With less than an hour to go before the deadline, the Pittsburgh Pirates are pursuing Matt Moore, according to Ken Rosenthal.
Sources: #Pirates pursuing #Rays’ Moore, as are #SFGiants and possibly #Dodgers and others.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016
This isn’t the first time Moore has been linked to the Pirates, as they’ve been pretty active on all of the Rays’ starting pitchers, including today. Obviously, other teams are in the hunt for Moore, and the Rays have a pretty high asking price, as you’d expect in this market.
The #SFGiants and #Rays continue their dialogue over Matt Moore. But at last check, Tampa was asking for two top prospects in return.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) August 1, 2016
Less than 2 hrs to deadline, #Rays still not hearing anything close to liking to move SP. Not even hearing acceptable offers yet for Pearce
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) August 1, 2016
Moore is a lefty who is under team control through the 2019 season at a reasonable rate. He’s owed the remainder of his $5 M salary this year, and has team options in 2017-19 for $7 M, $9 M, and $10 M, respectively. He has dealt with injury issues, and hasn’t lived up to his former top prospect status, with a 3.88 ERA in his career, and a 4.43 xFIP, including 4.08/4.67 this year. He also doesn’t fully fit the Pirates’ traditional model for pitchers, as he has a 36.4% ground ball rate, which is well on the low side.
Moore does have a lot of talent, and is only 27 years old. But he doesn’t seem like the type of pitcher you’d give up two top prospects for. Jon Heyman says that they aren’t too involved in Moore, and he seems more likely for the west coast.
matt moore battle could be on the west coast. giants and dodgers perhaps? not hearing pirates too involved there.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 1, 2016
Stephen Nesbit says that the Rays have been active scouting the Pirates’ farm system, and that makes sense, as the Pirates have scouted every Rays pitcher along the way. So we’ll see how this all plays out with half an hour to go.
Source says Rays have been scouting Pirates farm system at length this month. Two Rays scouts were at Altoona’s game last night in Trenton.
— Stephen J. Nesbitt (@stephenjnesbitt) August 1, 2016