Bryan Reynolds was replaced for a pinch-hitter prior to his at-bat in the seventh inning of the Pirates’ 8-6 win over the Brewers today. The Pirates later announced that Reynolds was day-to-day after experiencing discomfort in his right side.
While more testing will eventually reveal the severity of the injury, the worst-case scenario would be an oblique strain. Even a lower-level oblique issue would require a trip to the injured list for Reynolds, and a higher-grade strain could put the outfielder’s season in jeopardy.
It took Reynolds about six weeks to really get going this season, but he has recovered from that slow start to become one of baseball’s hotter hitters. Entering today’s action, Reynolds had hit .306/.373/.567 with 10 home runs in his last 177 plate appearances, a stretch that has brought his overall slash line a lot closer to his breakout numbers from 2021.
The Pirates aren’t in the postseason race, and will again be looking to move pieces at the trade deadline as the club continues its rebuild. While the Bucs were never planning to contend this year, banking a few more victories and making a little progress in the win-loss column would’ve provided a bit more evidence that the team is indeed heading in the right direction. Losing Reynolds for an extended period of time, however, would certainly put an end to that hope.
An injury would also likely end any chance that Reynolds himself would be dealt before the deadline. There hasn’t been much expectation that Pittsburgh would actually move Reynolds elsewhere before August 2, since while Reynolds has been a fixture in trade rumors for over a year now, the Bucs are known to have a gigantic asking price in any deal. Between Reynolds’ ability and his team control (arbitration-eligible through the 2025 season), it isn’t surprising that the Pirates would need a ton to deal away a player who might still a factor once the Bucs start to focus on winning.
David Bednar is another Pirates star often mentioned as a trade candidate in theory, even if the team has resisted overtures. In fact, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that “the Pirates are emphatically telling teams” that Bednar isn’t available. While a blow-away offer would probably change Pittsburgh’s mind, just like with Reynolds, it would take such a huge offer to facilitate a trade. Bednar was named to his first All-Star team earlier today, on the heels of his 2.63 ERA, 15 saves, and outstanding secondary numbers over 41 innings as the Bucs’ closer.
REYNOLDS
ISN’T
GOING
ANYWHERE
A team will need to sell the farm and possibly include an MLB-proven player to get the Pirates attention. Trading Bednar also doesn’t make sense. Hes a guy you got as part of the rebuild.
I bet he does now that’s his value is high. Get a couple near major league prospects and call it a day. Team is still a year or two away.
They’re not 1 or 2 years away. They could make a Wild Card run next season. Mike Burrows, Quinn Priester, Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, ONeil Cruz, Reynols, Hayes, Swaggerty, Roansy Contreras,Ji-Hwan Bae, Jack Suwinski, and Henry Davis could all be regulars on the same roster by this time next season. That’s something you build on, not trade from.
Lol. ALL those guys could be regulars by next season?? That is some serious optimism. I ain’t mad at ya, I just don’t think they are that close. No way they compete anytime soon with the pitching they have in house and in the minors. Reynolds also has to be one of the most overhyped trade candidates in awhile. Good player for sure, but not someone you sell the farm for, and not someone who turns anyone into a contender.
That’s asking a lot out of 10+ rookies/second year players. Probably more than you should expect from them right away
Brubaker and Zach Thompson have been solid since the start of May. A rotation of Contreras, Burrows, Priester, then a back end of Thompson, Brubaker, Keller, maybe a free agent is good. And Reynolds absolutly a guy who makes a good team a contender. You do not watch him, or baseball in general if you truly believe that. He’s a 5-WAR player. 5-WAR players with 4 years of control remaining are guys that you sell the farm for, or don’t get.
It is, but as long as most don’t fall flat on their face, and some excel, they’ll be fine. I’m not expecting them all to be high-impct players, but they’ll make enough of a impact to be a solid team.
Ok bro. If you think that rotation is getting you more than 70 wins, I wish you luck. And again, I think Reynolds is a nice player. More than that, a really good player. I just don’t think he’s a superstar, or someone you give up 4-5 pieces for. I do watch baseball, quite a bit actually. I would say I can talk intelligently about every single team, I just don’t see Reynolds as the same difference maker as you do. I have zero bias in this either, unlike you. I wish him and your Pirates well.
