Pittsburgh Pirates: How Lance Lynn Trade Impacts Joe Musgrove’s Value

Late Monday night the Texas Rangers traded Lance Lynn to the White Sox. This could have a n impact on Joe Musgrove and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Monday night, the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers struck a deal that sent Rangers’ ace Lance Lynn toChicago in exchange for two prospects. The Pittsburgh Pirates also have a starting pitcher they’re looking to trade, and the White Sox/Rangers deal has an impact on the Pirates trading Joe Musgrove.

Lynn, a former St. Louis Cardinal stalwart, signed a three-year deal with the Rangers in the 2018-2019 offseason. It’s been quite an underrated deal for the Rangers as the big right hander has tossed 292.1 innings posting a 3.57 ERA, 3.43 FIP and 1.17 WHIP. He’s also struck out 27.5% of the batters he’s faced while posting a walk rate of 6.9%. He also has a solid HR/9 of 1.05.

ERA estimators haven’t been as kind to Lynn with a 3.89 SIERA, 3.99 xFIP while having a 3.15 DRA in 2019. his DRA jumped to 4.41 mark last season. While Lynn does have elite spin on his fastball, he’s below average in terms of exit velocity and hard hit rate. While the 33-year-old is still a very competent pitcher, he only has one year left on his deal.

The headliner heading back to Texas was Dane Dunning. Dunning was a first-round pick by the Washington Nationals in 2016. He was sent to Chicago in the Adam Eaton deal and he’s been a pretty notable prospect since his arrival.

Dunning ranked as a top 100 prospect in both 2018 and 2019. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019, which caused him to miss all of the season, but he returned as strong as ever last year. Dunning made his MLB debut during his age-25 season where he pitched 34 innings posting a solid 3.97 ERA, 3.99 FIP and 1.118 WHIP. The other prospect was Avery Weems. Although unranked, the left-hander put up outstanding numbers at Rookie Ball in 2019.

So what does this mean for the Pittsburgh Pirates if they were to trade Musgrove? Well since arriving in Pittsburgh, Musgrove has been a solid pitcher for the Bucs. Since 2018, he’s pitched 325.1 innings posting a 4.23 ERA, but 3.69 FIP and 1.20 WHIP. Musgrove also strikes out four batters for every walk he issues, which easily ranks in the top 25 of starters since 2018 with at least 300 innings pitched.

Musgrove showed impressive control in 2018 and 2019 only walking 5.1% of the batters he faced and while his walk rate spiked to 9.6% in 2020, it came with a 33.1% strikeout rate compared to 21.3 in 2018-2019. Although his SIERA and xFIP are similar to Lynn’s, he has a better DRA in the past three seasons (3.43, 3.59, 3.64). He also ranked in the top 93rd percentile of exit velocity and top 79th percentile in hard hit rate during 2020. Musgrove comes with two years of very affordable control remaining and is projected to make somewhere between $3-$4 million in arbitration. That’s a bargain for a pitcher who’s averaged 3 fWAR per 150 innings pitched since 2018.

While the Lynn trade does take one potential suitor off the market, there are still over a half dozen teams still looking for starting pitching. The Mets, Blue Jays, Twins, Giants, Angels, Marlins, Padres, and Rays are all considered to be buyers for starting pitching. Plus that just means one less pitcher available. In an earlier article, I stated that Musgrove might bring back a top 80 prospect, however with the recent Lynn trade, he might be able to bring back much more. Musgrove is entering his age 28 season while Lynn is entering his age 34 season. Musgrove also has another year of control over Lynn and while the surface numbers might be in Lynn’s favor, the underlying numbers show that Musgrove is the better pitcher moving forward.

Dunning ranked as high as 59th best prospect in all of baseball by Pipeline’s top 100 list, but started out at #92. Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus ranked him around the same to start 2018 at 82 and 89. FanGraphs placed him at 97. Going into 2019, Pipeline had him at 80, Prospectus at 76, with FanGraphs and Baseball America leaving him off their top 100. While he was clearly a talented pitcher, his mean ranking between FanGraphs, Pipeline, Prospectus and Baseball America was 86.

There’s a lot more upside in Musgrove than there is in Lynn. He’s younger, has an extra year of control left, better underlying numbers and is cheaper (Lynn will make $9.3 million in 2021). While Dunning could be a very good pitcher, it’s clear that the market is in the favor of sellers like the Pittsburgh Pirates. Based on what the Rangers got for Lynn, Musgrove might be able to get back a top 60 prospect or even better. Teams like the Marlins, Twins, Jays, Padres and Rays definitely have the prospect capital to facilitate a trade including a prospect ranked within the top 60.

If the Pittsburgh Pirates want to sell on Musgrove (which it seems like they want to do), then now is the time. Not only is Musgrove coming off a great season, one where he ended the year on a 13 inning scoreless streak while striking out 21 batters and only walking two, but the market is a seller’s market right now. There’s still plenty of teams needing rotation help and it’s clear they’re willing to pay the premium price. It also helps that the starting pitching free agent market has thinned out a noticeable amount since the beginning of the off season.