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First Pitch: Why an Andrew McCutchen Trade Shouldn’t Be a Discussion in 2016

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On a day where the Pirates could have won if Francisco Liriano would have been able to hold onto a lead, it seems appropriate to write about Liriano’s struggles and how they are a big factor in how poorly the team is playing. But I’ve written that article several times in the last week, and nothing has changed with today’s outing. It’s just another reminder that the Pirates are hurt by many factors in the rotation, and one of those factors is Liriano struggling and not performing like the pitcher he was the previous three years.

Instead, I wanted to focus on a new topic, or at least a topic I haven’t discussed. That would be the topic that was popular in the last week about Andrew McCutchen’s struggles, and the idea that the Pirates should trade him. This article isn’t going to entertain the idea of trading McCutchen right now, because that simply isn’t happening. But the entire conversation has seen a serious shift in the last year, and that’s what I wanted to address.

Prior to last season, the McCutchen extension topic was a hot subject, and I was writing First Pitch articles about why extending him would be a bad idea. In that linked article, I wrote about the same things that I wrote in every article on the subject:

**McCutchen still had several years under his current contract, and a lot could happen in those years to change the view.

**Someone like Austin Meadows could step up as a replacement.

**McCutchen might not even be performing at his current rate by the end of his deal, making an extension look foolish.

All of those things happened a lot sooner than we’d all like. Well, not so much with the Meadows breakout. He’s starting to show why the Pirates drafted him in the first round, and why he was such a highly rated draft prospect in 2013. The fact that he’s starting to realize his potential already gives the Pirates some options in the future with McCutchen, and makes it less likely that they should extend McCutchen, no matter how he’s performing. The extension to Gregory Polanco also impacts this line of thought.

I’ve seen the idea floated around about the Pirates trading Andrew McCutchen this year. This is the type of idea that usually comes up around this time of year. There aren’t any real trade rumors yet. The draft is pretty much over, and the season isn’t quite to the point where the playoff races are getting serious. The NHL and NBA seasons are over, and baseball is all that is left. It’s probably not a coincidence that this time of year is when national outlets start writing articles about trade ideas. They usually follow the same formula: Team is losing, and here is a big star that team can trade, despite the fact that the team might not even be interested in shopping the star. The national outlets write about it, then the discussion trickles down to the local level. At that point, it gets so jumbled that it comes across as an actual trade rumor. People wonder why the Pirates didn’t trade for Paul Goldschmidt or Jose Fernandez, even though those players were never actually available.

That’s what is going on with McCutchen right now. It will eventually make sense to deal McCutchen and have him replaced with Meadows. But not this year.

For one, Meadows isn’t ready yet. He’s reached that point where he’s in Triple-A and he’s a top prospect, and that combo usually results in people feeling that the player is ready for the majors because nothing can possibly be learned in Triple-A that can’t also be learned at the big league level. Neal Huntington talks about giving players a full season at the Triple-A level, and how that’s not always possible. By aggressively promoting Meadows this year, they can now give him a full season at the level, and call him up by mid-season next year if they want.

But that still leaves the issue of McCutchen in Pittsburgh, blocking Meadows. If the Pirates are contending, and if McCutchen is back to performing well, then you wouldn’t trade him away in-season and go with Meadows. The earliest it might make sense to deal McCutchen would be this off-season, while going with Meadows at the start of the 2017 season (or probably 2-3 weeks in, to get the extra year of control). This requires McCutchen improving the rest of the year to maximize his trade value, and Meadows showing he’s ready by the end of the season.

It might seem like I’m on the opposite side of where I was on the McCutchen extension situation a year ago. But the truth is, I feel like this entire topic is a tennis match, and I’m focusing on the net in the middle. Last year, the conversation was extreme on one side, focusing only on extending McCutchen, and not on the years he had remaining and why those years made a present-day extension a bad idea. This year, the conversation has gone to the other side of dealing McCutchen and calling up Meadows sooner, rather than later. But the years of control are still a factor, where there’s plenty of time for McCutchen to improve, and no rush to get Meadows up here.

One thing that helps this situation is the fact that the Pirates’ offense has been so good. Gregory Polanco ranks in the top 10 in the NL in WAR, and Starling Marte ranks 17th. Jung Ho Kang has been fantastic when you consider he has a 1.1 WAR with half the playing time as Marte (2.3 WAR). So right there, you have three guys performing like top 20 position players in the NL. And then you’ve got the production of guys off the bench like Matt Joyce and David Freese, who both have a 1.4 WAR. So McCutchen is struggling, but it isn’t hurting the Pirates nearly as much as the struggles from Liriano.

Still, you hope McCutchen can get back on track. That’s for the obvious reason of helping the Pirates. But also, if the Pirates are going to eventually trade him and replace him with Meadows, then they’ll get a bigger impact if he’s playing like the normal Andrew McCutchen, rather than the version we’ve seen this year.

**Francisco Liriano Continues His Control Problems in Pirates’ 5-4 Loss. Alan Saunders recaps the latest struggles from Liriano.

**Prospect Watch: Glasnow, Holmes and Keller All Scheduled Tonight. Live reports from Indianapolis (Glasnow), Bradenton (Buddy Borden debut), and West Virginia (Keller).

**Pirates Sign Buddy Borden. He was drafted by them in 2013, then traded prior to last season for Sean Rodriguez.

**Pirates Sign 11th Round Pick Max Kranick. A good sign here, and it would be even better if Nick Lodolo signs, as that would get all four top prep pitchers from the Pirates’ draft class.

**Top Performers: Bell, Glasnow, Holmes, Tarpley, Waddell and Garcia Lead Last Week’s Best. Our reports on the best players from the last week.

**Hurdle Not Upset by Andrew McCutchen’s First Career Ejection. Alan Saunders looks at McCutchen’s ejection from Sunday night.

**Neal Huntington on Josh Bell, Chad Kuhl, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows. A prospect notebook, with a lot of quotes from Huntington on the top guys in the system.

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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