this year and McCutchen would have long been gone. Sure, there are occasional misfires like with Tabata, and sometimes the player does not live up to the deal, like Harrison, but small market clubs need to bank on bargains like this to survive.

They also tend to cost a whole lot less than $60 million. At least for now.

Baseball is not immune to inflation, and salaries and payrolls are going to keep growing. The average MLB salary jumped from $3.2 million in 2012 to $4.4 million in 2016. That’s a 37.5% increase.

So let’s say someone like Josh Bell, Austin Meadows or even Polanco signed a deal in 2016 with the same spending power as McCutchen’s in 2012. A 37.5% increase on his six year, $51.5 million deal is $70.8 million.

Does that seem outlandish? The corner outfielders’ contracts lined up the same way. Marte and Polanco both signed their extensions with one big league season in the books. Marte’s AAV on his deal is $5.17 million, or 1.62 times the average major salary when he signed in 2014. Polanco signed for $7 million per year, which was 1.6 times the major league average in 2016.

And that’s just for position players. Anyone who has been following baseball contracts the last few years knows that pitching is king.

In 2017, the 98 starters who are signed or have settled their arbitration cases are going to combine to make $1.04 billion. With a B. That’s an average of $10.6 million each. In 2012, 28 starting pitchers made $10 million. Forty-six will in 2017.

Remember, parents of toddlers: it’s never too early to teach Junior to throw a curveball. Try to make him do it as a lefty.

So let’s look at Jameson Taillon. He is going to be just under the wall for super-two eligibility in 2019. That fourth year of arbitration really does help a player’s earning power. If he can prove that the elbow is 100 percent, it makes sense for the Pirates to try to cost control him.

There aren’t a lot of Pirates to model a potential contract off of, so let’s pretend he has the same earning power as Stephen Strasburg (they’re different types of pitchers, but I think it’s a fair assessment since they’re both Tommy John survivors and will most likely be 3-5 win players throughout their careers).

Strasburg avoided arbitration all three years, signing for $4 million in 2014, $7.4 million in 2015 and $10.4 a year ago. That’s 1.05 times the average salary in ‘14, 1.74 times in ‘15 and 2.37 times in ‘16.

We don’t have an official average salary in 2017 yet, but a 2.7 percent increase would put it at $4.5 million. That’s not an exact number, but humor me for the sake of simple math. That means the average salary grew 17.8 percent in three years.

If it grows 17.8% over the next three years, the average MLB salary will be $5.3 million when he goes into arbitration for the first time in 2020. 1.05 times that is $5.5 million. If the average value grows 3% a year the next two years and he gets the same ratio as Strasburg did, he would make $9.5 million in 2021 and $13.3 million in 2022, totaling $28.3 million over three seasons. If salaries grow at the same pace as they did for Strasburg in 2015 and 2016, he would make $10.1 and $14.2 million, totaling $29.8 million. Those years plus a season or two of free agency and pre-arb would easily eclipse $60 million.

If it’s not Taillon, it could be the next wave of pitchers like Mitch Keller or Taylor Hearn who make that sixty millionth and first dollar, but only a fool looks more than a decade into the future.

Regardless, the Pirates aren’t going to stop signing young talent just because inflation is jacking up salaries. If anything, they might be more inclined to make more deals.

One of those contracts is going to be worth more than $60 million. Kendall’s reign is coming to an end soon.

Cole’s arbitration figure seems quite low, especially considering his agent.
Photo: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

I love the baseball offseason. Honestly, I almost like it as much as the regular season. There is so much intrigue. Who’s going to sign the big free agents? What trades are going to go down during the GM meetings? Who gets a qualifying offer? Asking myself why are the GM meetings even relevant anymore now that there’s Skype?  Wondering who’s going to get protected in the Rule 5 draft only to remember nothing ever happens in the Rule 5 draft. Who will fall through the cracks on the free agent market? Then there is the relief when spring training finally starts.

Amidst all of this more interesting news, I often miss news or don’t take much notice to the arbitration process after players are tendered. Not sure why, but it might have something to do with the certainty. As soon as a deal gets done, we know it’ll eventually be in the books. The question that remains is how much squabbling goes on and who, the player or the ownership, gets a couple hundred thousand extra dollars in their pocket. You already know the player is coming back, provided there isn’t a trade, which would change it into something interesting as noted above.

Every Pirate fan knew that Gerrit Cole would remain a Pirate this offseason heading into his first year of arbitration even before the tenders came in.  The only way he’d have been non-tendered would have been some clerical error where the wrong box on a form gets checked. He was going to get a contract offer that was likely below his number. Then he was going to go to arbitration, or so I thought.

Every part of Cole avoiding arbitration surprised me. Last Friday, Rob Biertempfel reported that he signed for $3.75 million. There was very little discussion of the deal, but it could be the most remarkable thing that happened this offseason.

First and foremost, $3.75 million seems incredibly low. As he does every off season, Kevin had a look where the Pirates arbitration numbers might come in.  He put Cole at a cool $2.05 million above the real number. That’s not to knock on him. In fact, the rest were pretty damn close.

What is interesting about this deal is that with Scott Boras as his agent, an agent that will wring every last dollar out of a team because of his disdain for the pre-free agency process, this was agreed upon with no squabbling.  As a comparison, check out this great Arbitration Visualization chart by Sean Dolinar at Fangraphs.  You can hover over the little dots to see what both team and player are asking for in the unresolved arbitration cases.  The Pirates and Tony Watson are haggling over a $400,000 difference.  There are some cases as little as $250,000 in difference with other teams.  So Boras, with his reams of data and being well-known for preparing exhaustive binders of research for his clients, also valued Cole at or around the $3.75M figure.

Is there a chance that the Pirates, already fresh off some voodoo to get Ivan Nova to sign what appears to be an under-market free agent deal, can sign Gerrit Cole to an extension this offseason?  Could this arbitration settlement be a pre-cursor to that, hence the lack of blowback from Scott Boras?  In July 2015, I examined the potential for an extension with Cole on a risk-based assessment.  At the time, I concluded that a 7 yr/$63M to $74M deal would be the range.  Keeping in mind that was a full season ago, it would reduce to a 6 year deal at this point accordingly.

I could be wrong on my reading of the tea leaves.  Maybe both sides agreed that Cole did not have a good 2016 season and this is his true 1 year worth.  But the door, more than at any time in Cole’s tenure, appears to be open for a long-term deal.

