I don’t think that I was correct in how I evaluated Andrew McCutchen through his first run with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The modern-day approach in baseball for small market teams is to focus on “value”. That word is meaningless, as there are so many ways you can measure value. McCutchen was paid $5 million by the Pirates in 2023, and those are real dollars. His “value” on the field was $10 million, meaning the Pirates got his production for half the price it would be on the open market. His presence as the face of the team probably led to a boost in ticket sales that made it so that he didn’t even need positive value on the field. But there’s an intangible value which I didn’t respect in my earlier, slave-to-the-Moneyball-mindset analysis.
Andrew McCutchen represents something larger in Pittsburgh. He was the face of the first wave of prospects who brought winning back to this city. He’s the first player to win the MVP award in Pittsburgh since Barry Bonds, whose legacy was not cemented in Pittsburgh. When the Pirates trade a good player for future value, there’s a smart organizational planning involved. Andrew McCutchen gives Pirates fans an example that is special: An example of what it looks like when someone in Pittsburgh is the best in the game. Not only the best in the game, but also a good-hearted person, a team player, and someone who embraces and loves the city he plays for. I don’t know if you can put a “value” on those characteristics, as that type of profile is invaluable.
The paradox is that if you don’t trade McCutchen in 2018, this current team doesn’t have Bryan Reynolds and McCutchen heading into 2024. The trade of McCutchen brought a different type of long-term value. The Pirates had one winning season in that span, which was an 82-win performance the year McCutchen was traded. The organization didn’t have a set direction at that point, trading McCutchen for prospects about five months before they traded prospects for Chris Archer. It makes you wonder what might have happened had they kept McCutchen and Gerrit Cole and traded prospects at the start of the season to go all-in on that team. The Pirates now have McCutchen on a team that includes Reynolds, and they have a better plan toward winning. They can make the McCutchen trade valuable in the long-term if they win with Reynolds and McCutchen. Value comes in many forms. The fact that Pittsburgh fans now know that Andrew McCutchen is a Pittsburgh Pirate for as long as he wants to play baseball provides a level of value to the fans that you can’t purchase with money. You can go to PNC Park in any future year and hope to see a Pirates team win. We’re currently in the time where you can still go watch Andrew McCutchen, and hopefully in 2024, watch him win with the Pirates.
THIS WEEK ON PIRATES PROSPECTS
Yesterday’s P2Daily looked at the big ask of young pitchers. At this point, with Mitch Keller, Marco Gonzales, and Martin Perez, the Pirates have the makings of a good rotation for 2024. If they made a trade for a starter who could impact the top of this group, it would also set them up well in the number five spot — creating a competition among several young players, rather than relying on multiple young pitchers to contend from day one in 2024.
FEATURES
**Williams: The Battle of the First Overall Picks. The NBA has been my own sports escape this offseason. Recently I had a chance to watch the battle of two first overall picks from the NBA draft, and it had me thinking about the right approach for the Pirates to take with Henry Davis and Paul Skenes.
**Williams: Are the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates a Winner Yet? I looked at the ZiPS projections to see where the Pirates stand after their additions so far.
TRANSACTIONS
**Andrew McCutchen Returns to the Pirates. This move was expected, but a good one. Not only is McCutchen the face of the modern-day Pirates franchise, he’s also still one of their more productive bats in the lineup.
**Pirates Sign LHP Martin Perez. The Pirates have had success the last few years getting reliable innings out of lefty starters. They went back to this strategy by signing Martin Perez yesterday.
THOUGHT PROCESS OF THE DAY
Would you rather watch a bad game that your team wins, or a good game that your team loses?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Man’s most valuable trait
is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
-Euripides
