We’ve heard that the Pittsburgh Pirates and Seattle Mariners have been talking about Garrett Jones. The first offer we heard about involved Jones and Joel Hanrahan going to Seattle for Justin Smoak, John Jaso, and Hector Noesi. Rob Biertempfel reports that the Pirates asked for top pitching prospect Taijuan Walker in exchange for Jones, but that the Pirates were “rebuffed”.
Walker was rated the fourth best prospect in baseball in MLB.com’s top 100 prospect list at the end of the 2012 season. He was the second best pitching prospect, three spots ahead of Gerrit Cole, who was ranked 7th overall and the fifth best pitching prospect. Using our trade values, that would command $26.7 M in value. Jones, on the other hand, only has $5 M in trade value, and maybe a bit more if you believe the price per WAR has gone up. To get an idea of what Walker would cost, the Pirates would have to deal Jones and Hanrahan, pick up all of their salary for the 2013 season, and even then they’d probably be short. Another way to look at it is to imagine what you’d accept for Gerrit Cole straight up. I don’t think anyone would deal Cole for a guy like Jones.
