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Three Goals for Ben Cherington at the Winter Meetings
The MLB Winter Meetings start up today and go through Thursday, December 12th, at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego. Outside of the official trade deadline day at the end of July, the Winter Meetings are by far the busiest days in regards to MLB player transactions.
Under Neal Huntington, the Pittsburgh Pirates have used the Winter Meetings to sign players to smaller contracts in the $1-3 million range and to make minor trades with other teams. These trades normally include the phrase cash considerations or the phrase reclamation project. However, things might be different under GM Ben Cherington. Here are the three goals Cherington should have over the next few days in San Diego.
Trade Starling Marte
This is probably the most obvious of my three goals for Cherington, but it is also the most important. The Pirates seem to agree with me since they have made a formal announcement that Starling Marte is on the trading block. This truly is a new tone for the Pirates. The days of ambiguity under Huntington are gone. In Cherington’s regime, the Pirates are not shooting to be average every year, the goal is to win big. And no one needs 10,000 simulations to know that the Pirates have to at least partially rebuild to win big.
Marte is a great candidate to be traded for many reasons. He has only two remaining years on his contract, which is useful for a team that is currently contending, but clearly not for the Pirates. The salary for those two years are $11.5 and $12.5 million dollars, which is extremely affordable for a player of Marte’s caliber. On top of this Marte will play the 2020 season at the age of 31 – which is still considered a player’s prime.
Last season Marte slashed .295/.342/.503/.845 with 23 home runs and 25 stolen bases, and these numbers would have been even better if not for a late season injury. Marte’s defensive statistics were below average in 2019, but 2019 truly seems to be an outlier as Marte has two Gold Gloves and has rating above average defensively every single year.
Putting Marte’s contract and numbers together results in a player that is both affordable and well above replacement at an extremely valuable center-field position. MLB Trade Rumors list potential suitors as the Phillies, Cubs, Reds, D-Backs, Padres, Giants, Rangers, Braves, and White Sox – so hopefully the market will be robust and Cherington will have his pick of prospects.
Best case scenario – Cherington gets a high-end pitching or catching prospect and a mid-tier catching or pitching prospect. In fact, this might help to address the second main goal Cherington should have at the Winter Meetings.
Find a Catcher…or Two…or Three
The Pirates currently have one catcher on their 40-man roster, Jacob Stallings. Stallings is a solid player, but he will not be able to catch all 162 games in 2020 for the Pirates. Catcher is notoriously an injury-prone position, and most teams have two catchers that they can rely on. So, first and foremost, the Pirates need a major-league ready catcher to either back-up or split time with Stallings. Marty wrote a great article on some of the remaining catchers that the Pirates could grab off of free agency. While the pickings may seem slim, the Pirates should not be looking to sign a catcher long-term since they will be rebuilding and many of these names would fit nicely.
The second half of the catcher problem exists in the current farm system for the Pirates. Not only are the Pirates lacking in major-league ready catching depth, they are also lacking in farm-system catching depth. The Pirates currently have zero catchers on their top-30 prospect list. Cherington must address this in either the Marte trade, another trade, or in the draft. By far the best solution would be through a trade. The Pirates still have a good, young core that could compete within a few years. A high-end catching prospect that ended 2019 in high-A or AA, acquired through a trade, would fit into this timeline nicely.
But, trades can go poorly, there is always risk. Ahem, Chris Archer and Neil Huntington. That is where goal number three comes into play.
Win Trades
It is no secret that the Pirates have fared poorly on the trade market in recent years. The trade for Chris Archer easily goes down as the worst trade in the history of the organization and will most likely be one of the worst trades historically in the MLB once the dust fully settles. The Pirates failed to develop a front-end starter in Tyler Glasnow and traded him, traded away another front-end starter in Shane Baz, and traded away a perennial All-Star (most likely) in Austin Meadows. All for Chris Archer – who is a fantastic person – but just has not performed at all with season ERAs of 4.30 and 5.19 in his two years with Pittsburgh.
Guys.
Tyler Glasnow had a 1.78 ERA as a starter for the Rays this season.
Austin Meadows was an All-Star.
The other trade Neal Huntington will be known for is the Gerrit Cole trade. Huntington traded away Cole for Michael Feliz, Joe Musgrove, Colin Moran, and Jason Martin. Huntington was highly criticized for not landing a top prospect from the Astros. All four of the acquired players would help the Pirates at some point in 2018 and 2019, but none of the four players came anywhere close to the level of production of Cole. Cole had two straight All-Star seasons for the Astros and two straight Cy-Young bids. Once again the Pirates lost big on a trade.
Next. Free Agent Target: OF Kevin Pillar. dark
A small market team like the Pirates can simply just not make mistakes with trades. Failed trades like these can set a small-market organization back for years – and that is not an exaggeration. The margin of error is small and Cherington must be up for the task. He has to win with any larger trades that he makes during these Winter Meetings – and through those trades, earn the trust and excitement that the city of Pittsburgh is so ready to give to a successful and passionate GM.