Pirates Rumor: Teams Inquiring on Two Outfielders

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an outfield log jam on their hands.  Apparently, the team is working the phones to try to trade one of them.

Going into the last offseason, nobody would have guessed that the Pittsburgh Pirates deepest area would be their outfield.  The Bucs brought in a few journeyman outfielders to help bridge gap until Gregory Polanco returned from injury.  This included Lonnie Chisenhall, Melky Cabrera, and JB Shuck.  In terms of top prospects, the Pirates did not really have any highly touted outfield prospects close to major league ready.  They did the year before in Austin Meadows, but the club traded him at the deadline last July.

The top outfield prospects at Triple-A this season were Bryan Reynolds and Jason Martin, both intriguing prospects.  However, Reynolds never played in Triple-A and Martin had a half season there where he struggled.

Well, in terms of the outfield everything has fallen into place.  Although there have been a lot of injuries, every replacement player has done an even better job.  Melky Cabrera and Bryan Reynolds have two of the highest batting averages in baseball.  Meanwhile, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco continue to make impacts when they are in the lineup.

Now with Corey Dickerson back, how in the world can the team get enough at-bats for all their producing players?  Dickerson has not played since the second week of the season.  However, he is coming off a Gold Glove year that saw him hit over .300, the outfielder needs to get at-bats as well.  Reynolds can be sent down, but in no way shape or form should the Bucs send down their current second best hitter. The same can be said for Melky Cabrera.

There is a Pirates rumor that the team could be looking to deal one, if not two, of their outfielders.  This could help alleviate the logjam in the outfield.  According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Bucs are exploring trade options on both Corey Dickerson and Melky Cabrera.  Here is what Rosenthal said in his article:

“Multiple contenders are showing interest in Pirates outfielder Melky Cabrera, who is batting .335 with a .837 OPS in 185 plate appearances at a salary of $1.15 million.”“The Pirates’ preference, however, is to reduce their surplus of outfielders by trading Corey Dickerson, who came off the injured list on Saturday after missing more than two months with a right shoulder strain. For such a deal to happen, Dickerson must show he is healthy and productive while earning the remainder of his $8.5 million salary.”

It appears that the Bucs would prefer to trade Dickerson over Cabrera.  This makes sense because Dickerson is earning a much higher salary than Cabrera.  As Rosenthal states, Cabrera is only making $1.15 million this year while Dickerson is making $8.5 million.  Clearing this salary could help the team bring in some starting pitching help.

In fact, there is some speculation that the team could look to flip Dickerson to a team who has depth at starting pitching.  This would be a big boost to the team.  Cabrera is a cheap bat who they can hold onto and figure out if they want to trade him as the deadline gets closer.  If Cabrera continues to hit the way he has, then his value will be even higher at the actual deadline.