Pittsburgh Pirates: Making Sense of their Trade Deadline Approach

The Pittsburgh Pirates were both buyers and sellers at the trade deadline. In a last-minute deal, Pittsburgh struck a trade with the Yankees for Ivan Nova, but also shipped off two pitchers in Francisco Liriano and Jon Niese right at the 4 p.m. deadline.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were in an interesting spot heading into the trade deadline. They sat a few games behind the leaders in the wild card and didn’t have a shot at the division lead for another year with the way the Cubs have played this season. Pittsburgh had lost in the Wild Card game each of the past two seasons and it wasn’t looking like the team would even get there this year unless they made major upgrades to their rotation.

Instead of being traditional buyers, the Pirates added and subtracted starting pitchers with an eye toward having increased salary flexibility heading into the offseason. However, while their approach is well-founded, some of their decisions were questionable at best.

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A couple of days prior to deadline day, the Pirates signaled that they would not be going all-in this season, trading Mark Melancon to the NL East leading Washington Nationals. This move allowed Pittsburgh to shed some salary this season and next, as they wouldn’t have to pay their former closer high money in arbitration. Pittsburgh was also able to land a couple of middle-tier prospects for their farm system.

This trade makes sense because it has worked for the franchise before. Joel Hanrahan was the team’s closer in 2012, while Jason Grilli worked the 8th inning. After 2012, the Pirates opted to trade Hanrahan to the Red Sox because he was too expensive. This move allowed Grilli to have an All Star 2013 season as a closer.

Then the next year, Melancon became the club’s go to guy in the ninth when they traded Grilli during the season. This move worked out well for the Pirates too, as Melancon turned into one of the best closers in the National League. Now, in a similar fashion, set up man Tony Watson will inherit the closing duties at much less of a price. This is a clear formula that Pittsburgh works under when dealing with late inning relievers. The team obviously can’t spend with the likes of the higher revenue ballclubs, so they are forced to make crafty moves like this to stay in contention.

However, while the Pirates operated under this same principle today, the moves they made came off as a cheap instead of crafty. It was rumored throughout the day even though the club moved on from their All Star closer, the team would still be looking to add starting pitching before the deadline. There was talk that Pittsburgh was shooting as high as Matt Moore, which made what actually transpired a bit of a head scratcher.

Within the final hour of the deadline, the Pittsburgh Pirates added potentially two new starting pitchers, while shipping off two guys who began the year in their starting rotation. Pittsburgh added struggling Yankees starter Ivan Nova, who is a free agent at the end of the year, and shipped off Jon Niese to the Mets for middle reliever Antonio Bastardo. Niese was just demoted from the rotation to the bullpen.

This seemed like a good switch because Nova had been pitching better of late and the prospects were players to be named later, which probably means they are lower-tier prospects. Niese had been struggling all season as a starter, so this was a classic low risk-high reward move that the Pirates have made famous over the past couple years. However, their final trade is what brings most of the questions.

Thirty minutes had passed since the deadline, when it was reported that the Pirates traded Francisco Liriano and a couple of prospects to Toronto for Drew Hutchinson. This wouldn’t have been questionable if these were more depth minor leaguers, but the Pirates decided to include prospects Harold Ramirez and Reese McGuire, who as the club’s 2013 first round pick. Both of these hitters were far from minor league depth as each were considered top ten prospects in the Pittsburgh farm system, according to mlb.com.

The inclusion of McGuire and Ramirez is confusing as it seems that the deal was mainly a swap of struggling starting pitchers between two contending teams. So why did the Pirates decide to part with a couple of their better young players?

Clearly, Neal Huntington did not want to pay Liriano $13 million he was set to earn in 2017, especially with how mightily the left-hander has struggled this season. This is understandable considering that the team needs to operate in a little more frugal fashion. But just giving away two of your system’s better prospects should frankly be tough to swallow if you are a Pirates fan. Not only is your team showing the lengths they would go to cut payroll, but the front office is also weakening the farm system at the expense of money.

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On its own, trading for an impending free agent in Ivan Nova and shedding the Liriano contract is good in both the short and long-term. But the Pittsburgh Pirates should have walked away from talks when Toronto asked for these caliber of prospects to complete the deal. Liriano had been a quality starting pitcher for the team the past three seasons and is only under contract for one more season. It shouldn’t have taken two top ten players in your farm system for this deal to be completed. Also, Drew Hutchinson was currently pitching in Triple-A and had struggled in his couple of seasons in the majors. So the Pirates aren’t even getting anything of value in return besides salary relief.

It’s tough to envision Pittsburgh seriously contending with some of the moves other National League playoff contenders made. The good news is that the Pirates have cleared the way for their promising core of young starting pitchers in Tyler Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault. However, these players aren’t ready to carry the Pirates to the postseason right now.

The sentiment of financial flexibility through smart decision-making is what has made Pittsburgh contenders over the past few seasons. Their trade deadline moves were of the correct sentiment, but the Liriano trade was a rare mistake from a front office that has seemingly always made the right move.

Next: Biggest winners of the trade deadline

What do you think of the Pittsburgh Pirates activity at the trade deadline? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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