Pittsburgh Pirates: Why Each Connected Team Can’t Afford Bryan Reynolds

Philadelphia Phillies

To put it simply, the Phillies just don’t have the prospect capital to do it. Currently, their highest ranking prospect is right-handed pitching prospect Mick Able. But Able ranks as just the 64th best prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline and 54th by FanGraphs. It’s also not like they have a bunch of other top 50 prospects.

Bryson Stott ranks 94th on MLB Pipeline’s list and isn’t considered a top 100 prospect by FanGraphs. That’s their second-highest ranking prospect by both sites. It’s also not like the Pittsburgh Pirates will be intrigued by anything like Mickey Moniak, Alec Bohm, or Hans Crouse. The Phillies won’t acquire Reynolds because they can’t. In the very unlikely scenario the Pirates do end up trading Reynolds, it wouldn’t be to the Phillies of all teams.

Miami Marlins

Ask yourself this: would the Pittsburgh Pirates trade a prospect package consisting of Quinn Priester, and at least one of Roansy Contreras, Liover Peguero, Travis Swaggerty, or Oneil Cruz, along with someone like Canaan Smith-Njigba, or Mason Martin, to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Walker Buehler? The answer is no, they would not.

The Marlins are a lot like the Pirates. They’re a small budget team that has to build from within. Even when ownership does shell out some money, we’re still only talking about payrolls in the $90-$110 million range. Not really Yankee/Red Sox money. But both teams have very strong farm systems and hope on the horizon.

The Marlins were a team that called in about Reynolds’ availability during last year’s trade deadline. The Pirates wanted their three top prospects. Depending on what source you use, those three could be different, but the general consensus is three top 30-40 prospects, at the very least. By FanGraphs’ measure, that would be Max Meyer (#19), Sixto Sanchez (#36), and Edward Cabrera (#40). MLB Pipeline’s top 3 Marlins prospects are Kahlil Watson (#27), Edward Cabrera (#29), and Max Meyer (#30). Would a team that has to build from within to win trade multiple of those guys?

Seattle Mariners

Finally, we have the Seattle Mariners as one of the teams who has checked in on Reynolds. The Mariners would have the pieces to get it done. Julio Rodriguez and Noelvi Marte are essentially consensus top 10 prospects. Emmerson Hancock and George Kirby are consensus top 50 prospects. Don’t forget they also have Jarred Kelenic, who graduated prospect status this year, but went into 2021 as a consensus top 5 prospect.

But again, the Mariners aren’t about to deplete the farm system for one player when they still have holes on their major league roster that Reynolds wouldn’t fix on his own. Reportedly, the Pirates want both Rodriguez and Marte. It wouldn’t be all that shocking if they wanted one of Hancock, Kirby, or Kelenic to go with JRod and Marte. After all, the Pirates asking price back at the deadline was three, consensus top 50 or better prospects. I don’t see why that would change. If anything, it’s gone up given that Reynolds was better in the second half of 2021 and then was a Silver Slugger, Gold Glove finalist, and is a good bet to finish top 10 in National League MVP voting.

The M’s are in a situation the Pittsburgh Pirates could find themselves in by the end of next year or 2023. They have a ton of top prospects making their way to the major leagues. While they’ll probably trade-off some prospects, the likes of Rodriguez, Marte, and potentially Hancock are probably as untouchable as Reynolds.

Rodriguez is considered part of their future outfield. By the time J.P. Crawford reaches the end of his contract, Marte will be about 22-23 years old and will be groomed to take over for the former’s position. You also have to consider that the Mariners don’t usually trade their high-end young commodities. The last time they traded a top 50 or better prospect was Tyler O’Neill, which ended up being for another high-ranking prospect in Marco Gonzales.

Conclusion

The last time that multiple top 50 or better prospects were moved in one trade was the deal that sent Chris Sale, a guy who consistently finished in the top 5 of American League Cy Young voting and lowest single-season fWAR in the 5 seaosns prior was 4.7, to the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox gave the White Sox Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. Moncada was a consensus top 3 prospect and Kopech was a consensus top 50 prospect.

Very rarely do teams trade top 50 or better prospects, let alone multiple of them. The very few times that it has happened, it’s been for a player who is considered in the top echlon of players at the time. While that’s no knock on Reynolds, it’s been for guys who have had at least 3 seasons where they were considered all-star or better level players. Reynolds was really good in 2021, but still has only 3 major league seasons under his belt (2, 100+ game seasons as 2020 was only 60 games).

The Pirates are asking for multiple of them for Reynolds. The Pirates want the moon, stars, and the rest of the Milky Way for him. That’s an insanely high asking price, but a very reasonable one as well.

Teams know how the game is played. Winning teams build a good portion of their roster from within the organization and then outsource reinforcements. There’s no team that will meet the Pirates’ reasonable asking price for Bryan Reynolds, even if they have the pieces to do so, because it would mean potentially mortgaging the future of multiple good players for just one singluar really good player.