The Pirates have had trade talks with the Diamondbacks about shortstop Didi Gregorius, tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Last Wednesday, Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com reported the D'Backs were making Gregorius available in trade, after Chris Owings won the team's starting shortstop job. Rubin wrote that the Diamondbacks seek an MLB-ready starting pitcher to offset the loss of Patrick Corbin.
Rubin implied potential interest from the Mets, and now we have another possible suitor in the Pirates. The Pirates enter the season with Jordy Mercer atop their shortstop depth chart, with top prospect Alen Hanson likely ticketed to return to Double-A. Though he's not Major League ready, the Pirates have a pitching prospect who's fairly close in Nick Kingham. Easier to acquire would be Jeff Locke, who will begin the season back at Triple-A, with, as he tells Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "a bit of a chip on my shoulder."
Aside from the Mets and Pirates, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports lists the Reds, Tigers, and Yankees as teams the D'Backs "have thought of as possibilities" for Gregorius.
I dunno if Didi is better than Mercer. Pirates shouldn’t be willing to give up a significant piece for him.
He is not, this is just a way to get Ike Davis from the Mets.
The DBacks don´t need Ike Davis, they have Goldschmidt and Mike Trumbo, do they really want to put two mediocre fielders on the outfield?
No but Pirates DO want Davis. Mets don’t have anyone “major league ready” for anyone’s rotation but Pirates do. Jeanmar Gomez would be the best get for Backs. He will be better than Locke short and long term… better than Didi too.
I don’t think the Pirates want Davis. If they did, they would have him already.
I think he was implying that the Pirates would flip him for Davis
3 team trade.
I hear that Mark Trumbo guy is pretty good too must be brothers
Didi can to to AAA and serve as depth. Barmes will be gone after this season (or maybe even before) so the Pirates could have longterm competition for Mercer. Allen Hanson projects to be a 2B anyway, so it’s not like he’ll be blocked.
Give them a Jeff Locke or Brandon Cumpton. They will eventually need a SS. When the season over, Barmes will be gone and Hanson will still be in the minors so there u go.
It’s going to take more than Jeff Locke. Maybe Mercer (would play UTL) and Locke for Didi? I wouldn’t be in love with that package as a D-Backs fan though…
A solid starting LHP isn’t equal to a light hitting SS that couldn’t secure a major league job?
Agree. I wouldn’t give the DBacks a 5 year controllable SP that would right now, slot into the DBacks rotation as the No. 2-3.
Mercer is on par with Gregorious..
Uh, Jeff Locke couldn’t secure a major league job. Gregorius has not been sent down and, in fact, started their second game against the Dodgers the other night. Gregorius is also not really light hitting. He has power, but is a line drive hitter. He struggles against lefties right now but hits righties quite well. He’s also a great defensive player. If the D’backs give him up for Locke the Pirates are ripping them off.
Or the Diamondbacks have KT as a GM
The Dbacks have Pennington for UT. Unless Mercer has options, I don’t think they would be interested in him.
Sorry but Mercer is a far better all around SS than Gregorius right now and would be the starter in AZ if he was there. Pirates will send Jeanmar Gomez to D’Backs and you will be glad they did, he’s a good pitcher with a lot of starting experience. Pirates will then flip Didi to the Mets for Ike Davis. Everybody gets their back scratched.
Didi is a far superior SS to Mercer defensively. Mercer really belongs at 2B.
The Pirates like Gomez, and with good reason. Vin Mazzaro or maybe Bryan Morris could be had for Gregorius, but likely not Gomez. If you could morph Mercer’s bat and Didi’s glove, you would have a pretty good SS, but Mercer’s defense makes a lot of people nervous.
Mercer wouldn’t start over Owings. Owings is the reason Didi is even available.
Mercer had a good year with the bat last year. They both still have less than 500 at bats though. Check out their minor league totals to get a better picture of who they are.
I’d take Didi’s glove over Mercers power myself.
We don’t want another utility player we; we kept Pennington over Bloomquist.
If the Pirates had an excess of young MLB ready starting pitching to trade from they wouldn’t have Edinson Volquez in the rotation.
No one can figure out why the Pirates have Volquez. Anyone in Pittsburgh would rather see Locke, Cumpton, Irwin, or Pimentel out there.
I just hope they don’t keep running Volquez out there just because he’s their $5 million man. Somethimes you have to admit that you screwed up.
Cut him, please…there are better options.
Didi would give flexibility to move Hanson to second or for a first baseman in a trade.
There’s a 3-way out there somewhere with the Mets getting their SS, Bucs get their 1B, and AZ gets their P.
This actually makes a ton of sense.
Pirates want a 1B and a SS. I can tell you they value Didi a lot more than they do Davis.
Ike Davis is bad. There’s a reason the Mets don’t want him
there is a reason why the DBacks dont want Gregorious. Just add an unwanted pitcher to the mix and you have a 3 team deal of unwanted players.
