Just how much does the trade deadline help the Pirates?

With the exception of October, the non-waiver trade deadline is the best part of the MLB season. Every team is somehow involved, whether they are buying, selling or just rumored to do one of the two, if not both. There is hardly a boring day from the All-Star break to July 31.

 

I’ve already done a couple stories for TPOP on what should happen between now and the first of the dog days of August. I wrote a couple weeks ago that if the Pirates decide to buy, they should buy undervalued hitters in this saturated market. A few names I mention are now outdated, but the idea still stands. Who wants Melky Cabrera? Nobody? Good. Pick him up for zilch.

 

Yesterday, I took the other route and wrote about who on the team could and ?should ? be traded; if the price is right, of course. I suggested the Pirates should do what they did last year: trade some rental veterans for guys they feel can help now and have years of team control remaining. Think Melancon-for-Rivero, which has become a once in a decade trade for this team. Take advantage of the best of both worlds: build a better offense by trading away slumping relievers. In theory, it shouldn ?t work, but theories and logic take a back seat this time of year.

 

It ?s supposed to be the time of year where fringe teams become contenders and contenders become front runners. But the dirty little secret about the trade deadline is it’s usually overrated. Midseason trades don’t usually make a middling team a contender. Four months in, the Pirates have been a middling team.

 

History is against them, too. Travis Sawchik wrote a fantastic article for the Trib on this topic last season. In it, he pointed out that across baseball, only five players acquired from 2013-2015 were worth 2+ WAR with their new club. No player that changed teams last year was worth that many wins.

 

Now that obviously does not count any postseason performances, but an extra win a month is a reasonable expectation for ?the guy. ? The guy to complete the team. To turn you into a World Series threat. To take you to the land of milk and honey and champagne showers.

 

J.A. Happ is Neal Huntington ?s best midseason trade, being worth 2.1 fWAR. No new Pirate has been worth more the year they were acquired. If you take all the players they acquired in a certain season, no new Pirate trade class has been worth as much, either.

 

 

Ivan Nova is the only other player to be worth a win by himself since they started becoming buyers in 2011. They have brought in 18 players during that stretch. Eight have been worth 0.1 fWAR or less.

 

 

Granted, Huntington did not surrender a prospect higher ranked than his eighth best (2012, Robbie Grossman for Wandy Rodriguez), but the trade deadline has not been a great return on investment for the Bucs. Trading away better prospects is not necessarily the answer, either.

 

Hopefully you know about Kevin and Steve ?s work to find the surplus value of prospects. Minor leaguers are always a gamble, but their method is the best out there for finding out the true ?value ? of a prospect.

 

One fWAR is currently valued at $8 million on the open market. Happ ?s contributions are one of the five best in baseball over the last four years- roughly $16.8 million. One of the Pirates ? top prospects is Ke ?Bryan Hayes. Using their model, he was projected to be worth $20 million at the start of this season.

 

Starting pitching is going to be incredibly overpriced for the second year in a row. Plenty of reclamation projects like Happ probably are going to cost at least a good level prospect, like Hayes. If the Pirates had traded preseason 2017 Hayes for 2015 Happ, they would probably end up on the short end in terms of value. Neither one is a guarantee, but the high upside kid seems like the safer bet than the 30-something struggling starter.

 

Someone is going to use the phrase ?hit the lottery ? for a trade this season. They ?re right, it is a lottery. Do you take the cash upfront or the annuity plan ?

 

So far, Huntington has opted for annuity. He has not let go of a prospect that the fanbase regrets (besides Bautista, but that hardly counts because he was a non-prospect when he was shipped out of town). That may change depending on how Jacoby Jones and Dilson Herrera develop, but neither one looks like a potential future All-Star at the moment.

 

The 2017 Pirates are a better team because Huntington kept Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon, Gregory Polanco and others around. The future teams look solid too, thanks to him trusting his farm system and not trading away top minor leaguers in hopes of finding that hard to find two-win player.

 

Now would be an ideal time to mention the 2014 and 2015 Pirates lost the division by two games. Those last two wins are a doozy, and it ?s why sellers make out like bandits come July. It doesn ?t matter that there have only been five players traded who were worth those two wins the past four seasons. The mere concept of them being out there is enough to fund a borderline self-destructive annual kluge.

 

Which brings us to 2017. The Pirates are three games back of first place and two games behind the defending champs. The Cubbies have already made their big move. They went straight into the belly of the beast of the pitching market and grabbed the best starter available.

 

It ?s time for the Pirates to decide what they want to do. Do the same to grab the reliever or two they need, or if they should focus elsewhere, like third base? Sell some while buying? It’s up in the air, and how this roadtrip goes will likely determine their path.

 

Just don ?t expect more than a couple wins out of whatever they do.