Frequent trade partners Brian Cashman (left), Theo Epstein (center), and Neal Huntington (right).
(AP Photo/Andy Duback)

Neal Huntington is about to enter his 10th Major League season as GM of the Pirates.  That alone is an accomplishment, as he is now the 4th most tenured GM in all of baseball.  Some GM’s have been doing it longer (like Dave Dombrowski, for instance), but not in one continuous place like Huntington has.  For some, the fact that Huntington is still GM is an affront to common sense and human decency, but many of these detractors are the kind that judge a season as “World Series or Bust”.  Considering that Neal Huntington inherited what was essentially an expansion team, in terms of talent base and infrastructure, his first few years can be excused by me as he was accruing talent.

Part of the process of accruing talent for any GM is through trades.  Not every trade that a GM makes is one that causes doves to cry and trumpets to blare.  Sometimes a GM calls another GM and says “I need a bullpen guy for AAA,” or “I need a middle infielder for my AA team.”  And Neal Huntington sure likes to trade.  Using the handy dandy transaction tracker on MLB Trade Rumors, I data mined all of Huntington’s trades back to his hire date in September 2007.

Over the course of his 9+ years as GM, Huntington has made 116 total trades.  The vast majority of these are insignificant in nature, involving players I’ve either long forgotten or never heard of in the first place (Brian Myrow, anyone?).  I’m not going to show or discuss every one of these 116 trades, but rather I’d like to pull out a few interesting factoids for your reading consumption.

ONE MORE TO COMPLETE THE SET

To date, Neal Huntington has traded with 28 franchises.  This means that there is only one franchise in MLB he has not made a deal with.  Any guesses?  I’ll wait.

I can’t wait any longer — it’s the St. Louis Cardinals.  I can’t chalk this up to the old (and untrue) adage about not trading within your division.  If there’s a deal, there’s a deal.  To demonstrate, Huntington has made five separate deals with the Milwaukee Brewers in his tenure, including his very first trade just a month in as GM (Marino Salas and Kevin Roberts for Salomon Torres, if interested).  When you see that the Cardinals’ GM, John Mozeliak, was hired just month after him, you’d think there would be a degree of “we’re in this together” between them.  So far, that has not been the case.

With the Cardinals and Pirates now direct competition for (probably) 2nd place in the NL Central and a Wild Card spot, it’s hard to see this changing in 2017.

GO WEST, YOUNG MAN

There are two franchises that Huntington has dealt with, regardless of who was sitting in the GM chair — Arizona and San Diego.  In both cases, Huntington has made deals with 3 different GM’s over the course of his Pirate career.  For Arizona, it’s been Kevin Towers, Jerry Dipoto, and Dave Stewart.  With San Diego, it’s been Kevin Towers (odd), Jed Hoyer, and Josh Byrnes.  Huntington has outlasted them all.

A RESTRAINING ORDER MAY BE REQUIRED

I’m not sure if Neal Huntington has The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” playing in the background when he calls him, but he’s followed Jerry Dipoto to each of his three stops as GM to make a deal with him.  Poor Dipoto probably has to keep changing his cell number to try and throw Neal off his trail for a bit, but there’s Neal at every Winter GM meeting…waiting for him in the lobby…ready to forgive him for moving without telling him.  Jerry promises it won’t happen again.

Anywho…here’s the deals that Huntington and Dipoto have collaborated on:

• ARIZONA (July 2010) — Pirates sent P D.J. Carrasco, INF Bobby Crosby, OF Ryan Church to Diamondbacks for C Chris Snyder, SS Pedro Ciriaco, $3M cold hard cash.
• LA ANGELS (June 2014) — Pirates jettisoned P Jason Grilli for P Ernesto Frieri.
• SEATTLE (September 2016) — Two separate deals here — first was P Wade LeBlanc for cash, then he got back pitchers Jake Brentz and Pedro Vasquez as the PTBNL’s in the Arquimedes Caminero deal.

Not exactly blockbusters, but rather the kind of incremental deals that are the minutia of a GM’s day.

DID WE JUST BECOME BEST FRIENDS?

When Neal wants to make a deal, one name has stood above them all over the years.  It’s been with the longest-tenured GM in baseball, Brian Cashman of the Yankees.  These two have paired up for a total of 9 deals together, with the 2nd closest pairing with Huntington having six trades.

I would hazard to say that by and large, the pipeline with the Yankees has been Huntington’s most successful overall trading partner.  The A.J. Burnett trade in February 2012 (for Exicardo Cayones and Diego Moreno) and the Francisco Cervelli deal of November 2014 (for Justin Wilson) reaped the most benefit for the Pirates.

Although his name is tarnished around these parts, the Jose Tabata trade brought back some important pieces that helped stabilize the AAA/MLB roster at the time.  Tabata didn’t pan out as hoped, but the Pirates also squeezed out some value from Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens, and Ross Ohlendorf, all for just a few months of Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte.

And if you’re curious, there’s a two-way tie for 2nd place on the Huntington speed dial between Dan Duquette of Baltimore and ex-GM Frank Wren of his Atlanta days.  With Duquette, there’s some shared history as both of them are Amherst College graduates (although not at the same time) and Huntington spent some time in the Montreal front office back in 1995 while Duquette was GM there from 1987-1994.  Memories!

THE RAW DATA

If you haven’t got your fill of Huntington trade trivia yet, here’s the overall tallies.  First is number of trades by team, regardless of who the other GM was:

• Arizona — 5
• Atlanta — 7
• Baltimore — 7
• Boston — 8
• Chicago Cubs — 1
• Chicago White Sox — 2
• Cincinnati — 1
• Cleveland — 7
• Colorado — 3
• Detroit — 4
• Florida/Miami — 5
• Houston — 2
• Kansas City — 3
• LA Angels — 2
• LA Dodgers — 4
• Milwaukee — 5
• Minnesota — 3
• New York Mets — 4
• New York Yankees — 9
• Oakland — 2
• Philadelphia — 5
• San Diego — 4
• Seattle — 5
• San Francisco — 2
• Tampa Bay — 4
• Texas — 2
• Toronto — 6
• Washington — 4

And now by GM, regardless of what team they were GM of at the time.

