The Pittsburgh Pirates Complete Three Post-Deadline Trades

While the Major League Baseball Trade Deadline has already passed, teams can still technically make moves.  The Pittsburgh Pirates were quite active yesterday.

The Pittsburgh Pirates made more trades yesterday than they did in the days leading up to the Major League Baseball Trade Deadline.  The Bucs were relatively quiet at the deadline this year, only trading away Jarrod Dyson to the Chicago White Sox.  Chicago sent back international signing bonus money to complete the transaction.  The Bucs quickly turned around and used that money to sign an international free agent pitcher named Eduardo Zapata.

This is the thing about acquiring “international bonus money”, there is a reason a team acquires it.  Many make jokes about the team just trying to trade for money to make money.  That is not how this works.  The international money acquired is just a number on a spreadsheet, think of it as a salary cap.  Major League Baseball sets bonus numbers for each team, the Bucs had just about $6 million to spend for the 2019-2020 international class.  By acquiring more international money, it actually allows the Bucs sign more players.

It looks like that is what Ben Cherington is planning to do again.  Yesterday (Sunday), the Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager announced that the team actually completed three trades over the weekend.  The first was sending minor league pitcher Joel Cesar to the Philadelphia Phillies to complete the Austin Davis trade from last month.

The other two trades were strictly made to acquire International Bonus Money.  The team traded right-handed pitcher Connor Loeprich to the Baltimore Orioles.  The other deal, which was a little more significant, saw the Bucs send left-handed pitching prospect Domingo Robles to the Cardinals.  Both were minor league trades which is why they were able to complete them post-deadline.

Robles is the most well known of the prospects traded.  He has been steadily moving up the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system over the last few years.  The lefty actually cracked MLB Pipeline’s Top 30 list a few years back.  He has been effective in his career throwing to a 3.76 ERA, but also has only struck out 344.  Robles likely projects to be a lefty reliever at the next level.  The 23 year old Loeprich made it to  Low-A and High-A last year pitching to a 3..94 ERA as a reliever.

Overall, the Bucs did not give up much to acquire international money.  The Pittsburgh Pirates gave up a couple of low end prospects who at best will make it to the show as relievers.  In turn, Ben Cherington and his Front Office obviously have their eyes on a couple more International Prospects that they would like to bring in before the October 2nd Deadline for the 2019-20 international signing period.  The actual financial figure of space the Bucs acquired has not been released.