Pittsburgh Pirates Twitter Mailbag: February 2, 2018

Welcome back to our weekly mailbag here at Rum Bunter where we answer all and any questions you have about the Pittsburgh Pirates

Good morning, friends! Welcome to this week’s Pittsburgh Pirates’ mailbag. Below your questiosn that were asked as part of this week’s Twitter mailbag will be tackled.

As always, if you have a question and would like to participate in the Twitter mailbag just look for the Tweet asking for questions and drop your questions.

Had you asked me this after the Pirates traded Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen I would have said there is no chance Josh Harrison is on the team in 2018. However, we are now less than two weeks from the start of Spring Training and Harrison is still a Pirate.

In my opinion there is still a good chance that the Pirates trade Harrison. That said, if I had to put money on it I would say that Harrison opens the season as a Pirate. That does not mean he will finish the season in Pittsburgh, though.

Because we can never have nice things in life. That and Bob Nutting sucks as an owner and he refuses to put the money into the team necesarry to maintain longterm success.

I feel safe in saying no. While I still expect the Pirates to add some sort of help for the outfield, potentially in free agency, I do not believe it will come in the form of a player that cost $10+ million per season.

This is a great question.

Had the scenario you laid out happened, most likely, Cutch’s value would have been less come July. Why? Well, it’s simple: control.

The San Francisco Giants traded for a full season of control with McCutchen. Had the Pirates waited until July to trade him, he would have had just two months of team control left at that point.

No matter how good a season McCutchen would have had for the Pirates in 2018, he had more trade value now than he would have in July.

That said, the return for McCutchen was still bad.

Next: Pirates acquire Josh Smoker

We are now just 12 days away from the Pittsburgh Pirates holding their first workout of Spring Training 2018. Baseball season will be here before you know it. If you have any questions in the meantime, or at any time, feel free to ask them in the mailbag.