The potential prospect cost for Pirates in a hypothetical Brent Rooker trade

The Pittsburgh Pirates need a big bat, preferably one who has years of control remaining, and no one fits that description better than Brent Rooker from the Oakland Athletics. Rooker would arguably be the Pirates' best hitter since prime Andrew McCutchen if he can sustain anything close to the production he has had this year. But what sort of trade package are we looking at if the Pirates would go after the designated hitter?

Rooker is batting .291/.370/.578 on the season. He has hit 23 home runs through 365 plate appearances with an isolated slugging percentage of .288. Rooker has walked at an above-average 10.7% rate, but has struck out at a 31.8% clip. But overall, Rooker has an elite .401 wOBA and 168 wRC+. Rooker is a top-10 hitter, ranking 10th or better in slugging percentage, wOBA, wRC+, and OPS. The A's are purportedly reticent to trade him, and for good reason.

However, there is some legitimate criticism against Rooker. First, there's his strikeout rate. Also, his .378 batting average on balls in play is the eighth highest of any batter, which suggests he's getting lucky. His chase rate is below average, and his whiff rate is below the bottom fifth percentile.

Considering he's a designated hitter, he needs to produce offensively in order to provide value. Rooker has only played the field for about 100 innings this year but already has -2 defensive runs saved and -3 outs above average. He has -17 DRS and -15 OAA throughout his career despite not even playing 1,000 frames in the grass.

But there's nothing to suggest a considerable regression is in store for Rooker. He is still in the 77th percentile of expected batting average at .271. Rooker is above the 95th percentile for both xwOBA (.396) and xSLG% (.597). His expected weighted on-base average on contact is .559. That is the second-best in baseball, only behind Aaron Judge. When Rooker makes contact, he tears the cover off the ball. He has a 92.4 MPH exit velocity, the 17th-best qualified mark, and a barrel rate of 18.3%, the fifth-best in baseball.

If the Pirates trade for Rooker, he'd also be in a much more hitter-friendly environment. PNC Park might not be a hitter's haven, but Oakland is one of the more pitcher-friendly parks in baseball. It has a lower park factor and home run factor compared to PNC. Rooker would have more home runs in every National League park this year, except for Arizona's Chase Field.

Rooker could regress to his 2023 form and still be a highly productive batter. Last season, he hit .246/.329/.488 with a .348 wOBA, and 127 wRC+. He hit 30 homers as well, making him one of only 20 batters with at least that many home runs and a wRC+ greater than 120. With three years of control remaining after 2024, getting a 125 wRC+/30 homer batter would be more than enough.

Now that we've established Rooker's potential, what sort of trade package would the PIrates need to put together? The Athletics do not have very much highly-touted pitching talent in their organization. According to MLB Pipeline, they have just one pitching prospect in their top 10 who is not a teenager. That's 21-year-old Luis Morales, who has yet to make it past High-A. Morales and Joe Boyle are also the only non-teen pitching prospects Baseball America ranks on Oakland's top prospect list. Luckily, the Pirates have a lot of pitching talent to trade from.

It's hard to pinpoint a close comparison for a trade involving Rooker. However, we can gauge an estimate based on some of the A's recent trades. Rooker is on pace for about 5.0 fWAR if he accumulates at least 600 plate appearances. The A's traded Matt Olson and Matt Chapman, both of whom averaged about 3-5 fWAR per 600 plate appearances in the two years prior to getting traded. Granted, both never had a season with the bat like Rooker is having now, and both were two of the best defenders at their respective positions when getting traded. Olson and Chapman were also traded with only two years of control remaining, compared to Rooker's three seasons left.

Another report suggests the Pirates would need to include at least one top-25 prospect in order to net Rooker. That might seem a tad light, but chances are, the top-25 prospect would not be the headliner. It would likely be a second piece of a larger trade package going from Pittsburgh to Oakland.

With that, Rooker may net something between the Olson and Chapman trades. They might not need to include one of Bubba Chandler or Termarr Johnson. When the Braves traded for Olson and the Blue Jays traded for Chapman, neither had to surrender a prospect MLB Pipeline had in their top-three heading into the 2021 season.

But they would definitely need to include at least one of Braxton Ashcraft or Thomas Harrington as the headliner. Both are borderline top-100 prospects. Between the two, Ashcraft is the one who has appeared on a top-100 list recently, coming in at No. 100 on MLB Pipeline's list. But Harrington is younger and arguably just as talented as Ashcraft.

The top-25 prospect could be a younger, higher-ceiling prospect. Given the lack of top pitching depth in the A's system, it could be another arm, such as Jun-Seok Shim or Michael Kennedy. Between the two, Kennedy is the higher ranked prospect. MLB Pipeline and Baseball America both rank him as a top-20 prospect. But Shim has a higher ceiling. Kennedy has risen through prospect rankings this year, given he's pitched well at Bradenton, while Shim has missed all of this season.

The Pirates may also need to throw in a third prospect for good measure. This would likely be a teenage prospect from the DSL or FCL, like Estuar Suero or David Matoma. Matoma is definitely the superior of the two, and while it would hurt to lose him, it would hurt even more not to get a big bat in the lineup. 

Both the Olson and Chapman deals involved four prospects heading to Oakland. If this also happens to be the case, the fourth player would likely be an unranked prospect. This could be another young prospect below A-Ball, like Samuel Escuerdo or Angel Camacho. Alternatively, it could be a player closer to being major-league-ready but with a lower ceiling, like Sean Sullivan or Luis Peralta.

Some mix of three or four players should get the job done. The Pirates have enough pitching, so they could get any deal done with a team in need of more arms, and the A's are in that position. Pittsburgh needs a big bat, and no one on the trade market would provide more thump to a lineup than Rooker.