OnlyBucs

BC made 3 significant trades last off-season, and also decided to pass on the team's pending free agents. Tallion was sent to the Yankees, Musgrove to the Padres, and Bell to the Nats, and the team passed on resigning Archer, Kela, and Holland.



As this season is now rapidly approaching the end of June, I thought it may be good to do a quick check-in on the deals.



Tallion to NY. Tallion has not performed well for the Yankees. He has thrown only 64 innings in 14 starts (slightly less than 5 innings per start), and has an ERA of 5.18 and a WHIP of 1.32. Tallion has not aided the Yanks' quest for contention.



Pirates obtained Yagure who has pitched in Pittsburgh this year, but who is now injured. The 3 remaining players are all in the minors, with Contreas at AA having a great year; Canann Smith posting some decent numbers, however with no power; and Escotto.



QUESTION: Does anyone lament the trade of Tallion for the return the Pirates received? I rate this trade as a well timed aggressive move by BC that appears to have added talent to the system.



Bell to the Nats. Josh Bell appears to be having a season similar to some of his Pittsburgh years. A bit of power, 10 HR, however, he has an OPB of .292, a BA of .228, and has struck out 54 times in 197 plate appearances. I also note that his Pirate replacement, Moran, has a nearly identical slugging percentage, and a much higher OBP, however, he only has 4 HR's.



The return for him was Will Crowe who appears to be a fungible major league pitcher, and 20 year old RH pitcher Eddy Yean, who is rated as the Pirates 12th best prospect, and who is posting pedestrian numbers at Bradenton.



QUESTION. Does anyone miss Bell? I do not. Moran is not a good major league first baseman, but I prefer him as a place-holder at first compared to Bell. The 2 players received for Bell may quickly fade from Pirate memory, but I believe the return is indicative of Bell's real value. NH made a bad decision to hold onto Bell rather than trading him when he had that torrid 2 months' streak.



Musgrove to the Padres. Musgrove has posted some great numbers in San Diego, but his numbers have not tranlated to wins as he is only 2-4 for a really good team. For example, he has a WHIP of .91, an ERA of 2.22, and is holding opponents to a .171 batting average. Musgrove has performed better for the Pads, than the Pirates, however, he had the strongest numbers of the 3 major players that the Pirates traded.



In return, the Pirates received Bednar who has generally pitched well in the pen, and 4 players who are now in the Pirate minor league system. Endy Rodriguez, 21 yo C, has an OPS near .800 at Bradenton; Hudson Head, 20 yo OF, has a decent OBP at Bradenton, but is not showing any power; Cruz, a 22 yo LH pitcher is posting okay numbers in relief at Altoona; with Drake Fellows, a young RH pitcher the last part of the deal.



QUESTION. Musgrove has performed well for the Pads, but do you believe the Pirates made the right decision to trade him when they did, or would you have preferred that he was pitching in Pittsburgh this year when you look at the return they received?



Free Agent Losses



Archer, sadly, is again going through a major injury.



Kela, surprise, pitched in a few games, but quickly succumbed to injury.



Holland is having a mediocre year with the Tigers.



QUESTION. Is anyone willing to now argue that the right decision was to move on from each of the above players.



Continuing, this season is now shaping up to be similar to last year.

At the end of the year the Pirates may not have the worst record in the majors, but unfortunately, they likely will be in contention for this dishonor until the last weeks of the season.



The Pirates, similar to when they had Giles, Kendall (before the ankle injury), and Ramirez on the team, have 3 good players in Frazier, Hayes, and Reynolds, but not much else in the way of position players, and even less on the starting pitching front.



So, as June turns to July, who do you believe the Pirates should trade or hold onto, if anyone?



I have previously stated that I would seek to trade Frazier and Rodriguez for the best return possible, and would see if Anderson could net any value because of all the pitching injuries around baseball.



The only 2 position players at the MLB level who I clearly would not trade are Reynolds and Hayes, even though there are quite a few articles popping up about how the Pirates should deal Reynolds at what could be his peak value.



Although few if any of the starting pitchers have regularly delivered good performances, with the exception of Anderson, I generally would hold onto them. Main reasons are because someone needs to start games, none would likely bring much of a return, all of them can be controlled, and none of them are costing much.



With respect to the relievers, I would be willing to trade all with the potential exception of Bednar. I believe Stratton and Howard could have some value, and need to hope that Crick suddenly pitches well with good control for a series of games that could result in him generating some value. I doubt that any of the others could command much in the way of return.



Lastly, if a trade of Frazier, Rodriguez or even other players required the Pirates to include a less than top prospect to increase the return (essentially swapping prospects), I would consider such. I doubt it will be much of a problem next year, but at some point, when you have too many young players who need to be added to the roster while still fielding a major league team, you end up risking talent to the Rule V draft.