• Al Avila — 1
• Alex Anthopolous — 3
• Andrew Friedman — 4
• Andy MacPhail — 1
• Ben Cherington — 3
• Billy Beane — 2
• Billy Eppler — 1
• Brian Cashman — 9
• Brian Sabean — 2
• Chris Antonetti — 3
• Dan Duquette — 6
• Dan O’Dowd — 2
• Dave Dombrowski — 3
• Dave Stewart — 1
• David Stearns — 1
• Dayton Moore — 3
• Doug Melvin — 4
• Ed Wade — 1
• Frank Wren — 6
• J.P. Riccardi — 1
• Jack Zduriencik — 3
• Jed Hoyer — 2
• Jeff Bridich — 1
• Jeff Luhnow — 1
• Jerry Dipoto — 4
• John Hart — 1
• Jon Daniels — 2
• Josh Byrnes — 1
• Kenny Williams — 2
• Kevin Towers — 4
• Larry Beinfest — 3
• Mark Shapiro — 4
• Matt Klentak — 2
• Matt Silverman — 1
• Michael Hill — 2
• Mike Rizzo — 4
• Ned Colletti — 3
• Ross Atkins — 2
• Ruben Amaro, Jr. — 3
• Sandy Alderson — 4
• Terry Ryan — 3
• Theo Epstein — 5
• Walt Jocketty — 1

Tyson Ross (top left), Ervin Santana (top right), Yordano Ventura (bottom right), Jason Hammel (both left) all come with flaws, but could help Pirates’ rotation.

The Pirates offseason isn’t quite settled at this point and there are still a handful of pieces that need to come into place. They could probably use another right-handed arm in the bullpen and it’s unlikely that they’ll keep three lefty late inning relievers after the addition of Daniel Hudson, who will be somewhere in the 8th/9th inning himself. They could also use some additional Jung-ho Kang insurance, in case he finally loses his battle with hedonism and self-destruction. Of course the biggest conversation piece right now, as it was last offseason, is what to do with the third spot in the rotation.

After signing Ivan Nova, I think a number of Pirates fans have a false sense of security with the staff. Personally, I think they’re in the same boat as they were heading into last offseason. They have a clear cut one and two and a solid collection of four and five’s, with some potential middle and top of the rotation help in the system. However, they lack a true three. This has two consequences as we saw last season. One, a solid three provides insurance in case the top of the rotation falters. If your one is pitching like a three and two is pitching like a five, a good three should be able to pitch up in a weak rotation. Jonathan Niese wasn’t the guy and two solid months at the end of last off season aside, I don’t have much faith that Nova will provide that insurance policy either. If everyone is clicking, having a legit three is a great way to pile on. It’s a continuation of the top of the rotation. A weak three starts the back end early.

Along with the Astros, the Pirates have been heavily linked to the 2016 White Sox staff’s 1(b), Jose Quintana. Make no mistake he would be a huge get and would push everyone after Gerrit Cole back a spot into a role they are likely to excel in. Dream scenario, right? There is just one problem. The Pirates still need to go out and get him.

The market thins out after Quintana, but there are still some options out there. None likely bump Jameson Taillon from the number two spot, but that might be overkill anyway. Some may not even serve as a true three, either, but would allow the Pirates to eliminate the grab bag of weaker prospects and Drew Hutchison from contention for the fifth spot.

Tyson Ross

It seems like Tyson Ross’ surprising early arrival on the free agent circuit might be nearing its end with the Cubs and Rangers the favorites to land him and the Nats trailing behind hoping for a family reunion with his brother, Joe. The Pirates would be coming to the table late for Ross, but he clearly doesn’t have the offer he’s looking for on the table. Given his current injury concerns, his contract would likely be a reasonable one year term.  As a free agent he wouldn’t cost the Pirates a single prospect. If he pitches to his potential in a Pirates uniform, he’d also have the potential land them a compensation pick in the 2018 draft. There is risk, but it’s relatively low and market for the big righty seems surprisingly passive.

Ross would be a perfect fit in the in number three spot and if he rebounds to pre-injury form he’d provide top of the rotation insurance. There likely won’t be a huge drop from Ross and Taillon. On top of that, he’s a high groundball pitcher so he fits with the system and they’d also prevent the Cubs from reaping the benefits of his rebound. If the Pirates cannot land Quintana, their attention should turn to Ross first, in my opinion.

Ervin Santana

Putting it nicely, the Twins are a mess right now. They have a couple of high upside young bats who strike out way too much, a few high quality aging major leaguers, but not enough overall to be considered a threat now or in the near future. Many of the star players in their system project to start the year in AA or below. Outside of Jose Berrios, they don’t have anyone who resembles a top of the rotation starter, as their next closest option might be the inconsistent Kohl Stewart. Many of their other starting pitcher prospects profile better out of the bullpen. Now is likely the time for them to salvage what they can while those pieces still have value. Brian Dozier seems most likely to move and with the 2B coming off a monster power year and two years of cheap control left, he could provide a nice start.

Ervin Santana should also be on the block, though his return won’t nearly have the impact as Dozier’s due to age and contract situation. Santana is owed $27 million, which is still a good deal in today’s market, even if he steps back from the 3.2 fWAR he posted in 2016. Santana’s value derives from his ability to reliably eat innings, having thrown 175+ in six of the last seven seasons. If he can continue to do that he’ll be worth every penny, but most of his return will still get absorbed by salary relief. If the Twins would kick in a few million a year, their expected prospect haul would improve considerably.

Yordano Ventura

The first two suggestions would cost nothing or little in the way of prospects. Yordano Ventura would cost an arm and a leg. Ventura signed a team friendly deal in 2015 that includes two option years and $20.25M guaranteed over the next three. He had a very good 2014-15, but took a step back last year when his strikeouts decreased and his walks increased. His offspeed stuff plays well off of his huge, but hittable at the moment, fastball.  The issue with Ventura is more his temperant and churlish behavior at times.

The challenge with Ventura is how to value him. Do you go with what he’s done so far or do you go with his upside? So far, he’s looked like a solid three (exactly what the Pirates need), but he has the stuff that screams staff ace. I would think the ask for Ventura would be similar to the ask for Quintana, especially when I consider that the Royals rightfully should still believe they can compete now. It would likely take elite prospects and a major league piece or two. With the departure of Kendrys Morales, I would think Josh Bell might have a particular shine to them. Tyler Glasnow would also likely be included, but the enigmatic Ventura would basically negate the need for the enigmatic Glasnow.

Jason Hammel

Not the sexiest of picks, but Hammel could be seen as a pretty useful pitcher for the Pirates. Like Nova, he may not be a true three overall, due more to reliability than to ability. He’s not a good late season pitcher, but he does have the potential to dominate at times.  His 0.75 April ERA makes him intriguing by itself and make no mistake, he played a big part in the Cubs burying the rest of the division early.  He would allow the Pirates to keep all of their prospects and potentially bridge the gap to one of them later in the season. I would think he’s looking for a two year deal to ride off into the sunset on, though I would be surprised if anyone’s offering more than one.

***

The Pirates could also stick with the status quo though they’d be taking a risk. The good news is that they have more major league ready internal options than they did at this time last season. While they might take their lumps finding the right mix, they could have a few pitchers play up during a small window to help bridge the gap until the higher upside guys like Glasnow and Nick Kingham are truly ready. They could also get end of the season performances from Nova and Chad Kuhl making the need to add another pitcher effectively moot. The market is thin, so the Pirates will need to overpay for quality. There are options out there, however, that would improve the team and mitigate the risks associated with going into the season without a true three like they did last year.