And for the record, if Mitch Keller is apart of your rotation in any way, that’s gonna hurt. That guy is just not very good, and will not be in your rotation when you guy start to be successful. Look at those numbers. Ouch!
5 WAR players aren’t typically superstars, though.
The best players generally put up 8+ WAR.
Roy DeMeo;
Agree with you on Reynolds. He’s a very good player. Basically he’s a decent CF (like Cory Segar is a decent SS) that can hit some (and a switch hitter to boot) at a time when there’s a major shortage of even one-way CF’s in MLB. He’s more of the last piece to the puzzle for many teams as opposed to a guy that comes in and turns the team around.
I see him as a sort of a Nick Markakis guy that a team holds through a rebuild; a solid player that sets the tone for the youngsters coming up and breaking into MLB. He’s very probably more valuable to the Pirates than to any other franchise. Put another way – were he a FA at the end of the year he’s not getting a $350m contract, a $300m contract, a $250m contract and very possibly not a $200m contract…..even with the CF shortage. But fans like rumors.
If you are looking at WAR he is actually pretty similar to Markakis.
Put the brakes ok.
They are still 1 to 2 years away.
Like the optimism tho
If they trade Reynolds and Bednar, they would be taking steps backward, and you can add years to their rebuild.
I agree both are going nowhere
He’s a very good player but not a difference maker. It will limit the type of prospects that would come back.
IMO, batting Reynolds second hurts his chances of both getting on base consistently and driving in runs
.Newman, if he’s not traded, should bat lead off followed by Vogelbach, Hayes then Reynolds
Pirates will not pay Reynolds for an extension past his arb years, why wouldn’t you trade him right now? Same with Bednar, he is not Arnold’s Chapman, this may be his ceiling.
The team is 2 years away (best case scenario) and it’d be extremely shortsighted to keep these two goldmines to appease an already apathetic fanbase.
This team has very little legit pitching talent in the system. Trade Reynolds and Bednar to stock up with talent. You’re going to lose 90 games with or without them, SELL high.
trading your two best players with four years of control when your window opens up in two years with expected contributors in the majors this year and more progress expected next year would absolutely crush the young guys that are there. they want to be a competitive team and theyre just starting to see some regulars develop, there is no rush to trade reynolds or bednar unless someone absolutely bowls them over with a trade package
Say they fail to sign Reynolds to a longer term extension, and they begin to truly contend in 2024. What do you do in 2025 when Reynolds walks? The return on a trade in ’24 won’t be much because he’d be a rental. What do you do then?
The key is no matter how hard it may be for yinzers to understand, is to trade high for a massive haul.
Same thing with Bednar. No way he will still be a dominant closer in 3 seasons, especially they way they’re trotting him out there now, his arm will be shot.
If Preller calls again with Gore, Hassell, Abrams for Reynolds you absolutely make that deal.
No one’s getting Reynolds or Bednar without seriously overpaying. Period. And good on the Pirates for sticking to that. They should be looking to extend one or both of them this offseason.
Bednar isn’t going anywhere. He makes the league minimum this year, and he’ll make the league minimum next year…. That’s most important when it comes to Nutting.
Remember the last time the Pirates had a closer that they held onto because no contender would empty the farm?
I don’t think they make that mistake again. They are two years out from being a legit contender (assuming ownership allows for this).
And there was something wrong with that strategy? They had a top 3 closer in the league who was affordably under control for 3 more years after 2019. Not to mention he was an LHP. They had no rush to move him and likely would have gotten a haul either way in the off season. It’s not their fault he turned out to be a horrible person. Nobody could have seen that coming and it’s not a reason to trade someone now.
Most certainly should have moved him to the Dodgers, again, they weren’t winning with or without him.
Again, nobody could have guessed what happened next, but getting a haul for Vasquez would have been nice
Let’s not act like that wasn’t a wildly unexpected outcome to the situation though.
No use trading someone with years of control unless you get something more useful back. You don’t see many young cheap players with long control traded.
