The Pittsburgh Pirates sold off pieces last winter, but decided to be opportunistic buyers at this trade deadline, picking up reliever Keone Kela from the Texas Rangers in one deal and then going big with a trade for Chris Archer from the Tampa Bay Rays shortly before 4 p.m. ET.
Archer can show pure stuff to match any starter in baseball, and he's so athletic that it's hard to believe he hasn't been more successful -- mostly because he's undone by home runs. Archer's velocity can sit 94-95 mph, he also shows a wipeout slider at times, and has an above-average to plus changeup, although his fastball plays down due to below-average command of it and inconsistent life on the pitch.
Archer is a tremendous athlete, his delivery is pretty good and by all accounts he's got the mental aptitude to be a top-end starter -- it just hasn't happened yet. Maybe he's Edwin Jackson and teams and coaches will all chase him forever, into his late 30s, thinking "we can be the one team that makes him a star" when everyone else failed. I never bought into Jackson like that, but I do buy Archer, and I think what we know of the price the Pirates paid for it makes this a smart gamble for the team -- even more so given how team-friendly Archer's contract is.
The return for Archer right now is disappointingly light, with two of the three players already named -- both former top prospects who have failed to pan out to date. Austin Meadows had a brief hot streak when he first came up to the majors in May, but the crazy power he showed in those first two weeks was out of character for him, and he has hit .245/.288/.336 since June 1, including yet another DL stint. Meadows still has untapped potential, but he doesn't make enough impact on the ball at bat for a corner outfielder, and he has a long history of injuries, missing nearly half of 2016 and 2017 due to various ailments. His best attribute at the plate is his high contact rate, but it comes at the cost of power.
Tyler Glasnow was one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball until he reached Triple-A, when his difficulty repeating his delivery and thus below-average command became a real problem for him, as was his lack of an average third pitch. Glasnow has the size and velocity to be a power/ground ball guy, but that trick only works if you throw enough strikes. The Pirates tried to find Glasnow a delivery he could repeat, but he hasn't settled on one yet. Pitching in relief this year, he has walked 14 percent of the batters he has faced, and lefties have lit him up for a .386 OBP.
The third player is unknown. But for this deal to make sense, it has to be someone very significant, a top prospect from the Pirates or a young major-leaguer with years of control and value ahead of him. Whether this is a good deal for the Pirates thus swings on whether the PTBNL is a Mitch Keller or a Gregory Polanco, or whether it's another faded prospect like the first two pieces.
• The Pirates also swapped giant lefty Taylor Hearn for Rangers reliever Keone Kela. Hearn has had a nice year as a starter in Double-A, with a little less funk in the delivery so he can repeat it more, flashing an above-average slider to go with his 80-grade fastball and above-average changeup. He could end up a starter, still, with high upside as a power reliever who could be a 30 percent strikeout guy. I'd probably rather have him than Kela, an injury-prone but highly effective right-handed reliever with a longer track record of success and the Proven Closer™ label too.