January is typically a dead zone for notable transactions in baseball.  In most years, the key free agents and trades would have already been made, leaving just the also-ran players to scrap for 1-year guaranteed deals or minor-league deals with Spring Training invites.

This year is different, however.  There aren’t any franchise-altering free agents left on the market (not that it was great to begin with in this dismal free agent class), but there are a ton of teams that still could make some moves.  While the Pirates are involved heavily in one of those potential moves, the after effects from other teams making moves could also benefit the Pirates tangentially.

THE WHITE SOX ARE NOWHERE NEAR DONE MAKING MOVES

At least they shouldn’t be.  The White Sox are doing the right thing by tearing it down to the studs, while keeping one load-bearing wall in Jose Abreu (probably) for the time being, but they can’t go halfway.  Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, and David Robertson can all add to the impressive bounty of young prospects and MLB-ready talent obtained by GM Rick Hahn this offseason.  The White Sox are going to be contenders until 2019 at the earliest, so keep on trading.

My feelings on Quintana are well-known by this point.

THE RAYS HAVE A DESIRE TO MOVE A STARTING PITCHER

If the Pirates fall short in their pursuit of Jose Quintana, I’d like to see them approach the Rays about RHP Alex Cobb.  I’ve already covered my thoughts and what it would take to get him, but to put this into a more recent focus, I think Cobb would slot very nicely as the #4 pitcher between Ivan Nova and Chad Kuhl.  A Cole-Taillon-Nova-Cobb-Kuhl rotation is economical on last name letters and above average in pitching production.

THE ROYALS WOULD STILL LIKE TO CUT PAYROLL

The Royals have $102.3M of committed payroll to 13 active players ($8M is going to Omar Infante to NOT play for them this year) and a whopping projected $29.3M to just four arbitration-eligible players in Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy, Kelvin Herrera, and Jarrod Dyson.  Add in $4.4M for 8 min-scale players and you have a projected 2017 payroll of $136M.  GM Dayton Moore admitted early on this offseason that the Royals needed to trim payroll from the $131M Opening Day figure of 2016, so there’s some real work to do.

They started the process by trading closer Wade Davis to the Cubs for RF Jorge Soler, but I figure they’re going to want to tuck this payroll in the $120-$125M range.  If there was a market for Eric Hosmer and his projected $13.3M arbitration salary, he would probably already be gone.  OF Lorenzo Cain and his $11M could be the best chance to shave payroll, get a halfway decent prospect back, and not lose too much on-field production.

If the Royals trade Hosmer and were looking for a low-cost 1B option, I present John Jaso and his $4M salary.  The Royals traded Jarrod Dyson ($2.5M projected arbitration salary) on Friday to the Mariners, but he would have been a good fit as their 4th OF.

THE DODGERS HAVE TONS OF STARTING PITCHING AND NO 2B

If the Dodgers aren’t able to pry 2B Brian Dozier loose from the Twins, they’re looking at starting the eminently underwhelming Kiki Hernandez at 2B.  If the Pirates can’t procure another viable veteran starter and don’t feel comfortable with their internal options, maybe a deal between the two teams can be struck.  2B Josh Harrison has come back to Earth the past two seasons, but he’s at least a serviceable starter and represents an upgrade over Hernandez.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers have 10 legitimate options for 5 spots in their rotation.  Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill and Kenta Maeda have three of them on lockdown.  The rest are going to be tussled over by young players that may need more time in AAA for either development or service time considerations (Julio Urias, Jose De Leon, Ross Stripling) or oft-injured starters like Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-jin Ryu, Alex Wood, and Scott Kazmir.

It seems like something has to give.  I’ve already proposed a Ryu for Harrison deal earlier this offseason, but it sure appears as if one or two bodies need to be shipped out, unless they’re planning to carry two veterans as long relief in the bullpen.

***

It takes a special kind of baseball weirdo to follow every one of these intricate moves in this wintry clime we find ourselves right now.  I’m your huckleberry for this task.  With the glut of free agents still out there, coupled with trades that teams need to make, it appears as if the Hot Stove will keep warm into February.

The Pirates signed David Freese (top left), Ivan Nova (top right), and Daniel Hudson (bottom) using Francisco Liriano’s traded salary.

Harken back all the way to 2016.  Specifically, August 1st 2016 when the Pirates traded broken toy Francisco Liriano to the Blue Jays and shed his $13.7M salary he was due in 2017.  In order to cajole the Blue Jays to take the whole salary, the Pirates added two regarded prospects in] C Reese McGuire and OF Harold Ramirez to facilitate…

[Hey, while Kevin drones on about those players and other business stuff, this is Other Kevin.  Let me just tell you that neither McGuire or Ramirez are worth worrying over.  Both are trending downward and neither made the most recent Blue Jays Top 10 list from Baseball America.  The Blue Jays have a pretty mediocre system, too.  Ramirez made a grand total of 1 game appearance for the Jays’ AA affiliate before getting hurt, which is his thing.  McGuire continued to post uninspiring OPS’s for the Jays’ AA affiliate, too.  Let’s see what Kevin’s talking about now.]

…but at the time of the trade, Neal Huntington and the Pirates were denying this was a strict salary dump.  The company line was that Liriano’s $13.7M salary would be re-allocated to different players for the 2017 roster.  And guess what?  He was right about that part.  Here’s how Liriano’s $13.7M has been spent since the August deadline:

• Re-signed David Freese in August for 2 yr/$11M. His 2017 salary is $6.25M
• Signed RHP Daniel Hudson in December for 2 yr/$11M.  His 2017 salary is $5.5M
• Signed RHP Ivan Nova in December for 3 yr/$26M.  His 2017 salary is $7.67M

That totals up to $19.42M, so hey, they actually did re-allocate Liriano’s salary!  And to three very usable pieces, including a starting pitcher that they absolutely stole in the form of Nova.

[It’s Other Kevin again.  Kevin’s going to start throwing a ton of numbers at you in a minute.  Let’s talk about David Freese, Matt Joyce, and Sean Rodriguez for a second.  Each of them signed identical 2 yr/$11M contracts, so that must be the going rate for a borderline starter/really good backup.  Which one of them would you have preferred, knowing now that all three were the same term and price?

