This week's report that there's "no chance" the Pirates trade ace Paul Skenes, just one and a half seasons into his six-year window of club control, stood out as fairly obvious for most onlookers. That anyone felt it needed to be said at all was more a reflection on the organization as a whole than Skenes himself.
Pittsburgh has taken a step back this season, sitting on pace to win 56 games after winning 76 games in both 2023 and 2024. A rebuild that has seen the Bucs pick ninth or better in five consecutive drafts, including No. 1 overall in 2021 and 2023, has not only failed to produce a contender -- it's failed to even produce a farm system that ranks in the top third of MLB. The team at Baseball America ranked the Pirates with MLB's 16th-best system prior to this season. Keith Law of The Athletic did the same. MLB.com's trio of Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo and Sam Dykstra ranked the Bucs 14th. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel was more bearish, ranking them 20th.
The Pirates already fired manager Derek Shelton. General manager Ben Cherington can't feel as secure as he did a few seasons ago. Owner Bob Nutting bears the brunt of the blame; his refusal to invest in the roster leaves the front office and coaching staff zero margin for error. Nutting's overwhelmingly frugal nature also leaves veritably no chance that Skenes will be signed long-term.
Just because a trade at some point down the road feels inevitable, however, does not mean it'll happen this year. That's never seemed likely, and while the "no way, no chance, no how" quote was from a Pirates executive who preferred to remain anonymous rather than place their name on those words, GM Ben Cherington soon offered a similar sentiment on the record.
The Pirates, for all their warts, are still a pitching-rich organization. The name at the very top of the pyramid may not be on the move, but the Pirates will have no shortage of pitchers who are legitimately available this summer. There's always a broad range of "availability." Pure veteran rentals will probably be aggressively shopped. Pitchers signed/controlled through 2026 will presumably be available but with a higher price tag. And there will be some arms with even more club control on whom the Bucs will listen but not outright dangle to contenders seeking to bolster their own staffs.
Let's run through some of the likely available inventory.
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Skenes!
I changed my mind. I’d option Skenes down to the minors because he needs to work on his defense. 😜 Need to get that service year back.
Keller, Bednar, Ferguson, Falter, Heaney.
If you get a sufficient return, trade all of them.
The Bad Market Pittsburgh fan base will moan that it’s a salary dump, but they’re going to moan no matter what the Pirates do simply because it was the Pirates who did it.
We want to win. Stop worrying about this team and worry about yours. You don’t know what it’s like
The Pirates ARE my team.
That doesn’t keep me from recognizing and speaking the truth about the historically bad Pittsburgh market for baseball.
We had a Rox fan in here pretty frequently. When I argued for a rebuild, he was adamant that it was better to hope for .500 than to invest 2-3 of a painful rebuild.
That’s a personal choice of course, but as a Raiders fan, sometimes you have to rip off the band aid.
They never seem to get anything with these deals though, just faraway prospects or bums who are organizational filler. I wouldn’t be opposed to a trade of 1-2 of them, but think about Ashcraft or Harrington as well. Harrington has fringe mlb stuff, Ashcraft is inconsistent and never built up innings.
Tricky dicky troll muted…he’s a broken record
General manager Ben Cherington can’t feel as secure as he did a few seasons ago. Owner Bob Nutting bears the brunt of the blame;
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No.
That Nutting has under-invested doesn’t mean that BC hasn’t also done a bad job. Skenes was the automatic choice, but BC has very little else to show for his drafts, and I cannot think of any international draftees of any importance.
Joe;
Agreed.
Boy, MLBTR hops on a screwball narrative and the kids eat it up.
“Jon Heyman of the New York Post spoke to an unnamed Pirates executive who flatly told him, “No way, no chance, no how,” when the possibility of a Skenes trade was broached”. This quote from an MLBTR article the other day”. Now MLBTR – as usual – is speculating off of a flawed article.
First, Jon Heyman is a rumor monger that lives for clicks. He has next to zero credibility. Next, what would a reasonable person that follows baseball think an “unnamed Pirates executive” would say to such a question? This is a story?
Finally, clearly the Pirates latest rebuild has been a failure. So the question is: Does the FO stay past this season? But before the owner can make a decision on that, the bigger question is: What potential FO head wants to work in that environment? (This is will also apply to what will surely be an opening in Baltimore as well.) Then we have the looming shutdown whereby sports fans in at least half the MLB markets are fed up with the disparity in their teams revenue and the subsequent ability to sign and retain superior players….and those fans have teams in either/or the NFL and NBA where they have equal crack at players. Expect that lockout/strike to be a long one.
In short, Speculation that this point is premature.
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On my part: this is the worst season I’ve seen in MLB in years. Sloppy, dumb baseball is being played just about everywhere. Fundamentally strong young players such as Jacob Wilson of the A’s are in short supply. Add in the never-ending TJ surgery’s because of the way pitching is played and coached, along with the virtual team rosters in the high minors that result in endless player transactions, and fans in all cities that attend to other things in their lives for 2 weeks during the season come back and find their local team has changed a bunch of players so it’s hard to keep up….not to mention what that opposing teams have done the same meaning that the average MLB fan/consumer is lost.
Mobile (via app) says I’m logged in, but I can’t see the full article, gents. A blimp, I’m sure but I wanted you to know.
Poor Pittsburgh. That’s a great baseball city with one of the best parks in MLB. But they’re over-the-top cheap and marquee players, regardless of the money, will never go there. Nor will anyone with billions upon billions of dollars buy the club.
Pittsburgh is an historically bad market for baseball.
I’ve heard several people lately preface their criticism of Nutting for being a terrible baseball owner by saying he’s a good businessman.
No.
His dad died and he was gifted a bunch of businesses that he bleeds dry while mismanaging them.
Anyone with even one thousandth of an iota of business savvy would invest (even a little) in this team during the Skenes window, but all he knows how to do is bleed it dry.
To Pirates fans:
Do you think the Pirates would trade Johan Oviedo back to the Cardinals for Nolan Gorman? Is that close?
The Cardinals have no place to play Gorman. Even if they somehow manage to trade Arenado, Donovan goes to 3B and Saggese or even possibly Wetherholt takes over at 2B. But the Pirates need cheap power and maybe Gorman finally puts it together with regular at bats.
The Cardinals could use Oviedo as a reliever whenever he returns this season and build him back up as a starter in the offseason. It seems like a trade that works for both sides to me.
There’s no guarantee that they will keep Burrows at the parent club if Heaney is indeed traded
Oviedo might be used as trade bait but they aren’t likely to trade within their division
That’s not Cherington’s style