Pirates' latest roster move signals official death of the Starling Marte trade

The first trade Ben Cherington made with the Pirates involved sending Starling Marte to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for two young prospects. At the time, it was the start of a big tear down and a rebuild under a new regime. The trade initially looked promising, as Cherington acquired two top 10 prospects from Arizona who were young and had high upside.

Nearly six years later, the trade has officially turned into a complete disaster. The Pirates just placed Liover Pegeuro on waivers and pitcher Brennan Malone has yet to pitch above Low-A. While Malone's struggles have been injury related, Peguero just could never consistently figure it out at the plate. Like so many others in the Pirates' farm system, prospects just seem to hit a wall once they get to Double-A.

Something about the player development system under Cherington has just really struggled to make top prospects into serviceable major leaguers. Nick Gonzales has the highest fWAR of an offensive prospect developed under the Cherington regime, and it sits at just 2.2. Getting rid of Peguero is yet another poor reflection on the player development department.

Pirates move to ditch Liover Peguero marks the death of the Starling Marte trade.

With Peguero gone, the only hope for this trade now lies with Malone. 2025 was his first year back off labrum surgery, and while he did finish with a 4.45 ERA, his BB/9 reached 6.67. Struggles are expected following a major injury, but at 25 years old, the future doesn't look as great as it did in 2020. He still has a chance to progress in the system if he stays healthy in 2026 and rebounds nicely. It doesn't seem like he has much of a chance to debut until around 2028ish, though, and it's tough to see the Pirates sticking with him that long.

Even though Marte didn't have a long career with the Diamondbacks, it's tough to call it a trade win for the Pirates. It was a complete fail, just like so many others during the Cherington regime. There isn't much hope moving forward for this squad, and trades like this one are why. Spencer Horwitz has been the only positive trade addition recently, and if Pittsburgh wants success, landing similar players would do the trick, instead of the ones they received in exchange for Marte.