Pittsburgh Pirates: Five Trade Fits for Francisco Cervelli
By Jason Evans
The Pittsburgh Pirates have thrown Francisco Cervelli into a crowded catcher market. Where could they trade him?
This off-season has been very interesting in terms of the catcher market. Brian McCann, Jeff Mathis and Kurt Suzuki have already signed as free agents. Yasmani Grandal and Wilson Ramos are available as free agents. The Pittsburgh Pirates are throwing their catcher Francisco Cervelli out there too as a trade target.
An already-crowded catching market is growing even more saturated, as the Toronto Blue Jays have discussed trading Russell Martin and the Pittsburgh Pirates are open to dealing Francisco Cervelli, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Both are drawing interest from a number of teams.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 29, 2018
Cervelli is due $11.5 million next season, so he’s not crazy expensive for a team trying to upgrade their catching position. He’s also coming off his best offensive season since coming to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015. Cervelli posted a .259 average with a career high .809 OPS. He also posted a career high 12 homers and drove in a career high 57 runs.
Defensively, he’s graded out as a below average framer per Baseball prospectus over the past two seasons per Baseball Prospectus. However, he’s able to shut down the running game, throwing out 39% of basestealers last season.
The Pittsburgh Pirates can cash Cervelli in and elevate Elias Diaz to the starting catcher position, after an impressive 82 games in his age 27 season. They are a budget conscious team, so having a starting catcher making the league minimum instead of $11 million and try and use Cervelli to plug another hole or two on the roster makes a lot of sense.
With no shortage of catchers in the marketplace, and teams looking to upgrade their catching position. Where could the Pittsburgh Pirates deal Cervelli to, in order to cash in this asset? Let’s take a look at five possible trade fits.