Pirates Underwhelm At Trade Deadline
Jordan Lyles isn’t a Pirate anymore. The return for him is…lacking…especially when compared to another pitcher the Brewers acquired. Photo by Gene J. Pruskar, AP.
Another trade deadline is in the books, and as far as deadlines go, this one was pretty lame. There were a few bombs, like the Astros adding another future Hall of Fame pitcher to their rotation or the Mets and Reds trading the farm for pitchers who won’t be on their roster in 2021, but for the most part, it was quiet. I don’t think it was a really good buyer’s market, but rather a poor seller’s one. Without August trades, it seemed most teams in the wild card hunt stayed pat or even sold a bit. In year’s past, they had the flexibility to buy in July, and if things went wrong in August, they could salvage a little bit in waiver wire deals. That luxury is gone, and nobody wants to give up top prospects just to play a one game playoff.
Most years, the Pirates would be a very attractive seller. They had a hard hitting, Gold Glove-winning outfielder available, along with a backend starter, a couple bench bats, a lefty reliever and the deadline’s big fish, Felipe Vazquez. In the end, only two players were traded, and for quite underwhelming returns, even when considering the lackluster demand.
The Trades That Didn’t Happen
Before I talk about the moves the Pirates made, let’s recap the moves they didn’t make. Keone Kela is still on the team. Good. I can’t say I’m thrilled with his behavior as a Pirate, but the team is clearly better with him on it. It would be stupid to sell him for pennies on the dollar midseason, and mid-controversies.
Vazquez is still a Pirate. Also good. Huntington had no reason to budge from the king’s ransom he was demanding from the Dodgers and neither side blinked. The worst thing the Pirates could have done was undersell their most valuable trade chip years before it was necessary.
The Dodgers just didn’t break. I thought it was a possibility, considering they threw away games one and two of the World Series last year by turning to Ryan Madson in the most pivotal moments, losing both times because of it. And game four where they blew a late four run lead. And game five in 2017, where they lost the lead three times and before falling in extras. Oh, and don’t forget game two where Brandon McCarthy took the loss out of the bullpen. I guess they can take solace knowing that on opening day next year, when the Astros, Yankees or Braves are honoring their championship winning team, they will be raising a “Kept Gavin Lux” pennant.
Francisco Liriano and Melky Cabrera are still Pirates. Not good. Both have been worth only 0.2 fWAR apiece so far, so I can’t say the Pirates lost out on a super prospect by not trading them. It’s also nice to have veterans hanging around the clubhouse.
Huntington said they like having veteran players such as Liriano and Cabrera, and felt it was better keeping them.
— Eric Hagman (@esh714) July 31, 2019
But there’s something to be said for getting whatever you can, even if it’s just international bonus pool money or cash considerations. That could help future teams more than it helps the 2019 Pirates. Plenty of clubs were buying, or at least inquiring, about relief pitchers. Seems like a missed opportunity to flip Liriano. Oh well. I guess it’s better than packaging him with two prospects.
Trade 1: Jordan Lyles to the Brewers For RH Relief Pitcher Cody Ponce
Lyles isn’t the only swingman the Brewers acquired at the deadline. On Wednesday, they sent SS Mauricio Dubon to the Giants for Drew Pomeranz and Ray Black. Dubon is rated as a 45 grade and was the Brewers’ 3rd best prospect, far more valuable than a 40 grade pitcher like Ponce. Yes, the Brewers also got Black, a 29 year old fireballer who has stunk at AAA this year and in limited major league cameos thus far, but he doesn’t swing the pendulum in this trade too far.
Pomeranz and Lyles are both mediocre starter options with good bullpen histories and nearly identical ERAs and contracts. While it’s true Pomeranz has the better career track record and Lyles has been rocked lately, it stands to reason these two should have been valued similarly.
FanGraphs pegs a 40 grade pitching prospect- like Ponce and Black- at $1 million in future value. A 45 grade hitting prospect, like Dubon, is valued at $6 million. Essentially, the Giants were able to sell their house on fire for $5 million in profit while the Pirates could only get $1 million. That means either Huntington wasn’t nearly as good of a salesman or values Ponce more than just about every prospect expert.
