Pittsburgh Pirates: Bryan Reynolds Situation is Different From Previously Traded Players

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds has had his fair share of rumors this year, but what separates him from previously traded players?

Let me open this up by saying that I 100% do not believe that the Pittsburgh Pirates will trade Bryan Reynolds.

When the Miami Marlins had asked the Pittsburgh Pirates about the All-Star outfielder at the trade deadline the Pirates wanted Miami’s top three prospects, all three of which are consensus top 50 prospects.

Then before the lockout, the Seattle Mariners inquired about Reynolds. Do you know who the Pirates inquired about? Julio Rodriguez and Nolevi Marte; two of baseball’s consensus top 10 prospects. Needless to say, the Pirates want both a king’s and queen’s ransom for the switch hitter.

After all, he hasn’t entered arbitration yet, just hit for a 142 wRC+, tied with Trea Turner for the 10th highest mark in baseball last season, and was a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger finalist. But what really separates him from all the other players the Pirates have traded? It would be far from the first time they’ve traded an all-star outfielder before, so what makes him any different?

Reynolds is easily a guy who could consistently finish top 10 in National League MVP voting for years to come. He also isn’t a very flawed player, and there isn’t anything in his skill set that is weak. He’s a great hitter, hits for some pop, gets on base, and is a solid fielder with more than passable defense in center. Despite not swiping many bags, he’s a great base runner. He was worth +3 baserunning runs above average and was in the top 88th percentile of sprint speed. Plus, he has control through 2025, with three years of arbitration remaining after 2022.

Now take a look at all the notable position players that have been traded since Ben Cherington has taken over. Is any of Starling Marte, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, or Jacob Stallings anything like Reynolds? The closest is Marte, who had a solid 2020 and great 2021 season but was traded with two years of control left.

Outside of a great two and a half months in 2021, Frazier was a league-average hitting utility man, someone who had surpassed two fWAR once, at 2.2 in 2019. What about Josh Bell? His defense gives up about as many runs as his offense provides. Speaking that he has never been an elite-level hitter outside of the first two months of 2019, you are left with a good but not great hitting first baseman who should probably DH. Bell has only ever once had a 120+ wRC+ and still has a sub-5 fWAR despite playing in nearly 700 MLB contests.

Stallings was my favorite player on the Pirates until he was traded. I love him, and his defense was top-notch. But in a baseball sense, he’s a 32-year-old catcher whose bat straddles the line between playable enough to be a regular and an excellent reserve/platoon option. He had a 95 wRC+ last season. If he fell to the 80-90 wRC+ range, that would fall more into the area of semi-regular on a good team. All but Stallings among this group had two or fewer years of control remaining when they were traded, but he was the oldest as well and, when he did hit free agency, would be going into his age-35 season.

Frazier, Stallings, nor Bell are guys that teams build around. Marte is the best possible comparison, but he only had two years of control remaining, was going into his age-31 season, already had below-average defense in centerfield, and reached the 600 plate appearance threshold just twice in 9 total seasons in the majors. That’s not someone you commit as the core centerpiece of your team.

Frazier was an average utility man with two years of control left. Bell was an inconsistent bat and has yet to even accumulate five fWAR because his defense at first is that bad. The aging curve for catchers is notoriously harsh and speaking that Stallings is already 32, the Pirates might have been able to squeeze one, maybe two if they were lucky, more productive years out of the backstop before having to move him into a second catcher role.

Reynolds, on the other hand, is 27-years-old, is a switch-hitting outfielder who does nothing poorly, and has control through the 2025 season. He doesn’t have significant flaws in his offensive or defensive game. He doesn’t have two or fewer years of control remaining. He isn’t 30-years-old or older.

Simply put, none of Bell, Frazier, Marte, nor Stallings are the kind of players teams focus on as the centerpiece of their franchise for the long term. But Reynolds is that kind of player. You can’t objectively say that the position players Cherington have traded so far have anything more in common with Bryan Reynolds, except they were teammates and wore Pirates jerseys.