I think Matt Joyce’s 2016 season was an unsustainable one built on lucky pinch-hitting success.  His productivity dropped as the year went on.  He was miserable against lefties.  Sean Rodriguez had a career year last year out of nowhere.  He’s a huge regression candidate that already has a litany of excuses built in — new team in Atlanta, brand new ballpark, pressure of being a team leader, etc.  Freese just did Freese-type of things.  He’s steady and unspectacular.  With the whole trainwreck that is Jung-ho Kang’s off-field life, the Freese signing was a very prescient one.]

At this point, the Pirates have $72.8M committed to 13 players.  They have a 6-man arbitration class that we project to cost $25.2M.  To round out the roster with 6 minimum scale players at $550,000 per player, add $3.3M.  That brings the current projected 2017 payroll to $101.3M.

Last year’s Opening Day payroll was $99.8M, so theoretically they have increased payroll to this point.  Neal Huntington was hemming and hawing at the beginning of the offseason that there wasn’t going to be much additional payroll for the 2017, so as of now this rings true.

The Pirates are still actively engaged in talks for White Sox LHP Jose Quintana and his 2017 salary of $7M.  He’s the kind of player you stretch a budget for (as ridiculous as that sounds in this case based on his pittance of a salary), so I don’t want to hear talk that they must cut payroll to make space for him, especially since based on their $240M estimated revenues they should be in the $115-120M range anyway.  If the Pirates are hellbent on staying in this $101M price range, then they can add Quintana and salary dump Antonio Bastardo and his $6.625M salary.  Just get some organizational soldier that will never get past AA, if you’re that needy to shed payroll.

So it sure seems like it’s Quintana or bust, in terms of additional players to be added prior to Spring Training, because of the Pirates’ self-imposed payroll limitations.  The Pirates are already implicitly stating that they don’t want to go full bore on contending, based on their payroll limits, so let’s see if Huntington pulls the trigger on parting with a packet of prospects (most of which will never live up to their billing) to fully contend on a budget.

Jose Quintana would represent a sea change of philosophy for the Pirates

Entering this offseason, the Pirates set out trying to trade Andrew McCutchen for some reason.  Was it because his salary in 2017 is going to be $14.2M?  Only if you see red whenever Bob Nutting’s name is mentioned and think he’s Scrooge McDuck with a big silo of money.  Was it because he had a shockingly bad year?  Perhaps, if the Pirates don’t think he can recover from it.  Or was it because 2017 is his last guaranteed year before his team option year of 2018 and they wanted to recoup some value and re-stock the farm system?  This is the most reasonable and likely answer.

They tried to move him to multiple destinations, with the Nationals as the most often-reported suitor.  But as I discussed at the outset of the offseason, the Pirates were selling him as a bounceback MVP-caliber player on an affordable deal and the other teams were trying to buy him as a player that just turned 30 coming off a terrible year.  The chasm of negotiations was too large to bridge.

So it seems that Neal Huntington and Company took a deep breath, re-worked the offseason plan, and decided that they’re going to attempt to make an effort to go for it in 2017 (and perhaps 2018), while McCutchen is still here.  News tweeted out yesterday by Buster Olney that the Pirates were “trying hard” to acquire LHP Jose Quintana from the rebuilding Chicago White Sox.  My affinity for Quintana is bordering on restraining order level at this point, but let me just point out that I was on the Quintana acquisition train back in July for the Pirates.  To recap why Quintana is the perfect pitcher for the Pirates:

• He’s extremely good at the business of throwing baseballs — he’s basically a high-end #2/low-end #1 pitcher, good for 5 WAR per year
• He’s extremely durable — innings totals the last four years, from 2013-2016…200, 200-1/3, 206-1/3, 208
• He’s left-handed — the Pirates don’t currently have one of those dudes in the rotation
• He’s extremely affordable — 2017 salary of $7M, 2018 salary of $8.85M, 2019 club option of $10.5M, 2020 club option of $10.5M

And these four factors combined together are why the soon-to-be 28-year old Jose Quintana will be extremely expensive to acquire from a prospect capital perspective.  Let’s run a rudimentary surplus value calculation on Quintana:

• 2017 — 5 WAR, $8M/WAR = $40M value
• 2018 — 5 WAR, $8.5M/WAR = $42.5M value
• 2019 — 4.5 WAR, $9M/WAR = $40.5M value
• 2020 — 4.5 WAR, $9.5M/WAR = $42.75M value

His value based on production totals up to $165.75M.  Once you subtract out his salaries over those four years, as shown above, his surplus value is $128.9M of prospect/player capital.  From our Prospect Value article, here’s a handy reference chart on what each tier of prospect from the Baseball America Top 100 list is worth:

As you can see, no one prospect is going to be equivalent to Quintana’s value.  It will require a passel of them to make up the surplus value he brings.  Baseball America will be coming out with their official new 2017 Top 100 in late February/early March, but using this past summer’s Midseason Top 100, the Pirates had the following prospects on the list:

• Tyler Glasnow #6 — Pitchers #1-10 — $69.9M
• Austin Meadows #10 — Hitters #1-10 — $73.5M
• Josh Bell #38 — Hitters #26-50 — $38.2M
• Kevin Newman #51 — Hitters #51-100 (we group them together because of minimal value spread) — $22.4M
• Mitch Keller #52 — Pitchers #52-100 (same grouping, same reason) — $16.5M

So in order to do this just with BA Top 100 caliber guys, one of Glasnow or Meadows has to front the deal.  Bell almost has to be in there, too, which is fine with me because I think he’s a DH-in-waiting and not suited to the NL.  Then add either Newman or Keller to round it out.  Let’s say the deal was Glasnow, Bell, and Newman…that’s $130.5M of prospect surplus value, a near-perfect match.  That’s a package I could live with.  Yes, losing Glasnow would sting, but if you think his control issues and slow times to the plate portend future struggles, then sell high on him to a team seeking as much upside as possible before the shine is worn off.  Newman is a slap-hitting SS that I don’t think will have enough bat to justify being more than a middle-of-the-road starter.  A slightly better Jordy Mercer, maybe?

There are those out there (including here on the TPOP staff) that would blanch at this package and say it would ruin the farm system irreparably.  Of course you would be losing 18+ years of combined control, many of which are of the low-cost variety the Pirates crave.  But prospects fail all the time.  Look back up a few paragraphs at the prospect value chart by tier.  Take a gander at the bust rates for how many prospects get 3 WAR or less over their team-controlled seasons.  Then look at how many get 0 WAR or less (outright bust) during their team-controlled seasons.  It’s staggering, especially for prospects outside the highest tiers.

Quintana is a known quantity, a proven performer, on a contract that is envious to every team.  Yes, there’s the chance that he becomes injured and never replicates his Chicago years here.  Nothing is set in stone.  But Quintana has already done it and is in the prime of his career, whereas these prospects are hoping to have the career Quintana has achieved heretofore.