A lot of Kool-Aid drinkers in this comment string. Either you weren’t old enough to remember the other Nutting rebuilds or you are unwilling to understand that a leopard doesn’t change its spots. Just because prospects are young doesn’t mean they are destined to become stars. And they will trade Reynolds within a year. And they will trade Bednar when he is due to talk about a new contract because that’s what Nutting orders his management to do.
Nuttings a smart guy then. I don’t want 31 to 38 year old Reynolds. Either sign a team friendly extension or get traded for younger cheaper talent.
Correction
Nutting is a cheapskate, who’s only goal is making a profit
After paying salaries of the entire organization, it’s all profit for Nutting, his share of the luxury tax overwhelms his bottom line
This is a trade rumors site which fans view as an extension of rotisserie league baseball and the writers view as preparing for contract negotiations based on selected publicly available statistics.
The mentality is that any team in a rebuild process that has a quality / star player today needs to trade that player for multiple prospects. The assumption is that by the time their prospects come up and some pan out to be the core of a winning team, they’ll lose their current quality / star players to free agency.
But nothing is automatic. Silly future computer simulations by sites such as Fangraphs are – although well meaning – not exactly what billion dollar businesses want to base their business strategies on. Unfortunately, their track records are awful……but rather than audit their past results we’re supposed to focus in at the sexy new projections.
I’ve seen dozens of rebuilds in just the past 10 years that didn’t pan out as expected. Most fail. It’s a numbers game. Perennial 2nd division teams were forever trading the few quality players they have for prospects – usually to large market teams – only to wind up continuing the process as they become developers for the large market teams. That mentality has pretty much gone away the past 10-15 years. A combination of fan pushback, owner intervention, and FO’s learning they cannot continue to be employed indefinitely as spearheading rebuilds that are 2-3 years away.
They would be in a better place if they would of never traded for archer.
Baz and meadows would put them in the running for wild card in near future
Rays develop much better than the Pirates and are a contender and they didn’t want Meadows and didn’t get much for him so he wasn’t putting the Pirates into the running for anything other than more top 10 draft picks. Other than Cole Taillon both first pitcher taken in draft with top 2 picks who did the Pirates draft and develop? Pirates couldn’t develop Glasnow. Baz even more difficult than him. Odds weren’t good on him making it as a elite starter. Heck they only had Cole perform at a elite level for 1 year.
Wouldn’t be in a better place with a awful gm and pitching coach still here.
I doubt Meadows ever plays again. Two damaged Achilles and vertigo and who knows how that happened.
When that trade happened, I really thought that Baz was the biggest piece they gave up, and that’s looking to be true. Meadows had one really good season in 2019 and one solid 2021, but overall wasn’t the all-star many envisioned. Glasnow has pitches extremely well with TB, but hasn’t ever reached 100 innings in a single season with them. Now he’s about to turn 29 in August and recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Vertigo is random and unfortunate. Have family who suffer from it. It’s like migraines; never know when it’ll occur and it eventually dissipates on its own. You can only mitigate the symptoms.
I would entertain more realistic Newman, Quintana, and Gamel trade conversations on mlbtraderumors.com.
Not as many people will click the article with those names.
@YourDreamGM You’re definitely right.
Reynolds is a young superstar in the making, with better players around him he will easily be recognized as just that. Pitching is the issue with this team, better pitching has them in the hunt for a wildcard spot this year. That’s what makes being a Pirate fan so frustrating. A payroll of 95-100M (which is still well below league average) would make a huge difference.
Are you high again?
All this talk about the Bucs not trading Reynolds unless the Brinks truck rolls up at their front door is total malarkey. Let’s face it Buc fans, Reynolds is a good player, but put those Mike Trout comparisons on hold.
Contending teams who can offer top level SP prospects should be the Bucs priority. Although, Pittsburgh has proven to be a place where solid pitching prospects marinate in mediocrity, move on elsewhere, and then prosper.
Bucs should maximize this opportunity to fill up their prospect cookie jar and move both Reynolds and Bednar, especially Bednar.
Closers are made, not born. The Bucs will have to wait a few years before they contend for top cheese in the NL Central, so who knows what Bednar will like in the summer of 2025 or 2026? They’ll have more than enough time to find a closer to do the job when they actually need that job filled.