Gregorius would interest me for the Pirates.. but not for Locke, and certainly not for Kingham.
They won’t be trading Kingham for Gregorius. Locke? Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Being sent to AAA to start the season and the Pirates have better arms pushing their way closer and closer.
You might be right, but one would think that the Bucs could get a better return for a pitcher who was in the All-Star Game last year than an INF who they will likely send to AAA.
Kingham was the guy I saw that made sense on the Pirates prospect list.
Didi was Top 80 prior to 2013, Kingham is Top 80 (Prospectus) this year. Matches up on paper but I don’t see how it helps the Pirates in the long run.
That probably depends on how well Didi hits. The glove is already there. He has to improve his offensive game. Imo he needs to cut down on how often he hits the ball in the air. A few more GB and LD will be a good thing for him.
He’s not had 400 ab’s yet so there’s lots of time for improvement.
Gregorius is 3 years younger than Mercer and still has some upside as a top defensive SS who can hit .260 or so. Gives them an in-house option for next season if Mercer can’t handle the job this year.
Didi for Gerrit Cole or Jameson Taillon? Sure. But that’s not happening. Would Towers take Jeff Locke? Would the Pirates trade him straight up or would the D-backs need to throw in a low minors SP to close the deal? It makes sense, a lefty to fill lefty Corbin’s spot in the rotation. What intrigues me most is that Locke was 77th out of 81 qualifying MLB pitchers in Fly Ball % and 5th best in Ground Ball % last year. He’s been assigned to AAA Indianapolis to start the season. I don’t know if there are extenuating circumstances or an injury but if Locke’s close to the pitcher he was last year, he’d be fair value for slick-fielding Didi Gregorius.
As much as the Diamondbacks need to shore up their pitching depth again, it is unlikely that they move Gregorius just yet, especially not for a pitcher recently relegated back to AAA. That’s not to say that Didi alone is worth more than that (there are arguments to be made both for and against that premise). It’s more likely however, that the team holds on to him for a bit and uses him as the centerpiece of a larger package, probably one involving multiple players in both directions.
Lol mercer is a platoon player look as his splits. Defensively he is not as good as didi which makes him better at second and platooning with walker. Pirates have always been willing to sacrifice offense for defense at ss.
True & true. I’m not comfortable with Mercer at SS. His bat’s okay for a middle infielder, but he’s a butcher at SS.
If they get Didi, I’d play him at SS & platoon Mercer & Walker at 2B.
I think I’d rather keep Cumpton over Locke. I have trouble trusting Locke after he was repeatedly shelled for the entire second half of the season. I think there is a decent chance he is JMac part 2, thought I could be wrong.
i’d much prefer Didi over Ike Davis
I can’t figure out why anybody’s that down on Mercer’s defense at SS. 13 errors in nearly 700 innings isn’t bad. He may not be spectacular, but he’s definitely nothing less than solid at the position. Not to mention, he’s one of the only hitters in that line-up other than McCutchen that can keep an OBP above .300. That’s not good, but it stands out in Pittsburgh. Also, if you look at his minor numbers; he’s been a guy who consistently gets better the more time he has at a level.
I’m inclined to think that the Bucs are merely looking for more trade-bait in finding an upgrade over Ishikawa (I can’t see any way they start the season w/ Lambo at 1B).
Since the Diamondbacks are looking for starting pitching, why didn’t the Tigers send Jose Alvarez to the Snakes for Didi? He has Major League experience and a young Lefty. DD must have needed to sweeten the pot a little too much, so settled for Romine.
I would like this pickup by the Bucs depending on who they would give up. Gives Mercer some competition in the present and future. Hanson is in the minors, but if Mercer/Didi pans out, Hanson should be able to slide over to second.
I’ve always had a soft spot for DiDi Gregorius. He just seems like a gamer. I wouldn’t trade Jeff Locke for him though, and I surely wouldn’t deal Nick Kingham for a potential platoon-level middle infielder. Cumpton has solid upside and he looked good in his spot starts last summer. With so many young arms getting ready to mash into each other over the next two years, I’d take the chance on dealing Cumpton for Gregorius. Sounds like a win-win for both teams needs.
So you’d rather have Gregorius’s bat in the lineup everyday instead of Neil Walker? That does’t even make sense. I know Walker isn’t very good against LHP, but he’s proven to be an everyday player much more than Gregorius has.
I agree. Didi gets thrown under the bus for his second half last year but he’s not even had a full year of ab’s in MLB yet.
He may not ever become a good/very good offensive player but that has yet to be determined.
Walker is still a better hitter than Gregorius.
The Pirates really value defense at the SS position above anything else. It could make sense for them to put Didi at SS and Mercer at 2B and dangle Walker as trade bait for a 1B. Walker hit .225 with a .518 OPS against LHP last year. He should be a part time player at this point, and he’s going to get fairly expensive over the next couple of years approaching age 30.