Friday afternoon Gerrit Cole rumors and reports

Speculation continues to swirl around the Pittsburgh Pirates potentially trading their ace Gerrit Cole to the New York Yankees.

Will Gerrit Cole be a Pittsburgh Pirates in 2018? Will he be a New York Yankee? Or, perhaps, will be on a team that is neither the Bucs nor Bombers.

Well, we may be getting closer to finding out an answer to these questions.

Ever since last week’s Winter Meetings there has been countless reports and rumors that the Pittsburgh Pirates are discussing a trade with the New York Yankees that involves their ace – right-handed starting pitcher Gerrit Cole. After things quieted down on the Cole front for a few days, rumor and speculation has begun to ramp up again over the course of the past 15 hours or so.

Last night, Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reported that the Yankees and Pirates were progressing toward a Gerrit Cole trade. You can read more about that here.

Then this morning and into this afternoon there have been multiple reports surrounding Cole, the Pirates, and the Yankees.

This morning, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported that talks between the Pirates and Yankees were not progressing well.

Heyman reported, as many others have, that the Pirates and Yankees were struggling to meet on a package that both sides agree on.

However, shortly after Heyman’s Tweet MLB Network Radio’s Jim Bowden reported that the Pirates and Yankees were getting close to a trade.

One thing that has been obvious in trade talks between the two sides is that the Pirates want the Yankees to include Gleyber Torres in any trade involving Cole. The Yankees, however, do not want to move arguably the top prospect in baseball and would prefer to build a package around players such as Clint Frazier, Miguel Andujar, and/or Chance Adams.

It is also possible that the Pirates are looking for multiple young players in return for Cole regardless of what the complete package is, while the Yankees are not willing to include other prospects to go with Torres while they would be willing to including multiple players if one of them is not Torres.

The New York Post’s Joel Sherman then chimed in as well, backing up the idea that the Yankees would prefer to not move Torres.

Next: Examining the Pirates and the groundball

What is going to happen with Gerrit Cole? Well, right now, that is an unknown. The Pirates and Yankees are deeply engaged in trade discussions surrounding the right-handed pitcher so a trade is certainly possible. And even if the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the Bucs could entertain trade offers from teams such as the Astros, Dodgers, and Rangers as well.

Continued to stay tuned with Rum Bunter for all of the latest news surrounding Gerrit Cole and any potential trade.