It just may be the latter. Ponce is the most Pirate-y pitcher that changed teams this deadline. 6’4″, mid-90s fastball, high ground ball rate. The Pirates bought a pair of their jeans. Jeans with interesting pitching mechanics (he does a good job hiding the ball during his delivery), but jeans nonetheless.
Ponce is Rule V eligible this winter, meaning the Pirates will either have to place him the 40-man roster or risk losing him. This is the type of pitcher that usually gets selected in the Rule V draft, too. That would be a heck of trade deadline haul: a pitcher who hung around in AA for a month before pitching in the majors for someone else.
We have seen the Pirates claim this mold of player off waivers plenty of times. He’ll have until the end of the season to try to separate himself from readily available replacement level players.
Trade 2: Corey Dickerson to the Phillies For…Umm
While the Lyles return was disappointing, it’s not too surprising. There is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. The Dickerson return was next to nothing, yielding a player to be named later and the right to spend a little more in the international free agent market.
There wasn’t much demand for corner outfielders this deadline. While the Giants didn’t sell much, they didn’t buy much, either. The Indians got their outfield help in the Trevor Bauer trade. The Cubs were the only other team of note who added a corner outfielder, getting Nicholas Castellanos from the Tigers. Again, Castellanos and Dickerson should have had roughly similar trade values. Both have been worth 1 fWAR so far this year, and while Dickerson has been more injury prone, that also means he’s been far better than Castellanos when on the field. The Cubs gave up a 40 grade pitcher and another arm for Castellanos. We can’t say for certain yet if that is a better return than the PTBNL the Pirates are getting, but based on the history of players who were named later, a 40 grade pitcher would be a pleasant surprise.
Again, there might not have been much potential upside in selling Dickerson, but this trade might not have even reached that low ceiling.
Now What?
No, seriously. Now what?
The Pirates have been dilapidating since 2016, getting worse in three of the last four years. They have gone from the second best record in 2015 to the second worst record in the NL in 2019. Part of the thrill of the 2018 deadline was not just that they added Chris Archer and Kela, but for the first time in years, they seemed to have a direction, and it was to push forward. It’s one year later, and they haven’t done anything to supplement– or even disassemble — the team.
The Pirates don’t need to blow it up. Huntington is optimistic about competing in the near future, and I can’t say I disagree. A healthy Jameson Taillon and Gregory Polanco would be a huge boost for the 2020 team. The 2018 Pirates got 6.6 bWAR out of those two players. They have combined for -0.4 WAR so far in 2019, and will likely finish below replacement level. That’s a seven win swing from losing just their best starter and hitter to injury. If they had just that level of production from them this year, the Pirates might have been buying Wednesday instead of trying to sell.
Starling Marte, Josh Bell, Joe Musgrove, Vazquez, Bryan Reynolds, Kevin Newman…there is a good core in place. But the core is not enough. They are going to need to supplement this team through free agency if they are serious about winning anytime soon. Yasmani Grandal will be a free agent again this offseason. There’s about a 5 fWAR difference between him and Elias Diaz this year (3.7 to -1.1. Yes, negative 1.1). He’ll be expensive, but not unreasonable. Make him Russell Martin 2.0. The bullpen has one of the worst Win Probability Added marks in the majors, even with Vazquez. A reliable veteran reliever is on the wish list, too.
The rest of the holes can be filled either internally or smaller moves. The good news is I believe the Pirates are one big and one medium sized move away from being a contender. The bad news is I felt similarly this time last year and in 2016. They never pulled the trigger. If the Pirates won’t build on what they have, then tear it down. Embrace the tank. This team isn’t in neutral, it’s decaying. Every year they sit idle is not only a year wasted now, but it pushes the start of their next window back at least one more year, too.
The trade deadline had the promise of being a day where the Pirates would get better, at least in the long run. They would lose some veterans, but in exchange, the farm system would be bolstered. That’s originally why I wanted this Thursday story slot for TPOP, to examine the three or four players I thought they were getting. None of that happened. They got one player, and there isn’t even that much to say about him now. Idle again, slowly decaying.
