This is my ninth season covering the Pirates while running this site. For the majority of that time, the site was free, relying on revenue from advertising, which was reliant on page views. The way that process works is that ad networks and sponsors pay $X for every 1,000 page views. And then the incentive is to maximize the amount of views to maximize revenue. This often leads to trouble.
Because page views were the primary source of revenue, I studied every article to see what types of articles received the most views, and what types weren’t worth our time. I always tried to avoid writing for page views, creating a policy where we would only write about a trade related article if there was an actual move, or a legit rumor connected to the deal.
Trade articles are by far the most read articles. There’s something about seeing the word “trade” in a headline that leads to an instant click. It’s why you see so many sites falling into the trap where they write about players who could be trade targets for a team, or players who could be traded away. It’s an easy article to write, and typically is free of responsibility, since it’s only speculation or a wish list of the author. The problem is that trade rumors are a game of telephone. One person says they’d like to see Team A trade for Player B, and then it doesn’t take long for fans of Team B to start talking as if Player B is getting shopped.
The reason I bring all of this up is due to an article written last week out of New York. I’m not linking to the article, since I don’t want to support it, but the basis was that the Yankees are looking for a pitcher now that they’re contenders, and they could trade for Gerrit Cole. It’s your typical “The Yankees are contenders, so your team will be forced to give them whatever player they want, as it is every team’s duty to give the Yankees what they want” article. Never mind that the Pirates aren’t interested at all in trading Cole. That Yankees writer wants to see it happen, so he wrote an article as if it’s up to the Yankees to decide if they want Cole.
And if you’re thinking “Well, maybe the Pirates would trade Cole” and starting to find reasons why they could deal him, then the game of telephone has begun. The idea that the Pirates would shop Cole this year becomes normalized with that process, even though it all started with a clickbait story. If you’re wondering whether the Pirates are even considering it, then Neal Huntington’s remarks about the article and the topic will put your mind at ease.
“I haven’t seen it, so I don’t care,” Huntington said when asked about the article this past Sunday. He later added: “Our expectation is that Gerrit is going to be a Pirate for a while.”
The Pirates have Cole under team control through the 2019 season. He’s a Scott Boras client, so it’s extremely doubtful that they’re going to extend him beyond that time frame. And that’s going to lead to speculation that they will eventually try to trade him to maximize the return. This leads to some extreme guesses that would put Cole being traded this year, with 2.5 years of service time remaining to get a massive haul. But that doesn’t really fit what the Pirates have done in previous situations like this.
First of all, the Pirates haven’t really been in this situation often. They haven’t been in a situation where they’ve been contenders, and could still contend going forward, but also have free agents departing with no easy replacement. They traded Neil Walker with a year of control remaining, but they had Josh Harrison ready to take over. They tried trading Andrew McCutchen this offseason, with Austin Meadows waiting in the wings, and rumors that they were going after an outfielder in the short-term. They traded Mark Melancon with two months remaining on his deal, which made sense, as they weren’t contending and wanted to maximize their return.
McCutchen was the only guy who they tried to deal with more than a year of service time, and that was a case where a replacement was in the wings. There was also the concern that he would struggle going forward, and those concerns are looking to be legit right now. Cole, on the other hand, isn’t struggling. He has a 3.14 ERA and a 3.31 xFIP, which is right around where his career numbers lie. He ranks 25th in both ERA and xFIP among 185 qualified pitchers since coming up in 2013.
The Pirates have never had a situation like this, where they have one of the better pitchers in baseball pitching like one of the better pitchers in baseball, with two-plus years of control remaining. The rotation isn’t like other positions either. If Tyler Glasnow figures it out, you could trade Cole and still have a big three of Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, and Ivan Nova. But why not have Cole with that group? If Mitch Keller continues his progression and arrives in mid-2018, you could deal Cole in his final year. But why not have him in the group?
At what point does a team like the Pirates trade Cole? Suggesting that they would only deal him based on how many years of control they have remaining is not really considering all of the factors in this situation. And yet, I don’t think you can assume that they would keep him for the long-term and let him walk as a free agent with a return of draft pick compensation. It’s not impossible that they trade him this year. It’s not impossible that they keep him until he’s a free agent. It’s just that both of those options are extremely improbable.
I don’t think it’s improbable to expect the Pirates to keep Cole and wait and see what happens in the next year or two. Teams still get a pretty big return for pitchers in their final year, or even for their final two months. And a lot can happen in two-plus years. That could be enough time for Glasnow to develop, Keller to come up, and/or guys like Clay Holmes, Tyler Eppler, Gage Hinsz, or Taylor Hearn to join the rotation. This all comes with the obvious disclaimer that no prospect is guaranteed to work out. The Pirates do have some time to see what will happen with their top starting pitching prospects, and no reason to trade Cole right now. So I think it’s a bit premature to start talking about the end of his time with the organization.
The bigger takeaway here is that we’re entering trade rumor season, and the Pirates are losing. And when that combination happens, articles go up acting like the team will blow up the roster and trade anyone and everyone they can, just because that’s the job of a contender. The truth is, this just fuels websites looking for clicks. Unless it comes from a reliable source (we always go with people who would be mentioned on MLB Trade Rumors), just ignore those clickbait articles.
