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First Pitch: The Small Market Advantage

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There are a lot of moves you can point to that led to the Pirates being so competitive over the last few years. Several of those moves involved getting a lot of value from bounce back candidates, or guys who had skills that were undervalued. In the last week I was reviewing two of those value moves, both of which involved trades with big market teams. In that process, I noticed a similar trend.

I probably shouldn’t say that I “noticed” it, because this is something I’ve noticed before. Instead, I started thinking a bit deeper about what worked when the Pirates brought in Mark Melancon and Francisco Cervelli from the Red Sox and Yankees, respectively.

In each of those moves, the Pirates appeared to pull one over on their big market counterparts. They traded Joel Hanrahan and Brock Holt to the Red Sox in exchange for Mark Melancon, Stolmy Pimentel, Jerry Sands, and Ivan De Jesus. In the other trade, they dealt Justin Wilson to the Yankees for Francisco Cervelli, and this came one year after sending minor league right-hander Kyle Haynes to the Yankees for Chris Stewart.

The Melancon deal looks a bit more even than it did two years ago, mostly because of the emergence of Brock Holt as a strong super utility player, and the promise of Stolmy Pimentel wearing off. Still, the Pirates got a guy who has quietly been one of the best relievers in baseball for the last three years. They also shed Hanrahan’s salary, which allowed them to go on and sign Francisco Liriano and Russell Martin that same 2013 off-season.

The Pirates added Melancon to be their set-up man initially, backing up Jason Grilli. As we know, the move worked out perfectly in 2013, and in 2014 they saw Melancon take over as the closer by mid-season. But it’s not like Boston didn’t have the same plans. The Red Sox traded for Melancon prior to the 2012 season — sending out Jed Lowrie in the process — with the intent of having him as their setup man. It didn’t work out, and despite signs that he could bounce back the following year, they sold low on him, packaging him for Hanrahan.

The situation with the Yankees was very similar. When New York saw Russell Martin walk as a free agent in 2013, they decided to go with a catching combination of Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart. In fact, the Yankees seemed very set on that combo, considering they didn’t go above a reported two years and $12 M to try and “re-sign Russ.” Two years later, the Pirates took the exact same approach, opting for a combo of Cervelli and Stewart, rather than bringing back Martin (who was commanding a lot more money this time around).

As we know, the move worked out well for the Pirates. But why did the same approach not work for the Yankees? The 2013 answer is simple — Cervelli went down with a hand injury early in the season, and despite good numbers in a small sample size, that ruined the plans to see what the two cheaper catchers could do. As for 2014, the Yankees signed Brian McCann, forcing them to trade Stewart away, and forcing them to put Cervelli in a backup role. That role led to his eventual deal after the 2014 season.

In reviewing these deals, I wondered why both big market teams gave up on such promising players so quickly. The Red Sox thought enough of Melancon to deal a talented young infielder in Lowrie, plus a promising pitching prospect. A year later, despite signs that he’d bounce back, they traded him for a “proven closer” who had some signs that he was starting on the decline.

The Yankees thought enough of Cervelli that they were willing to let Martin walk over $5 M spread across two years. Cervelli had good numbers in his small sample size, which can’t really be relied on going forward, but shouldn’t do anything to make an organization down on him — especially an organization that was so high on him heading into the year. Instead, they moved on from him, and replaced him with a high price catcher that ended up costing $68 M more than Martin in guaranteed money (and more than double the four-year, $40 M asking price Martin had at the start of the 2012-13 off-season).

In each case, the team was very high on the player one year, then very low on them the next year, despite signs that they shouldn’t have had a drastic change in their evaluations. The Pirates ended up benefitting from the drop in value, even though their plan was similar to what the Yankees and Red Sox did just a year or two earlier. Granted, there are other factors at play here. The Pirates kept Cervelli fresh and healthy, and they made adjustments with Melancon to get him back on track. But the point is that the Yankees and Red Sox couldn’t even be bothered to try these things, instead spending a lot more money and sending these players away to get proven options.

My belief here is that the Red Sox and Yankees are limited on these types of moves due to their market size and payroll. The Yankees can afford to go out and sign a Brian McCann, and they can even sign a replacement if McCann doesn’t work out. The Red Sox can trade for Andrew Bailey, then trade for Joel Hanrahan the following season when Bailey doesn’t work out. That’s the big market way, and when you can spend that money with a lot of room for error, it’s hard to justify going with a high risk, high reward option that comes with a lot of apparent uncertainty.

Meanwhile, the Pirates and other small market teams can’t afford to miss on many contracts, unless they want to be rebuilding again in a few years. The Pirates could have afforded Hanrahan. They could have afforded Martin. But it’s doubtful that they can afford Hanrahan plus Francisco Liriano and Martin. And it’s doubtful that they can afford Martin plus Liriano, A.J. Burnett, and Jung-ho Kang. They can spend money, but they’re going to need value moves somewhere, along with home-grown talent.

There is definitely an advantage when it comes to being a big market team, and most of that advantage involves a large margin for error, and access to any player you want to acquire. But in turn, there’s an advantage for small market teams, in that they can be aggressive when trying to find value moves. In each of these cases, the Pirates saw a talented player, much like the Red Sox and Yankees saw talented players. The difference was that the Pirates were able to go with those guys, despite low values, while the Red Sox and Yankees had to quickly move on from each player when the moves didn’t initially work out and the values for the players dropped.

**Site Updates: Site Navigation, Search, App Update, Subscriber Events. The latest site updates. A few changes tonight, as the Twitter feed has been added to the right sidebar, and a lot of progress was made on the Prospect Guide this afternoon. By tomorrow we’ll have the first of many drafts of the top 50 prospect list, and I might have an article with a few notes from that process tomorrow evening.

**Pirates Claim Jorge Rondon Off Waivers From Orioles. Late move tonight as the Pirates add a reliever on waivers. Looks like a strong arm with a nice slider, and definitely a project for one of the final bullpen spots.

**Pirates Acquire RHP Trevor Williams From the Marlins. In case you missed it over the weekend, the Pirates added a new right-handed pitching prospect. Link includes the details of the trade, with profiles on Williams and Richard Mitchell, who was traded away.

**AFL: Trevor Williams Looks Good in First Outing With Pirates. Williams made his first AFL start tonight since being traded to the Pirates.

**Marlins Hire Jim Benedict As New VP of Pitching. The other big news from the weekend was that Jim Benedict was hired by the Marlins.

**How Can the Pirates Replace Jim Benedict’s Impact When Developing Pitchers? I broke down what that means for the future of the organization, and how the Pirates can replace Benedict’s impact, looking at three specific coaches who could see their roles increased.

**Pirates Reportedly Had Informal Discussions With Ben Cherington. This didn’t pan out, as Cherington accepted a position with Columbia University.

**Winter Leagues: Heredia Picks Up Extra Work, Munoz Homers. Carlos Munoz is having a great winter so far, following up on a great season. I’d expect to see him in West Virginia next year.

**Snider and Ishikawa Elect Free Agency, Guerra Sent Outright to Indianapolis. Some transactions from the weekend to clear up 40-man space. The 40-man roster page has been updated with all of the moves.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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