Pittsburgh Pirates: Does a Nathan Eovaldi trade make sense?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have reportedly discussed Nathan Eovaldi with the New York Yankees. Should those talks go any further?

Only 2.5 games behind in the race for the second NL Wild Card, conventional wisdom says the Pittsburgh Pirates will add before the trade deadline. One area they are reportedly looking to address is the starting rotation. Not only are they trying to unload veteran Jon Niese, but they are also aiming to bring in an arm to improve their staff. The latest candidate: New York Yankees right-hander Nathan Eovaldi.

Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the Bucs have discussed a possible trade for Eovaldi with the Yankees.

Eovaldi’s tenure in pinstripes has been a true up-and-down affair, as anyone who has watched him can attest. He got off to a rocky start last year, owning a 5.12 ERA on June 16. Something appeared to click at that point, and Eovaldi turned into arguably the Yanks’ most reliable starter. In his next 14 outings he put up a 3.43 ERA, finishing the year with a sterling 14-3 record (his .843 winning percentage was tops in the AL). Unfortunately, an injury wiped out virtually all of his September.

Eovaldi once again struggled out of the gate in 2016, but he quickly seemed to hit his stride. From April 20 to May 29, he posted a 2.94 ERA over 49 innings. On April 25, he carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Texas Rangers. He spun eight frames of two-run ball opposite the Boston Red Sox on May 7. Across three straight outings between May 18 and 29, he allowed only two runs in 18 innings.

The hard-throwing righty was finally turning in the dominant performances that the Yankees envisioned when they traded for him from the Marlins in December 2014.

The wheels started falling off in June, unfortunately. In six starts from June 3 through July 1, Eovaldi served up 31 earned runs in 30.1 innings for a ghastly 9.20 ERA. Opponents hit a hearty .344 against him in that span. The results were concerning enough that the Yanks moved him to the bullpen to straighten himself out.

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So is this a good time for the Pirates to buy low on a talented but scuffling pitcher? The attraction to Eovaldi has always been his velocity. His fastball averages 97 mph and regularly breaks the 100 mph threshold. Yet for all his “stuff” he always seems to have trouble putting hitters away. He is a clear case in which the whole seems to be less than the sum of its parts.

As Biertempfel notes, one of the main problems for Eovaldi this year has been an increased tendency to give up the long ball. His HR/FB (home run to fly ball) ratio has skyrocketed to 20.4 percent in 2016, up from 7.8 percent last year. For all his bluster, he has also never been much of a strikeout guy, fanning 7.4 per nine innings this season and 6.6 K/9 for his career.

The Pirates have had success with pitching reclamation projects before, including one they acquired from the Yankees in A.J. Burnett. After managing a 5.15 ERA for the Bronx Bombers 2011, Burnett rebounded with a 3.41 ERA over the following two seasons in Pittsburgh. A change of scenery could be good for Eovaldi, especially one away from a home run haven like Yankee Stadium.

However, Biertempfel speculates that the Bucs might have to give up an appealing piece like right-hander Chad Kuhl to bring in Eovaldi. Kuhl is currently the 16th-ranked Pirates prospect by MLB Pipeline. Given Eovaldi’s relative youth (26 years old) and contract status (arbitration eligible for 2017, free agent for 2018), the Yanks likely aren’t going to just give him away.

He would certainly be a roll of the dice, but Eovaldi could be a decent stopgap starter for the Pirates so they don’t have to lean too heavily on top prospects Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow the rest of the way and into next season. He could even work out of the bullpen if necessary, a role in which he’s shown an early aptitude this year (7.2 scoreless innings since being moved to the pen).

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But does Eovaldi figure to make the Pittsburgh rotation immediately better for the stretch run? That’s a hard sell. It would probably be a better move to explore the availability of some other, more attractive arms first. As far as the Yankees are concerned, it would also make more sense to hope Eovaldi improves his stock by next year’s deadline rather than trade him while his value is at its nadir.

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