When it comes to discussing good trades or signings the Pirates have made, the expiration date for talking about those moves is short.
When it comes to discussing bad trades or signings the Pirates have made, there is literally no expiration date, even if you talk about it daily.
We are now entering day number 47 of complaining about the Francisco Liriano trade. And there is no end in sight. That’s going to be the complaint all off-season. Every time the Pirates don’t sign a free agent, there will be a snarky “financial flexibility” remark. Every time Reese McGuire or Harold Ramirez does something in the future, the trade will be brought up. If Francisco Liriano has a good start, the trade will be brought up.
I didn’t like the trade. I said that immediately after hearing Reese McGuire’s name announced as the second player to be named later. I wrote about it several times that week. But that’s when I stopped writing about it, because nothing really has changed with the trade.
It’s still not a good move at the time, trading prospects for salary relief, even if the prospects were partially traded to get Drew Hutchison. After the trade, Neal Huntington discussed the benefits of both, saying that they liked Hutchison, and that they valued the infamous financial flexibility.
As far as the financial flexibility goes, that’s one of the things that really hasn’t changed much since the trade. Yes, the Pirates signed David Freese to an extension. But I don’t think that’s all they had in mind. Huntington mentioned that this was an example of how they could use the financial flexibility, but he referenced the ability to make other moves. You can believe that they could be able to spend more, and I think they could afford to go up at least another $5-10 M from their current $100 M territory (the 2017 payroll is currently projected for around $86 M heading into the off-season). But no one can deny that the Pirates are a small market team in baseball, and realistically have a budget. So there is real value in having financial flexibility, and reallocating the $18 M that was owed to a pitcher who was putting up replacement level numbers at the time of the deal.
As I said after the trade, this only makes sense if they spend it. If they cry poor this off-season and don’t make a move, then I can think of two prospects and one pitcher that they could have given another shot who should still be in the system. But I’ll wait and see what happens, which really is the only option for anyone, except I’m not going to complain daily about it.
Here’s the biggest issue with the daily complaints. It creates an anger that keeps growing and growing, and as that happens, the views keep getting more irrational. This brings us to the Drew Hutchison part of the deal.
The Pirates said that they valued Hutchison as part of the return, and I believe that. He looks like a reclamation project, but they tend to see something in those guys ahead of time that they could fix. It doesn’t always work out, but it’s worked out enough times (and we’re currently seeing it work out with Ivan Nova) that it’s not a bad idea to make an attempt. Fans aren’t going to like that Hutchison is a reclamation project, but then again, fans didn’t like Nova, or Happ, or Volquez, or Liriano, or Burnett. And then when all of those guys left, fans hated the Pirates for not bringing them back. It goes back to the expiration dates: You’ll still hear complaints that they didn’t re-sign Volquez or Happ, but I dare you to even offer praise of the original deals that brought them here, and point to that as evidence that a future reclamation project might work out.
There is no real problem with Hutchison. However, because you can only think the trade is good or bad, and there is no acceptable middle ground, you have to hate Hutchison if you think the move is bad. And then it goes to crazy, conspiracy-level extremes where the Pirates don’t really like Hutchison, and they just said that they liked him because they had to get something back. And that only makes the trade worse, because then it becomes Ramirez and McGuire for salary relief. And then that leads to more anger, and then you can’t write a Mitch Keller article without someone making a dumb joke about him being traded away for salary relief, even though Ramirez and McGuire were two talent tiers below Keller, and honestly the people complaining about the trade now were the same people calling McGuire a bust the first four months of the year. But I digress.
Hutchison doesn’t look like he’s going to be a top of the rotation guy. He doesn’t look like a guy who you’d trade Ramirez and McGuire for. The only logical way to think of this deal is that it was Ramirez and McGuire for Hutchison and dumping Liriano’s salary. And if you want to say it’s Ramirez for Hutchison and McGuire for the salary, that’s fine, although I’m not sure if that’s accurate in how the Pirates viewed it. But Hutchison is definitely a part of the deal, is definitely valued by the Pirates, and whether you like it or not, he’s in their plans for the rotation next year (which is why I’m going to include him in every article about next year’s rotation going forward).
This is yet another situation where nothing has changed since the trade. Ed Giles posted an article yesterday, where he talked with Ray Searage about the plans for Hutchison. Right now, there are no plans, because Searage is still evaluating him. And as we learned with the Ivan Nova story, Searage will take a few games to watch Hutchison before he starts making any changes. So any complaints about him now would be like if Pirates fans complained about J.A. Happ after his first game, or like complaining about Edinson Volquez’s Spring Training results, or just complaining about Ivan Nova immediately after he was acquired, without looking at any possibility that he could be another reclamation project.
But we know that Pirates fans wouldn’t be so quick to give up on pitchers, especially with the track record the Pirates have (cue comments about Jon Niese, Jeff Locke, and even Jonathan Sanchez — no expiration date for bad moves — even though I never said their track record is perfect), and especially since we know that it takes a few outings before Ray Searage starts his work with the pitcher, and it can take some time after that before things really click.
There needs to be a middle ground in regards to Hutchison. The trade was bad, but that doesn’t mean Hutchison will be bad, or that he has no value. Much of the value on the Pirates’ side of the trade is still to be determined. Part of that involves seeing how the Pirates spend their money this off-season. Another part involves what they do with Hutchison. And neither of those question marks has been answered since the trade, but will probably be answered by the start of next season. And even if they are answered, and the Pirates get value from the deal, the trade could still very likely be a bad one.
Until then, enjoy your daily complaints about the Liriano trade.
**No instructs report today, as they switched the game to tomorrow. That’s a way to say that there will be an instructs report tomorrow. To get all of our live off-season coverage, you can sign up for the site here.
**Tyler Eppler and Clay Holmes Add a New Pitch. Speaking of things that have changed, Sean McCool reports on a new breaking pitch that Tyler Eppler and Clay Holmes added late in the year. As in, it’s the same pitch for each guy.
**Edgar Santana Leads a Group of Seven Pirates Taken in Dominican League Draft. John Dreker breaks down the results of the draft for Dominican Winter League teams.
**Seth McGarry Switched Up His Fastball in West Virginia This Year. Abigail Miskowiec reports on the progress that last year’s eighth round pick made in his first full pro season in West Virginia.