The trade deadline is a day. It comes with a lot of fanfare, but the hoopla doesn’t mean the Pirates had to make a big transaction that day. They can wait until the winter meetings, or January or sometime midseason next year. The day the Pirates make their big move is coming. Will Huntington greet it or try to run from the inevitable?
July 31 is significant for another reason, too. It’s the last time there was legitimate buzz about the Pirates. This was a wasted year.
Alex Stumpf
Alex is a Pirates and Duquesne basketball contributor to The Point of Pittsburgh. He graduated from Point Park University with a degree in Journalism and Mass Comm. and a minor in English in 2014. Everything can be explained with numbers. If you want to keep up to date on both teams or have a story idea, you can follow or reach him @AlexJStumpf.
I, like most, think I have all the answers for this team. In April, I wanted to blow it up, in May and June I wanted to buy. In July I wanted to double down on last year’s trade deadline and go all in (Stroman and Merrifield, if you want specifics). The (main?) reason I am not in charge is because I’m too passionate, I want them to succeed too badly. (It also has to deal w/ the slight fact that I’m not qualified at all)
They couldn’t be more mediocre at this point. The non-deals and the ‘deals’ they made couldn’t move the needle less. I know GMNH is going to tell us that injuries are the reason that this team is where it is and they’ll be a contender next season. But with comments like “We’re still in it, technically” and “you’re buying either way.. whether for this club or a future club” I’m over it. I’m over being treated like I’m dumb (spoiler: I am) and being told that this team has a plan. Alex, Sean Gentille over at the Athletic, and countless fans with inferior writing abilities all have the same sentiment. Pick a lane. This middling, 80-win and all the breaks in our favor strategy is trash. NH got fleeced last deadline. Guess what, that shouldn’t affect your next move or your next deadline. Standing pat b/c you made one mistake doesn’t fix it, it amplifies how badly that played out because your team lacks depth or star power to overcome it.
I was born into this, so I’ll never just ‘give up’ but I’m very thankful for football season starting..
Alex,
Would you consider Ray Black as a piece that was improperly used? His RPMs on his Fastball (2650 RPM) and Slider (3200 RPM) are top 2% among prospects w/ that data on THE BOARD! and sits 96-99. It’s a SSS, but in 2018 and 2019 his xwOBA was sub .300… if he goes to a club that uses this information correctly, he may have the tools.
I think the sample size is too small for xwOBA, but the spin rates are real. That and his velo is why he’s still on major league radars even though he’s only had a cup of coffee in the majors at age 29. I can see him being good, but I think it’s more likely he’s just a guy with some good stuff that never was able to put it together. He has trade value, but I think people are overvaluing him because he pitched in a big market.
Kela has looked alright so far if he looks strong down the stretch this bullpen is probably in good shape with Feliz looking like a competent 6/7, and possible upshots from Santana, Burdi, Kuhl?- they can arguably procrastinate until the deadline for a big name and do anothet lirianoesque signing off-season. I think they need to sink every dollar into the right starter. Like Grandal, like Rendon more.
I like Rendon too, but he’s going to cost more over more years and the Pirates have (who I believe is) the best third base prospect in the game already in AAA. They are hopeless at the catcher position, and I don’t see them getting competent play from their backstops without outside help.
It’s interesting to note that the writer begins one paragraph by saying ” The Pirates have been dilapidating since 2016″ and then begins the next by saying “The Pirates don’t need to blow it up.” Those two statements appear to be at odds with each other, and the former is much closer to the truth than the latter. The Pirates are on pace to be a 90-loss team this year, and all the numbers suggest that they will be so on merit. The team as currently constructed is 15 to 20 games away from being a legitimate contender, and health and possible internal improvement is not going to erase that gap. The current roster is simply not good enough to contend, and it is time to tear it down to the studs and start again.
If you go years without doing any repairs to your house, it could start falling apart. At that point, you have to decide if you want to spend the money to fix it up, tear it down or do nothing and hope it doesn’t collapse. It has started to collapse for the Pirates, but I don’t think it’s past the point of no return. I think they can still save it, but it’s going to be costly. More costly than it would have been two or three years ago, but still in budget.
