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The Pirates Role in this Year’s Trade Market

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In November of 2011, Major League Baseball decided that they wanted more teams to stay involved down the stretch of the season by adding a second wild card team to the postseason. The new playoff system, where both wild card teams face each other in a one-game playoff before moving on into the divisional rounds, was implemented the very next year in 2012.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are 1-1 in the National League Wild Card game, hosting games in both 2013 and 2014. You look at this new playoff format and think that it has only impacted the Pirates by forcing them to play in a one-game playoff; however, the impact on the Pirates runs much deeper than that.

Before 2012, the Pirates were mostly always sellers on the trade market. Once the team began performing better, they suddenly became buyers on the market. Now, though, with the new playoff format, more teams have felt that they were buyers at the trade deadline and getting the player that a team wanted became much more difficult.

“The market that I wish existed in our first five years here, really three years here because we were competitive in years four and five but just didn’t have great finishes, would’ve [made for] a much easier transition,” General Manager Neal Huntington said when talking about the transition of the organization.

When the team wasn’t performing well early in Huntington’s reign, they were not able to get as much return in trades for their current (at the time) roster players as they would now. There were always many other teams that were out of the playoff race at the same time; therefore, the market wasn’t as strong for a seller. Today, the playoff races have changed dramatically. The Oakland Athletics are in last place in the American League, but they are only eight games back from the final playoff spot. In the National League, only the Phillies are truly “out” of the race, and six teams are within eight games of that final playoff spot. This has created a market where sellers can get pretty much whatever they want and go to the highest bidder.

Before 2012, the Pirates were always selling their major league team to try to stock up on their farm system. At that time, they weren’t always in a position to get the best possible return. Since then, the Pirates have wanted to add to their current big league club, and it is taking so much more to acquire major league impact players.

As of last year, selling teams are wanting major league, or close-to-it, ready players in return for their stud player. Huntington cited impatience as the major reason for this change.

“It’s a sellers market so there are fewer teams that are looking to trade their major league players for prospects,” Huntington said. “The impatience of the industry, and the expectation that you can turn an organization around in a year [are some of the reasons]. Rather than asking for the best prospect you have in the system, which may be in A-ball, teams are starting to look for that guy in Triple-A that may have an impact in a year or two.”

With this shift, Huntington is not afraid to deal from his current major league team if it makes the team better. Note the David Price trade deadline fiasco last year, when four major league players and only one prospect ended up being moved to make the trade happen. The Pirates were in on Price, but were offering prospects, while the Rays wanted a specific package of players close to the majors.

“We’ll always look at opportunities to make the club better,” Huntington said. “We haven’t targeted ‘Player A’ or ‘Player B’ we want to move, but if there is a situation that makes sense and makes us a better team and organization – yes, it is something that we would look at.”

Whatever the market, expect Neal Huntington to be busy at the deadline again this year.

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