Pittsburgh Pirates: Trade Deadline Report Card

Drew Hutchison

And now we go from boring to stupid. It started out just fine. It looked like the Pirates were unloading Francisco Liriano and his big  contract to the Toronto Blue Jays. Then we found out that the Bucs were acquiring Drew Hutchison. Okay, not an impressive get, but still a win for the Pirates. Then we found out that the Pirates were unloading their #5 prospect in outfielder Harold Ramirez. Ok, a bit of an overpay, but Ramirez had a blocked path to Pittsburgh. Then we found out that, along with Ramirez, the Pirates were including prized catching prospect Reese McGuire. Oh dear.

Losing Ramirez and McGuire doesn’t affect much as far as the future of the franchise goes. Ramirez is a talented outfield prospect who is in the worst place in the world to be for a talented outfield prospect, so he wasn’t going to get a fair shake. McGuire had more of a chance than Ramirez did, but a combination of poor progress as a professional hitter, as well as the promise of Elias Diaz, there’s a good chance that Reese was never going to be in the fold either.

So when you break things down that way, they make a little more sense. But, no matter how you slice it, trading away two of your top 10 prospects for a pitcher who has failed to live up to expectations is stupid. It must be said that this trade deadline period wasn’t a great time to go get a starting pitcher, as the Baltimore Orioles proved when they got the underwhelming Wade Miley, in spite of needing starting pitching almost as badly as the Pirates do. However, you’ve got to think that the ransom the Pirates gave Toronto for Hutchison would have netted them either Matt Moore or Jake Odorizzi from the Rays, or Nathan Evoldi from the Yankees. As I have said many times over the past 24 hours: Drew Hutchison. Bloody hell.

Trade Grade: D

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