The Pirates are trying to land Jose Quintana even after agreeing to a deal with Ivan Nova on Thursday morning. But just trying isn’t good enough, writes Sean Gentille. From his piece, which was published Wednesday before the Nova deal:
That’s nice for them. Trying things is great; I tried to finish Christmas shopping last night and wound up seeing “Rogue One” for the third time instead.
In that regard, I have something in common with the Pirates; I attempted something, let it be known that I was attempting it, and failed. It happens often with them.
They tried, by various degrees of reports, to get Chris Archer from the Rays at the trade deadline. Didn’t happen. They tried to sign Scott Kazmir last December. Didn’t happen. They tried to trade for David Price in 2014. Didn’t happen. They’ve tried to move Andrew McCutchen for a premium and extend Ivan Nova all offseason. Hasn’t happened.
Now they’re trying to pry Quintana from the White Sox, and it probably won’t happen. That’s a prediction steeped in history; Neal Huntington’s body of work, impressive as it is, and Quintana’s price tag, enormous as it is, make any outcome more than “welp, they tried” unlikely.
Gentille’s column echoes the cynicism I get from a lot of Pirates fans on Twitter, so there is a lot of pressure on the Pirates from their fans to stay in the National League Central fight, to contend, to win.
If the Pirates land Quintana, it would buy them some political cover under which they could trade Andrew McCutchen because they could rightly say: Hey, we’re trying to win in 2017.
And if there’s no chance of a contract extension -- and that seems to be the case -- Pittsburgh is probably better off trading McCutchen now, because if the Pirates are actually in contention for a playoff spot next summer, it would be problematic to market him in July. If the Pirates wait until next winter, his trade value will diminish.
And if Pittsburgh moves McCutchen, it'd have enough outfield depth to cover for his departure. One way or the other, it appears Starling Marte will move to center field in the upcoming season, and Gregory Polanco is set to play right field. If McCutchen is traded, Adam Frazier could take some of the at-bats in left field, at least at the start of the season. John Jaso could get some starts in left.
Austin Meadows, regarded as the team’s best prospect, reached Triple-A last season after dominating in Double-A -- 16 doubles, 8 triples, 6 homers and a .976 OPS in 45 games. If Meadows, who will turn 22 next month, is not part of any Quintana trade and takes the usual development route for Pittsburgh prospects, he probably won’t be a serious candidate for promotion until the middle of next June or so. If the Pirates trade McCutchen, they could dig into the free-agent market for one of the many, many available corner-outfield options as a stopgap signing.
A possible Opening Day lineup for the Pirates, without McCutchen:
LF Frazier
RF Polanco
CF Marte
3B Jung Ho Kang
1B Jaso
SS Jordy Mercer
With a Quintana deal, their rotation would look something like this:
1. Gerrit Cole
2. Quintana
3. Nova
5. Chad Kuhl
They got Nova at a good rate of $8.67 million per season, and a trade of McCutchen would clear $14 million in salary for 2017, so they would have the payroll flexibility. And a team that contained Quintana and Nova behind Cole -- even behind Nova -- would have a chance to be pretty good.