Deadline activity very likely
GM Cherington speaks on deals
Even in a shortened season, Ben Cherington expects to be active around the trade deadline.
The Pirates general manager also said on a Zoom call Friday with local reporters that nobody was off-limits.
But don’t get too excited.
Because while Cherington believes conversations and the exchange of information will likely mirror a normal year, he also expects to have many of the same players in Pittsburgh whenever things finally do turn around.
“I really do believe there are a lot of players on this team who will be part of our team when we’re good, and we’re excited about that,” Cherington said.
Nailing the trade deadline, which comes at 4 p.m. Aug. 31, will be an important and difficult task for Cherington and the rest of the Pirates front office, one made more difficult because of no minor league season and also some serious slumps for the players Pittsburgh should probably look to move.
For example, had he enjoyed a hot start, perhaps a team might take a chance on Jarrod Dyson, a veteran outfielder who still defends well and has a World Series ring. Making $2 million over a full season, Dyson’s remaining salary would’ve been a pittance for a contender. His leadership might have helped.
The problem: He’s hitting .133 through 16 games, has 0 extra-base hits, 9 strikeouts and 3 walks. Oh, and he recently turned 36.
But Dyson, honestly, isn’t even the biggest of the Pirates’ deadline issues. The Chris Archer situation hurts, too.
Had he not required season-ending surgery and was pitching more like the guy the Pirates thought they were getting two years ago, the case could be made that he simply needed a change of scenery, away from former pitching coach Ray Searage.
Instead, the Pirates can’t possibly move Archer, and they have an easy escape clause (a $250,000 buyout) in his contract after this season. It will help free up money, but he’ll walk for nothing.
One of the only true assets the Pirates have at the major league level is Keone Kela, and even his value is a bit of a wild card.
While Kela’s stuff is terrific, he does not come without questions. Last year for him featured a fight with a coach, the perception of clubhouse issues and two throwing-arm problems. This year, where arm injuries have increased across the league because of the shortened ramp-up, Kela missed about a month because of his bout with COVID-19. He has come back from that, but was removed Friday night from a game against Milwaukee with forearm discomfort.
“We came into the year feeling like we had a pretty good handle on who we have and who we don’t have,” Cherington said. “We know that there are obviously a lot of things we need to do better and get better at as a team.
“If there are ways to move toward that between now and the deadline, we’ll definitely pursue that.”
And opposing teams can ask about anyone, Cherington added.
“There’s no one player that you know we can’t talk about,” Cherington said. “There’s no one player that we need to move, either. So we’ll just continue to engage in the conversations and see if there are ways we can help ourselves going forward over the next several days.”
An additional complicating factor here is sample size. That would seem to affect Adam Frazier, who was an attractive piece at the MLB Winter Meetings but began Friday’s game hitting just .171, dropped to eighth in the order as a result.
The Pirates are doing everything they can to spark Frazier, but other teams aren’t stupid; they see that. It’s also quite normal for even the best hitters to endure a 20-game stretch where they hit .171 in the middle of a season.
What’s much more difficult is when it occurs at the beginning of a shortened season, where everybody pays extra attention, and also the rest of the league — in the form of trade interest — must react given it’s already close to the deadline.
“I’m not sure that 21 games is indicative of a particular player’s performance or a team’s performance,” Cherington said. “But it is what we have. And so in terms of how that informs us going into the deadline, I don’t think it really does.”
Nevertheless, Cherington seems to expect that to pop up before or around the trade deadline — teams having different valuations on a player because of how he’s performed in a couple-dozen games.
The employing team might see more and ask for more. The inquiring team would be on the other end of that scale. The trick will be whether those conversations ever produce anything substantive.
“We can’t control how other teams are going to react to that, so we’ll just have to listen and learn,” Cherington said. “There are plenty of guys here who we really like, value and believe are good players, and maybe they aren’t performing up to past levels.
“Doesn’t mean they won’t later on this year. Doesn’t mean they won’t next year. We’ve got a lot of time on a lot of these guys.”
The part about having current players on the roster whenever the Pirates do turn the corner was interesting — and not just because Cherington actually admitted that the Pirates aren’t good right now.
Who’s he talking about here? And is that the right move? Cherington could be referencing Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman. In which case, great. It makes sense to sign those guys to extensions.
But what about the guys who are going through arbitration for the second time this offseason? That group includes Josh Bell, Trevor Williams, Frazier, Chad Kuhl, Joe Musgrove and Erik Gonzalez.
It’s hard to imagine all six staying, and it’s hard to imagine all six going. This season, the only tradeable assets in that group would probably be Bell (whose stock is low), Williams (who might make sense) and Gonzalez (whose hot start still won’t produce much in return, meaning it’s likely better to keep him under club control).
Bell is also a special case. He’s clearly someone the fan base cares about and might be upset if Cherington moved, calling it another Andrew McCutchen or Gerrit Cole situation.