If the Pirates acquire Quintana, the Pirates will have extended their window of contention by at least two years to 2017 and 2018.  The Pirates’ top three of the rotation will be under control through at least 2019.  Cole is here for that timeframe, Quintana potentially through 2020, and Taillon through 2022.  The Pirates can run 2017 as a go-for-it season, then explore trading McCutchen in the 2017 offseason (as we called for a year ago).  With whatever assets they obtain from the McCutchen trade, the Pirates can then enter the 2018 as a contender again.

After the 2018 season, the Pirates could then enter a reload phase by trading Gerrit Cole and his one remaining year of team control and possibly sniff the market on Quintana and his two team option years.  Trading those two high-end pitchers could either re-ignite the farm system or provide some young talent to keep the contention wagon rolling.  Keep in mind, the Pirates still have Marte (2021), Taillon (2022), and Polanco (2023) under control for long down the road.  That’s a far better core of talent than the White Sox possess as they enter their own rebuild phase.

In short, the Pirates can still be sustainable, even if they have to take a step back here and there.  The sky is not falling.  And the Pirates can have their cake and eat it, too, by contending on a budget while maintaining a farm system that supplies young talent to the Majors.  But all this depends on Neal Huntington being willing to pull the trigger and part with prime talent, something he has yet to do in any of his trades to date.

Huntington looks like he’s distracting Nutting with a handshake while he reaches into his pocket for some spare cash.

Well. That was an uneventful couple of days.

The Winter Meetings are usually the time of year where most teams decide on a direction and go forward. The White Sox went in looking to rebuild and left with the best hitting and pitching prospect, along with other wonderful party favors. The Nationals and Red Sox decided that it was time to go all in. The Giants and Rays addressed their biggest needs, and the Yankees felt satisfied leaving as a sleeper team.

And then there were the Pirates, who ended up not doing anything besides taking a player in the Rule 5 draft and talking to a few players. No signings, no trades, no riots in the streets over a potential departure of a certain center fielder.

So. Now what?

These meetings were supposed to show which direction the Pirates were heading in for 2017. They could have traded McCutchen, conceded it as another bridge year, braved the haters and been in great position for 2018. They could have gone after a Sale or Quintana and entered win-now mode.

Instead, they opted to go into limbo, and now we have more questions about the team than we did a week ago. For example:

Cutch

I might have been a little presumptive with my latest piece on the five stages of grieving once McCutchen leaves. Throw it into your favorites. Keep it there for a couple weeks/months/years, because it’s pretty obvious that McCutchen will not be a lifer.

And this past week may have set the table for a very ugly divorce.

It looks like Cutch is coming back. Considering most of Pittsburgh had a panic attack when the rumors started to circulate, that’s a good thing. They are a better team in 2017 with him. A trade may have been good for the organization down the road, but they were by no means obligated to unload him.

So what happens with Cutch? Do they try to move him again at the trade deadline or next offseason? There are still a couple potential suitors who could still value him now (the Dodgers and Blue Jays come to mind).

Do they finally move him to right? If he was to stay in center, he would have to at the very least back up to a normal depth.

What happens if last year was not a fluke and he has another sub-1 WAR season? Do they dare not pick up the option? $14+ million is a lot for any club for that level of production.

And perhaps most importantly: will the two sides be able to reconcile before spring training? It looks like both Huntington and McCutchen are willing, but there is no more mystery between the two. Cutch found out the hard way how valuable his GM thinks he is. He may have to go through this fiasco every couple of months for the next two years. Hopefully it does not take a toll on him.

The Rotation

Yes, the Pirates checked in on Tyson Ross and there is still hope for an Ivan Nova reunion, but it looks like if the Pirates only get one starter this year, it probably will be Derek Holland.

Please, try to contain your excitement.

The days of the Pirates being able to pick the best reclamation projects are probably coming to a close, especially in a pitching market like this. Still, you would have to hope that they could do better than Holland.

The rotation was the weak part of last year’s team. It should improve with age and health, but they probably need at least one veteran arm.

Is Holland enough? What about Ross? Can either one of their arms even handle a full season’s workload? Are they even planning on using them for a full year, or just as gap guys for when Glasnow is ready?

Where does Hutchison fit into all of this? The Pirates gave up a lot to get him in the Liriano salary dump. Is he destined to be a AAA guy/swing-man?

If the Bucs do get Nova, what does that do to the rotation down the stretch? He would likely sign for at least three years. Does someone like Chad Kuhl get booted to the bullpen or dealt, or does someone like Mitch Keller become a trade chip? Also, what does that do to the Pirates’ payroll for years to come?

The Bullpen

Remember last year when the Pirates didn’t pick up a lefty in free agency so they had to open the year with Cory Luebke? Huntington obviously does, and has been collecting southpaws ever since.

Now they may have too much of a good thing.

Right now, the bullpen has five lefty options: Watson, Rivero, Bastardo, LeBlanc and rule five draft pick Tyler Webb. As it stands right now, Juan Nicasio and Jared Hughes would fill out the rest of the ‘pen, but they will probably need to add at least one more righty to have a better balance.

A.J. Schugel and Lisalverto Bonilla are already under a major league contract and are probably the next in line, but they do not appear to have a spot available. If the Pirates were to add another starter, it might push Hutchison into the bullpen. Competition is good, but there is no clear direction on which way they are heading at the moment.

Rivero is the only one who is guaranteed to come back. Webb is a coin flip to make the major league roster at the moment, but he may have an inside track to the opening day team because he cannot be optioned.

Watson could have a lot of value to the teams that come up short on Kenley Jansen or do not trade for David Robertson. Bastardo could also bring back a decent prospect and free up some cash. Both are entering the final years of their contract as well, so there is motivation to move them. On the other hand, they both have experience pitching late in games, and most of the rest of the bullpen does not.

So should they field offers for Watson and Bastardo? What could they realistically get in this reliever-desperate market?

If they do trade someone, do they feel confident in their internal options of Schugel, Bonilla and Neverauskas, or would they need to spring for a free agent like Joe Blanton?

The Direction Of The Franchise

Kevin has recently contended that a return to normal health and performance is the biggest pickup the Pirates can make this offseason.  Now that McCutchen is staying, it appears that this strategy is their new tack.  If the Pirates can pick up a starter (or two) to augment the existing strong core, the Pirates can be right back in the playoff hunt.

Neal Huntington and Company have one overarching principle that they stick to: A Sustained Model For Success.  He may as well have it tattooed to the inside of his arm, like he’s Leonard Shelby from Memento.  He knows that the only way to beat the house with the financial cards he’s dealt is to keep the farm system percolating talent at a consistent rate.

