Big move using Bell likely won’t be the last
Pirates will attempt to give prospects chance to flourish
Really, the trade is simple. On Thursday afternoon, Christmas Eve, the Pirates sent first baseman Josh Bell to the Washington Nationals for right-handed starting pitcher prospects Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean.
While much of the focus will be given to Bell, whose transition from prospect to promising piece of the future to trade piece has been a three-year roller-coaster, the trade continues a trend for the Pirates.
Whether it be through the 2020 MLB Draft, waiver moves, the Rule 5 Draft or, now, this trade, they have accumulated a whole litter of right-handers.
“I promise you, we didn’t set out a year ago just to accumulate right-handed pitching,” general manager Ben Cherington said Thursday. “That’s nowhere written in our plan. We did set out a year ago to accumulate as much player talent as we can. It just so happens that the opportunities have been a lot of right-handed pitching. It’s just the way it’s fallen.
“... I believe the Pirates can be a place where those guys can improve and flourish. The proof will be in the pudding. We have to continue to work really hard on that. Over time, the demographic thing will even out. It will be some lefthanded pitching and plenty of position players, I’m sure, too, that will come over time.”
As far as Crowe and Yean, specifically, the jury is still out.
Crowe, a 26-year-old, was the Nationals’ fourth-best prospect entering 2020, according to Fangraphs. A former second-round pick out of South Carolina, Crowe finally got his shot at the majors last season but struggled. All three of his starts were in nightcaps of doubleheaders, and Crowe didn’t make it past the fourth inning in any of them. All told, he finished the season with an 11.88 ERA in 8⅓ innings of work.
Underwhelming as that may be, there still certainly is hope for Crowe. He features a full starter’s arsenal, with a mid-90s mph fourseam fastball accompanied by a sinker, change-up and a slider. There was concern that he would be injury-prone coming out of the draft, because of a knee injury he suffered in high school and an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery in college.
Given his age and what he already has done in his career, the Pirates plan on giving him a chance to make the starting rotation coming out of spring training next season.
“I think he’s certainly at a point in his career where he can be a factor in 2021 and have an opportunity to earn more opportunity over time,” Cherington said. “He’s got the pitches and the know-how and the physical characteristics and the history that suggests he can be a starting pitcher in the major leagues, and we still see some improvement opportunities for him.”
Yean is just 19 years old, and carries with him the guess-work expectations that most 19-year-old prospects do. He signed a six-figure deal with the Nationals out of the Dominican Republic in 2017. He then burst onto the scene in 2019, as his young frame began to fill out and his fastball velocity rose as a result.
Alongside that development, his changeup and slider are works in progress, as well. Yean will join a group of young potentially promising pitching prospects already in the Pirates minor league system, such as Quinn Priester, Brennan Malone and Carmen Mlodzinski.
“All the reports we did in terms of the background work were really positive, so looking forward to getting to know him,” Cherington said. “He’ll join a group of young pitchers in our system kind of at the lower levels, low, full-season levels that we’re excited about, and we obviously have to do a good job of helping that group get better.”
Neither Crowe nor Yean project to be huge, franchise-shifting additions necessarily, but there’s a reason these are just projections. The Pirates obviously felt confident enough in the return to trade away a player who had, to some degree, already proven himself in the major leagues.
As Cherington stated multiple times throughout his Zoom call with reporters Thursday, these decisions can be tough, but they are necessary for stacking organizational depth. Right now, that’s as important as anything for the Pirates’ future.
How Crowe pans out may be known as soon as next season. With Yean it will be much longer. Nonetheless, the Pirates are staying the course with their plan forward with the Pirates.
“In order to fill the talent base that’s big enough, deep enough, dynamic enough to win, we just need to add more,” Cherington said. “So when we have guys that might be at a point in their career where we have less time with them potentially, and there’s an opportunity to add more talent that we have longer time with, those are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to be willing to do, even when it involves someone like Josh, who we really respect.
“Likely won’t be the last one. There will probably be more. I’m not saying that to predict anything, that’s the realization, that’s where we are. We just need to continue to be aggressive and focused about adding talent.”