Will The Price Be Right This Offseason for Pirates?

If you believe everything you hear, the Pittsburgh Pirates are interested in the possibility of trading for left-handed pitcher David Price .  It makes a lot of sense.  The Pirates have a loaded farm system.  David Price is a good pitcher, he’s left-handed and has been one of the best arms in the American League for a couple years.  It’s sick to imagine just how much Price could improve the Pirates chances in the National League in 2014.

But at what cost?  The names being thrown around are crazy.  You know how this works.  The Rays unload players like Price, stockpile the talent that comes in return and wait for that talent to mature and start the cycle over once again.

It’s a winning formula for Tampa.

It’s also a formula that the Pirates might one day emulate if the state of Major League Baseball remains the same.  But acquiring Price is a gamble that I wouldn’t take right now.

A more interesting move, a more affordable move, would have been to been in on Doug Fister .  The right-hander who was in the top ten in numberous catergories over the past couple years was traded to the Nationals yesterday.

If you want to cry, watch these seven GIFs of Fister doing work against the Red Sox.

The bottom line is this.  Fister is one of the best pitchers in baseball.  The right-hander is a groundball inducing machine that could have had even better numbers playing in front of a real defense.  It appears that acquiring Fister could have done by the Bucs without giving up some of the most talented players in their system which is what a deal for Price is going to do.  The ask on the southpaw who teamed with Pedro Alvarez at Vanderbilt is just insane.

The Bucs have to trust the upper level talent in their system not only matures and are ready to play at the big league level, but the best Bucs prospects need to produce.  The team has seen immediate impact from players like Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Starling Marte and some players took a little while like Pedro Alvarez.  Gerrit Cole was a hammer.  Justin Wilson pitched quite well in 2013 too.

The Pirates are building something special.  In order to acquire Price, whose velocity was down this year, the Pirates are going to need to dig deep, really deep, into one of their major strengths.

So let me break this down:

The Pirates are interested in David Price.

I am interested in beers, fast cars and knowing if the Pirates were in on the Doug Fister trade.  Since it seems highly unlikely the Bucs grab Price, and they missed on Fister, what do the Bucs do if A.J. Burnett does hang up the spikes?

One answer may lie internally.  With the Pirates keeping a close eye on their bottom line, why not see what Justin Wilson could do as a starter?   If the Bucs were in on the Fister conversations, it seems likely that Wilson would have been one of the players the Tigers would have wanted.  Maybe the Pirates didn’t land Fister because they want to give more opportunity to Wilson?

It’s a deep thought, but what the hell else do I have to do until Spring Training starts.  Go Bucs.