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Huntington on the Impact the Pitching Prospects Will Have on the Trade Deadline

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PITTSBURGH – The MLB trade deadline is a week away, and the Pirates will have some interesting decisions to make. Their biggest need right now is pitching. Their biggest strength, from a prospect standpoint, is pitching. Even after seeing two pitching prospects go down with injuries this weekend, they still have a few other prospects who could step up and fill the void at the Major League level.

The Pirates could make a trade to fill their pitching needs, but they probably aren’t going to be willing to give up what it takes to get a huge upgrade to the rotation. This isn’t a team that is focused on going all-in during the current season, but focused on contending this year, and for as many years to come as possible.

“We are an organization that want to remain competitive and play meaningful baseball in September and playoff baseball in October as frequently and consistently as we can,” Pirates’ General Manager Neal Huntington said to the media on Sunday at PNC Park. “There are some teams that believe in a window and say ‘we’re going to put all of our eggs in a three-year basket.’ We are not of that mindset. As a result, we will continue to make sometimes unpopular decisions, sometimes hard decisions, to put ourselves in position to play playoff baseball as frequently and consistently as we can because our belief is if we get there more often, we have a better chance to win more often than taking one shot at it and then going into a negative cycle for a number of years to get one shot back out of it again. We’d rather remain consistently good. We recognize the challenges that go along with that.”

Huntington noted that their biggest impact could be improvements from their own guys. They’ve seen Francisco Liriano struggle. Gerrit Cole is finally back and healthy. Jared Hughes and Arquimedes Caminero have struggled this year, after having success in the past. The offense hasn’t really struggled as a whole, but Andrew McCutchen has slumped all year, and Jung Ho Kang has slumped for the last month. And yet the Pirates are still contending, even with all of this going on.

“You look at the trade market, and there’s zero acquisition cost for any of [the players currently on the roster], and they would bring as big of an impact as anyone we could get on the external market,” Huntington said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t look at the external market. It doesn’t mean we sit here and we have a comfort. But it sets the bar at a different level than having three or four holes on the club that you have to fill. We were in a different point a couple of years ago when we got Marlon Byrd. [We dealt] Dilson Herrera, a significant prospect for one month of Marlon Byrd. We felt that Marlon Byrd would really help us make a push forward. We had a much more established need.”

Huntington noted that the need is there for pitching, but the prospects available to them are much better quality than the prospects in 2013, when Gregory Polanco wasn’t ready yet.

If the Pirates did go with prospects, that would bring up the issue of going with a prospect loaded rotation in a playoff race.

“Some teams have had a lot of success with rookie pitchers,” Huntington said. “Gerrit Cole was very good for us in 2013. Michael Wacha was very good for St. Louis in 2013. As a team, we’ve had some success with young pitchers. If they get enough experience, they’re not rookies by the postseason. If they have stuff, if they have discipline, if they have the ability to control their emotions, sometimes they can have that more than the veteran guys that has been around for 8 to 10 years but hasn’t been [to the playoffs] before or has struggled in the past.”

Huntington mentioned that they would look at each situation, but it sounds like the prospects are shaping their approach to the trade deadline, which isn’t much different from their approach during the off-season (except now they know which prospects are ready).

“Would we like to add some pitching to this group? Absolutely,” Huntington said. “At the same time, because of the young pitching that we have, that bar is set pretty high for what in our minds makes us better and allows us to take a long look at the acquisition cost and what that individual market is to acquire a player or players and allows us to remain patient because of the quality of the arms and quality of the layers that we have.”

If the Pirates did trade prospects, they’d definitely have the guys to make a deal, even if they wanted to go for a massive addition and pay a big future price. There are some prospects they could move, without hurting them in the short-term or long-term. However, that doesn’t mean that Huntington has a list of prospects he can trade.

“We typically like to have the other teams ask about the players that they like as far as trying to shoot in the dark,” Huntington said. “There are some teams that will ask and there are some teams that want offers. We’re perfectly comfortable operating in either function. There are players are for a variety of reasons, we’re less inclined to move than others. That doesn’t mean that in the right situation … We have to be open to anything, but there’s an awareness of the opportunity cost and the acquisition cost in all factors. As we intend to put ourselves in position to be a really good baseball team for as many years as we can.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pirates add in the next week, just because it’s typically not in Huntington’s nature to go without some sort of addition down the stretch. But I would be surprised if they made a big splash and traded key pieces of the future, as that hasn’t been a move they’ve made in the past, and it doesn’t seem like this would be the year for that type of move. I think we’re more likely to see a deadline like last year, where they don’t give up anyone they’d miss in the long-term, while bringing in some underrated acquisitions that could really provide a strong boost down the stretch.

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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