Anxious to see what moves BC may make by the end of July.

The other aspect of this is, "What if they didn't trade those players?" All are FAs effective 2023. Nutting doesn't pay to keep FAs and even if he did, why would any want to stay?



Trading them at some point of the 2022 season would net less in return than what they got since those players would onlybe multi-month rentals before they walked. So all were traded while the team they were dealt to could have control fpr the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Even then, we may see some or all dealt from their new team at some point next year in order to get something in return unless keeping them as FAs is probable. So it's not surprising that BC traded them.



Taillon's history of illness and injury prevented him from reaching his potential. And now he is struggling with the Yankees. Bell is not a skilled batter but has power to turn around mistake pitches. His defense is a liability. HRs are nice but the rest of his game stinks and his 10 HRs does not make him an offensive force. And his performance with the Nats is just a continuation of what he did for the Pirates. Musgrove seems to have taken his game to another level since the trade.



So in terms of the return on the trades, we can only wait and see how the prospects turn out. But NY maybe wishing they had held onto Yajure and Contreras instead of adding the ineffective Taillon to their rotation. Yean is supposed to have value as a prospect. And I doubt the Nats have been thrilled with Bell. It remains to be seen if the prospects they got for Musgrove will justify the deal. Musgrove would have been good in the rotation this year and next but would have walked after that. So they might as well get something for him. Hopefully a couple of those prospects will become assets.

First off, I don't agree with the significance.



I would rate Bell, Taillion, and Musgrove as all mid-tier players at the very most.  They certainly aren't top of many markets or toward the top of many wish lists.  That said, neither were the returns, and that makes sense. 



To the question of what would have happened in 2021 had we kept them?  A valid question/point.  We'd be better, not competitive.  We'd be less worse.



Competitive and Pirates are two words that I don't associate with one another.  Save the thread.  We'll be writing the same things, using different names.  It's BOB's way of doing business.

The Taillon trade is an interesting one from the Yankees perspective. I don't know much about their system but I know they don't tend to worry about giving up prospects. They also had to know that he would struggle potentially in his return from a second TJ surgery. So were they just really hoping he would hold his own this year and get healthy to see what they had for next year? That doesn't seem very Yankees like but who knows. Honestly I don't think he's doing that bad considering very few people come back from a second TJ.

This isn't really related to any of those trades but another prospect getting called up today and possibly starting tomorrow is Max Kranick. He's 23 and is one of those kids who could in theory be good in 2023. Looking forward to seeing how he does.

BC made 3 significant trades last off-season, and also decided to pass on the team's pending free agents. Tallion was sent to the Yankees, Musgrove to the Padres, and Bell to the Nats, and the team passed on resigning Archer, Kela, and Holland.



As this season is now rapidly approaching the end of June, I thought it may be good to do a quick check-in on the deals.



Tallion to NY. Tallion has not performed well for the Yankees, but he is a major league pitcher anmd all we got in return was some prospects/suspects who will likely not be able to cut it in the major leagues.



QUESTION: Does anyone lament the trade of Tallion for the return the Pirates received? YES, I most certainly do.



Bell to the Nats. Josh Bell was traded to the Nationals for virtually nothing. Will Crowe is a BUST and the rest of the suspects will never pan out.



QUESTION. Does anyone miss Bell? YES, I certainly do and we could use h is 10 HR's



Musgrove to the Padres. Musgrove has turned into an ace and is in contention for the Cy Young award.



In return, the Pirates received Bednar reliever and a handful of suspects who will probably never play in the major leagues.





















QUESTION. Musgrove has performed well for the Pads, but do you believe the Pirates made the right decision to trade him when they did, or would you have preferred that he was pitching in Pittsburgh this year when you look at the return they received? I would prefer that he had stayed in Pittsburgh.



Free Agent Losses



Archer, sadly, is again going through a major injury.



Kela, surprise, pitched in a few games, but quickly succumbed to injury.



Holland is having a mediocre year with the Tigers.



QUESTION. Is anyone willing to now argue that the right decision was to move on from each of the above players.



Continuing, this season is now shaping up to be similar to last year.

At the end of the year the Pirates may not have the worst record in the majors, but unfortunately, they likely will be in contention for this dishonor until the last weeks of the season.



The Pirates, similar to when they had Giles, Kendall (before the ankle injury), and Ramirez on the team, have 3 good players in Frazier, Hayes, and Reynolds, but not much else in the way of position players, and even less on the starting pitching front.



So, as June turns to July, who do you believe the Pirates should trade or hold onto, if anyone? I would hope that they hold onto all the major league ball players they have right now and add to them. We already are one of the lowest salary teams in baseball. They don't need to dump any more salary.

Shed, it’s cute that you continue to state that you want the Pirates to add major league players to the roster.  Delusional, but cute.  Nutting still owns the team, remember?