Pittsburgh Pirates Trade Rumors: What About Ryan Dempster?

With three weeks to go, the sellers are in the driver’s seat in the Major League Baseball trade market.  So, Neal Huntington… you wanna make a deal?  Give us Gerrit Cole and Starling Marte, they say.

It’s no secret the first place Pittsburgh Pirates are working hard to inquire on players that could help improve the ballclub.  The Pirates are a sparkling eleven games over 500, but rightfully want to add to their success.

The offense has been hot lately, but the team was getting nearly no production from left field until #DREWSUTTON arrived. Shortstop and first base are also question marks.

Take a look at the starting rotation, and it’s easy to spot weaknesses as well.

It’s been written that pitchers like Zack Greinke and Cole Hamels are pitchers that could help a team like the Buccos.  But both of those pitchers have a serious asking price – and some things that we just don’t care to see in Pittsburgh.   Cole Hamels appeals to us more than Greinke, so we tried to find out just what the Phillies were thinking in return for a half season of their left hander.

We got word the Phillies want two of the Pirates best prospects, Gerrit Cole and Starling Marte.

After we stopped laughing, we quickly let our mind drift to one of the best performers in all of baseball this season.  It’s Ryan Dempster.  The Cubs right hander has given the team permission to shop him.

He was on the DL, but apparently wants out of Chicago so badly, that he bugged skipper Dale Sveum for a chance to get a start before the All-Star break.  All he did was stretch is scoreless innings streak to 27.

In case you didn’t notice, Dempster is sporting a 1.99 ERA for his beloved Cubs. It’s insane.  He trails only Dirtbag Jered Weaver by point-zero- three percentage points.

Worried about the financial impact?   It’s not your money, but we see your point.  He is making $14 million this season and is a free agent at the conclusion of the season.  He seems to be saving his best season just in time to get another big contract.

Worried about the clubhouse impact?  Sean Casey called Dempster the best teammate he ever had.  That’s a lofty compliment.

What we worry about with Dempster is despite the outstanding ERA, his strikeouts per nine innings have been dropping by the month.  He went from 10.2 per nine innings in April down to a respectable 7.2 in May.  But the big drop came in June, when he posted just 4.9 punchouts per nine innings.

Let’s say his back is all healed up.  The balls in play numbers and strand rate are bound to regress.  It’s a bit scary.  But we could say that about quite a few of the Pirates starters.

So, if a good clubhouse guy is your thing, you might want to be rooting for Ryan Dempster to regress in the next three weeks.  We’re not sure how well Neal Huntington and the Super Genius, Theo Epstein, in Chicago work together, but Dempster is likely to bring two prospects in return.

But no way will they be the caliber of Marte and Cole.    Someone in the Pirates top 5-10, with another prospect tossed in, gets Dempster to town along with some cash from the Cubs we think.