Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining Joe Musgrove’s Trade Value

Starting pitcher Joe Musgrove is the best trade chip that the Pittsburgh Pirates have. If he is dealt, what could the Bucs get back in a trade?

In recent Pittsburgh Pirates news, Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic stated that “it’s more likely than not that they’ll trade” Joe Musgrove. This isn’t the first time Musgrove’s name has been brought up in potential trade rumors.

During 2020’s trade deadline, the Toronto Blue Jays and Pittsburgh Pirates nearly agreed on a deal that would have sent the right-hander North of the border. Based on the market and what Musgrove brings to the table, what could the Pirates get back in a trade involving him?

Musgrove has proven himself to be a pretty solid pitcher since joining the Pittsburgh Pirates. Between 2018 and 2019, Musgrove posted a 4.28 ERA, 3.72 FIP and 1.20 WHIP across 285.2 innings of work.

Big Joe displayed elite-level control walking just 5.1% of the 1204 batters he faced. Among pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched between the two seasons, tied with Clayton Kershaw for 10th place in walk rate. Although his strikeout rate was just 21.3%, he only allowed home runs at a 1.04 per 9 rate. That ranked 27th in baseball between the two seasons as well. Though his surface numbers weren’t the greatest, Musgrove did have a 3.38 xERA in 2018 along with a 3.43 DRA and 3.59 DRA in his second season with the Bucs.

Last season, Musgrove pitched just 39.2 innings in the shortened season while also missing a few starts because of a right tricep injury. All told, he was excellent when he was healthy posting a 3.86 ERA, 3.42 FIP and 1.24 WHIP. While usually a control artist, Musgrove saw his walk rate rise to 9.6%, but in turn saw his strikeout rate spike to 33.1%.

His HR/9 remained relatively similar to his 2019 rate (1.11) at 1.13. However, he allowed just one home run in his last 28.1 innings of the season. Musgrove posted his best batted ball rates yet. His 85.1 MPH exit velocity was in the top 93rd percentile in all of baseball while his 32.7% hard hit rate was in the top 79th percentile. He also ranked in the top 80th percentile or better in xwOBA, xSLG, xERA, xBA, whiff rate and fastball spin rate. Musgrove also had great ERA estimators with a 3.59 SIERA, 3.19 xFIP and 3.64 DRA. His last 25 innings of 2020 were outstanding. He had a K:BB ratio of 38:5 while allowing just one home run and six earned runs, four of which came in just one game.

Overall, he averages about 3 fWAR per 150 innings pitched since arriving in Pittsburgh, which is really good. Between 2018 and 2019, Zack Greinke, Kyle Hendricks, Jack Flaherty, Sonny Gray and the aforementioned Kershaw have a similar WAR per 150 innings pitched.

Impressively, Musgrove throws six different pitches including his four seam fastball, a cutter, curveball, slider, sinker and change up. Recently, Musgrove saw a huge rise in use of his curveball. He rarely used the pitch in 2018, used it just 9.5% of the time in 2019, but tossed it 19.9% of the time in 2020. He’s also seen an uptick in usage to his slider while using his fastball less. This is potentially the reason Musgrove saw such a large rise in his strikeouts.

Musgrove has two years of control through arbitration in 2021 and 2022. While working out an extension hasn’t been completely ruled out yet, it’s clear that the Pittsburgh Pirates would rather shop him than extend him. This is understandable given that he’s only controlled for the next two seasons and if the expanded playoffs are here to stay in some form, then the Pirate window will start to open after he hits free agency.

The free agent crop of starting pitchers has thinned out a decent bit. Two of the most prominent free agents, Marcus Stroman and Kevin Gausman, accepted qualifying offers to remain with the Mets and Giants. The Atlanta Braves picked up both Charlie Morton and Drew Smyly as well. All four were ranked as top 50 free agents by MLB Trade Rumors. Though Trevor Bauer remains, the market for starting pitching quickly thins out to mid-to-back of the rotation arms and innings eaters.

An apt comparison to Musgrove is Stroman. The former Blue Jay right hander was traded at 2019’s trade deadline with a year and a half of guaranteed control remaining. He also averaged about the same amount of fWAR per 150 innings in his previous 3 seasons at 2.7.

The Jays received Simeon Woods Richardson and Anthony Kay back for the right hander. Richardson started out the season as the Mets’ 6th best prospect and started out the 2020 season as the 76th best prospect in baseball. Kay also ranked in the Mets’ top 10 to start 2019 at #9 and now sits at the same rank in the Jays’ system. However, Stroman had been much more inconsistent with the Jays from 2017 to 2019 than Musgrove has with the Pittsburgh Pirates since 2018.

Musgrove is an extremely underrated pitcher. He can throw six different pitches, induces a notable amount of soft contact and now seems to get swings and misses. He also showed very good control over his pitches in 2018 and 2019. With two years of control left and averaging 3 fWAR per 150 innings pitched since 2018, he could easily reel in a 50-grade prospect at the very least.

That also happens to be any prospect in FanGraphs’ top 115. While he might not be able to get the Pittsburgh Pirates back a top 20 prospect, he could probably get them a top 70 prospect. A team like the Blue Jays, Minnesota Twins, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets and New York Yankees are all teams that will be in the market for starting pitching this winter who have prospects that should peak Pittsburgh’s interest.