This whole McCutchen thing has caused even semi-rational people to lose their minds.  Last week, Bob Pompeani called into the Poni and Cook showed on The Fan.  During the interview, he implored owner Bob Nutting to “step up” and “do the right to sign him to an extension”.  At that point, he may as well have been Bobby from Blawnox calling in.  The financial limitations of revenue are real and palpable, yet people refuse to acknowledge them.  It is not a level playing field, like in hockey or football.

At TPOP, we aren’t calling for an investment of money that doesn’t exist.  We know roughly how much there is and how much is spent — there’s about $15M more that can go in to the team and that can be the tipping point on a playoff team or not.  Will ownership “step up” to that true revenue-to-payroll number?

Who knows?

Tony Clark (L) and Rob Manfred (R) achieved five more years of labor peace.

Late last Wednesday, word trickled in that the MLB Players’ Association and MLB had reached an agreement on a new 5-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).  The official document hasn’t been publically released yet, so I haven’t had a chance to review it in full.  Mostly because I’m a huge nerd and like reading it.  But I have been able to parse through what has been trickled out for public consumption through various news outlets and reporters.  These are some of the key areas and how they may affect the course of how the Pirates do business.

ROSTER SIZE AND COMPOSITION

There was a lot of chatter that the 25-man roster was going to expand to 26 to give more in-season roster flexibility.  Also there was talk that the September rosters would be restricted to 29 players or so, in order to combat the overuse of pitchers for one out to speed up the game.  Neither of those things ended up making the final deal.  The expansion to a 26-man roster would have helped the Pirates keep an extra pitcher around just in case of emergency, which seems to be the wont of Clint Hurdle.

The minimum stay on the disabled list has been shortened to 10 days, which should greatly help the Pirates.  In the past few years, the Pirates have been reticent to put a player on the DL, instead content to nurse his injury along for a few days that eventually turns into 8 or 10.  They have to play short-handed because of the hesitancy to place the player on the DL and risk him being healthy far earlier than 15 days.  This will allow them to watch a guy for a couple of days and then retroactively DL him, knowing it will only be for another week, rather than two.

Minimum salaries next year will move up to $535K, then $545K in 2018, and $555K in 2019, with cost of living increases after that.  For the Pirates this doesn’t really move the needle that much over the $507,500 minimum salary.  Internally at TPOP, we’ll be adjusting our payroll estimates for minimum-scale players to $550K for math purposes.  The Pirates, and all other MLB teams, still reap the benefits from cheap labor that typically outproduces veterans on bloated contracts.

LUXURY TAX AND REVENUE SHARING

While the Pirates will never directly be within shouting distance of the luxury tax threshold, it has been raised to the following levels of the CBA:

• 2017 — $195M
• 2018 — $197M
• 2019 — $206M
• 2020 — $208M
• 2021 — $210M

There are new tax penalties for exceeding the luxury tax threshold.  If you exceed the threshold for the first time, it’s a 20% hit.  A second time in a row is a 30% charge, while a third is a 50% charge.  There’s an additional 12% surcharge on the tax if the offending team is between $20M and $40M over the luxury tax threshold.  And if a team is greater than $40M over the line, it’s a whopping 90% tax.

For demonstration, the Dodgers were the only team in 2016 that would be $40M over the line at $250M in payroll on Opening Day.  Their tax bill would $49.5M (90% of $55M).  Additionally, if you exceed that $40M mark, your draft pick the next year falls by 10 spots.  That’s a deterrent, I suppose.  Many are hailing this as a pseudo hard cap that will curtail the big spenders.  I don’t see it that way.  Sure, if you blow by the mark by $40M or more it gets prohibitive, but just say you routinely run $12M over the line (or one additional solid starting player).  At first blush, that $2.4M is no bid deal if you’re up in that payroll stratosphere.  Even if you do it three more times, do you think a team will blanch at paying $6M for the ability to have an additional competitive advantage?  Even if you bump this up to $19M, right below that magical $20M threshold, is $9.5M really a big deal to the Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees?

If MLB was going to enact this quasi-cap, they should have also instituted a quasi-floor to salary.  The Astros a few years ago had a payroll of around $26M.  Total.  That’s when they stripped it down to the studs and re-built in earnest.  If you’re going to penalize a franchise for spending too much, a team should get privileges taken away for spending too little.  And no, I don’t mean the Pirates, necessarily.  But there should be some stipulation on revenue-to-payroll ratio for all teams in MLB, whether that’s only seen by central office MLB or the general public.

In terms of revenue sharing, the Performance Factor is being eliminated, which seems to indicate that large-market teams will be contributing less to the revenue sharing pool.  Whether MLB starts to contribute other dollars to that pool, say from the share of BAM Tech they own, or some other pool, it seems as if revenue recipients like the Pirates may see less money.

INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC DRAFTS

Sadly, there will be no international draft, as MLB appeared to have lost their nerve on this issue.  It was disclosed that they were hot on it, but they caved about 10 days ago without an appropriate concession, seemingly, from the players.  Maybe on drug testing, I guess, which will be more intensified over the season and offseason, but isn’t that just doing the right thing?

The international draft spending pool will range from $4.75M for large-revenue teams to $5.75M for small-revenue teams.  It hardly seems fair that the Dodgers ($250M payroll) and the Pirates ($100M payroll) will only be separated by a measly $1M on international draft pools.  However, it does cap spending which was the goal of the owners.  There will be no more Yoan Moncada type of signings for $31.5M to the Red Sox and then they dole out an additional $31.5M in tax overage.  You simply can’t exceed your pool, unless you can trade for draft allotment slots up to an additional 75% of your pool.  Cubans and other internationals over the age of 25 will be exempt from these pools, but it doesn’t appear to affect Asian players at this time.

For the regular North American draft in June, it appears as if the pools will roughly stay the same, but the differences from the #1 pick slot to the #10 pick slot will be smoothed out somewhat.

QUALIFYING OFFERS

This is the one that seems to benefit the players most.  The Qualifying Offer is going to lose a lot of its value under the new CBA.  First, players can only be subjected to a Qualifying Offer one time.

Teams that want to sign a QO player are now put into three bins.  If you are a revenue sharing recipient (i.e., the Pirates) you’ll lose your 3rd-highest selection (not necessarily your third round choice, if you have additional early picks).  If you are a revenue-sharing contributor (i.e., the Yankees), you’ll lose your 2nd and 5th-highest selections and give up $1M from your international pool.  Teams in between will give up their 2nd-highest pick and $500K in international funds.  This means there’s no more Top 10 protection from the draft to sign a player carte blanche.  Teams are definitely going to pause before they sign a QO player, even more so than now.