I categorically disagree. Again, the Pirates are 15 to 20 games away from contention as they are currently constructed, and that can’t be explained away with injury or baseball luck. The potential for necessary improvements will not from the current roster, and it’s all but inconceivable that the Pirates will go deeply enough into the FA market to add what needs to be done to bridge that gap. The Pirates desperately need some elite talent, and it isn’t in the roster or in the system right now. The only way they will get that talent is to draft and develop it or via trade. What is here now will not get it done.
I’ve been pretty open-minded about their frugality but the bucs are against the wall here. The Vazquez situation illustrates a super teams gambit that the pirates won’t spend and realize the surplus value of a guy who can lock down the leagues best in the toughest save situations. I’m for focusing on contributions from the minors, I’m ok with having a generally cheap payroll but there comes a point where they need to spend if for no other purpose to show the dodgers of the world we can build around our controllable stars. If they sit on their hands this off-season super teams will continue to take advantage of the pirates over-relying on their trade chips as a source of talent when their ownership has been unwilling to purchase affordable talent or manage a thriving talent pipeline through drafting and development.
It’s amazing to me that you all that these elaborate opinions on this club. It doesn’t matter what talent we have, a few years ago we had the best outfield in MLB (McCutchen, Polanco, Marte). The talent was here, it was badly mismanaged. The problem is in our ownership frugality, but it is also in the management of the game. Clint Hurdle sucks, our players know nothing about fundamentals or small ball. Most times the talent that we do have bails out his terrible decision making. We continue to run ML talent thru out doors and gone, only to excel on other teams as superstars. Stop drinking the kool-aid people, this team will never contend with Chewgumma on the bench making the directional decisions.
What I’d love to know is – with everyone for sale, how many Pirates players were even asked about? That info would let us know how the “experts” view all the players, and not just buzz for the paid talkers to entertain us with.
Where to begin? Let’s start with STAR POWER. The Pirates don’t have it and they’re not going to buy it. When you lose your best pitcher and one of your OF mainstays and it only costs 6.3 bWAR (4.4 + 1.9 = 6.3) that tells me how NH is trying to build the team. He needs to get to 40+ WAR with a couple of 4’s a bunch of 3’s and a whole lot of 2’s and high 1’s, and if 1 guy breaks out with a 6 or 7 that’s extremely helpful (See Rays and Twins).
(If I may digress – this is why the Archer deal IRKED me so much. Away went your best homegrown hitter with power, + and +, for a guy who was a middling 4.1 star for 1 season 3 years earlier. Forget the hype, I’m here everyday, show me results.)
Where to go from here? If anyone thinks blowing it up will somehow result in a roster full of Verlanders, Mariano Riveras and Trouts all over the field – well they’re just insane. And that’s regardless of who’s the GM.
So we’ve got to honestly look at what we’ve got. Here’s the team’s OPS ranking by position. C-27, 1B-2, 2B-13, 3B-21, SS-24, LF-12, CF-8, RF-24.
Overall the team ranks 19th, but with Bell falling off all of the Top 10’s that may not last much longer. If you make 3B and SS just Moran and Newman those ranks move up into the top 15. There’s a screaming need for a Catcher upgrade.
By my estimation this team has about 90% of what it needs to make the postseason. They have average to slightly above average talent at almost every position but they don’t have a transcendent star, and if that’s your niche then you can’t have more than 3 or 4 below par guys.
I think they need at least 2 more Starting Pitchers, but 3 is probably the true number. While Stallings has become a competent backup (currently 0.5 bWAR) they desperately need an upgrade at C. The BP could use another reliable arm, but the biggest boost would be a better guy making the call when to use those BP arms. I’d give Kang about 10 more minutes to show he’s finally on his way back or else he’s leaving on the next stagecoach.
Guys run hot and cold so the next 2 months need to be spent defining the true production level of guys like Bell, Frazier, Moran, Reyes and maybe Tucker too. As far as guys like Kuhl, Santana and Taillon we’ll just have to wait to see what they bring in 2020, but that doesn’t mean getting another Starter or 2 should be overlooked.
With only 6 games over .500 (after 100+ games) being the threshold for a WC spot it’s very reasonable to take the position that injuries “did in” the Pirates this year. Being better next season instead of just hoping for better health would seem to be the superior plan.