Teams that lose a QO player that declined the offer will get a pick after the first round (when is still unclear) if that player signs for $50M or more.  If he signs for under $50M, it will be a pick after Competitive Balance Round B.  If you’re a luxury tax threshold scofflaw, you don’t pick up a pick until after the 4th round.

It seems as if more potential QO types of players will be traded in-season, rather than wait until the following draft for a draft pick that is being shoved down lower and lower in the order.

***

The whole CBA is very byzantine and clearly written by a passel of lawyers charging more than $300 per hour.  On the whole, it certainly seems to favor large-revenue teams more than small-revenue teams, as the international draft pool is merely a set of token crumbs handed down to the Pirates and others.  There’s so much money rolling in the door, though, that no small-revenue team is going to upset the apple cart.

But when the television bubble bursts (and it will), that next CBA could be quite contentious between the various factions of owners.

Will McCutchen be plying his trade in D.C. soon?

November 30th will forever be remembered as the day the internet went crazy when Jeff Passan tweeted that the Pirates are aggressively shopping Andrew McCutchen. Cutch has been the face of the franchise basically since his arrival in the show in June 2009, but it appears that his days are numbered as he passes into his 30’s and the likely decline of his career. He also enters the most lucrative and final guaranteed year of a contract extension that has long paid for itself.

Anytime I hear of any player getting trading, I instantly ask the question of what the return could be. The quickest answer is “not as much as the fans think.” Getting closer to a real value is harder, but surplus value is always a way to find out. For those new to the concept the equation looks like this:

Surplus Value = (projected WAR) * ($value of WAR) – salary remaining on contract

The salary remaining is the easiest, $28.5 million assuming the Pirates’ trade partner would pick up the $14.5 million option. For the projected WAR, we shouldn’t assume that the trade team will expect to pay for a 5-7 fWAR MVP candidate type performer. If that were the expectation, the Pirates wouldn’t consider trading him at only $14 million a year. Of course, we can’t expect the 0.7 fWAR, either, as again, the Pirates wouldn’t give away their biggest star since Barry Bonds for that low of a return. As Kevin Creagh puts it, a new normal needs to be established for McCutchen. He puts that normal at between 3.5 – 4 wins. For the sake of ease we can assume 4 WAR in 2017 and 3.5 in 2018 for a total of 7.5 WAR over the rest of the team control.

With contracts skyrocketing the last few years, the assumption is $8M purchases one WAR on the free agent market. In McCutchen’s case a great comparable, Yeonis Cespedes, signed a 4 yr/$110M deal with the Mets on Tuesday. Put in more Cespedesian terms, that’s 25,000 small hogs a year from Jericho Settlers Farm in Jericho, VT.  No matter how you add it up that’s a lot of money for a player who, like Cutch, is probably unlikely to match his most productive season again. For Cespedes, if we assume 4 WAR in 2017, 3.7 WAR in 2018, 3.5 WAR in 2019 and 3.5 again in 2020, that’s roughly $7.5 million per win. Star power still pays!

In McCutchen’s case, when we plug the numbers in and do the math, it translates to a surplus value of $27.75 million. Off the calculator, that seems like a handsome some of money, but when you check our latest update on prospect valuation, it really doesn’t go far. That’s a hitter in the #51-100 range plus another solid, but not spectacular, prospect or a little less than two pitchers below #50. That’s a nice return, for any aging center fielder, but not for the one that has the same kind of emotional attachment as Andrew McCutchen.

Why is the value so low? The Pirates are long past the point of a deal where Cutch returns three or more top 100 prospects. For one, the performance expectations are much lower. As Kevin noted, you simply can’t expect him to return to MVP form and you simply can’t expect a trade partner to pay for that kind of past production. Second, his years of control are waning and the contract value is increasing. The closer you get to the end of the deal for any player, the less they’re worth.

Surprisingly, the Thursday trade rumors developed a message board conversation with the national media playing the role of the ludicrous fanboys. It looked a little like this.

Stosh from Blawnox     RE: McCutchen Trade Return from Nats

Listen guys I’m not tradin’ Cutch for less than Robles and Lopez.

___________________________________________________________

Irrationally Negative    RE:McCutchen Trade Return from Nats

Stosh from Blawnox wrote:

“Listen guys I’m not tradin’ Cutch for less than Robles and Lopez.”

I don’t know Stosh, I think the Pirates should try to sweeten the deal with a third player.

Want to know how these rumors weren’t true? Because if they were, Cutch would be on his way to the Nationals and the Pirates would have two more top 50 prospects in the system. Looking at surplus value from Baseball America’s mid-season update, Robles (#13) and Lopez (#48) are worth a combined $91 million. That’s better than $3:1 to Cutch’s current value. The only way Washington could possibly do this deal is if they think they’re going to get MVP McCutchen for both years. I think whoever he ends up with should be happy with one.

The rumors today are damaging in the sense that they will escalate fan expectations beyond what the market could and maybe should expect. Other market factors could suppress McCutchen’s value. First, the Pirates are actively trying to sell him. Known motivated sellers don’t always get the best offers for their wares. The market for center fielders is also loaded. In his piece on a potential McCutchen trade, Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal had this to say:

Dexter Fowler, Ian Desmond and Carlos Gomez are the most prominent center fielders available in free agency. The Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon, White Sox’s Adam Eaton, Diamondbacks’ A.J. Pollock and Rays’ Kevin Kiermaier are among the trade candidates, but none of their clubs appears especially motivated to make a move.

On one hand, there are three center fielders that will only cost you cash. The upside isn’t the same, but the Nationals could easily call on Fowler or Desmond if they don’t feel like dropping the top of their system not named Giolito on McCutchen. On the other hand, Cutch’s value might have been enhanced by the CBA terms. His below market salary would provide flexibility to a Washington team likely to flirt with the new luxury tax threshold in the future.

I’ve not been for the Pirates trading McCutchen and really, I’m still not. However, if the rumors aren’t rumors than I say “Nice to have known you Andrew.”  I hope the hold out for a haul much larger than the surplus value I calculated, and I hope they find a partner that is more optimistic about McCutchen’s likely production. With rumors swirling about Josh Harrison and Tony Watson as well, it feels like the Bucs are entering a mini rebuild. This probably isn’t necessary as they already have most of the pieces in place to get back to the playoffs. Those pieces just need to perform better, of course, and the team last season lacked star power. While I don’t see an MVP-caliber performance likely from #22 again, he’s still capable of outperforming our expectations here at TPOP. Few others on the team are and that might be reason enough to hang onto him for at least one more year. It seems less and less likely that will happen, however.