Team isn’t poised for a rebuild, it’s already happening
The Pirates were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night, dropping the three-game series by a combined score of 22-6. They鈥檙e five games behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals and sit in last place in the National League Central.
Their drop in the standings is only matched by the names dropping off the active roster. Starting pitcher Jameson Taillon will miss extended time as he recovers from what the team鈥檚 doctors suspect is testicular cancer, making it a half-dozen players from the projected opening day roster that are unavailable.
It鈥檚 looking less and less likely that the team will be able to remain in serious contention by the time suspended outfielder Starling Marte returns in mid-July and the MLB trade deadline comes just a few weeks after that.
If the team continues on the same path, will they be sellers at the deadline? Could they even undertake a more serious rebuild, tear down the remains of what was a 98-win team not that long ago and start from scratch?
Don鈥檛 look now, but that鈥檚 already happened. From the starting lineup of the 2013 wild-card game against the Cincinnati Reds, just Marte and Andrew McCutchen remain on the roster. What remains is a very young core.
Tyler Glasnow is 23. Josh Bell, Alen Hanson, Chad Kuhl and Jose Osuna are 24. Adam Frazier, Gregory Polanco, Felipe Rivero, Taillon and Trevor Williams are 25. Gerrit Cole is one of the elder statesmen of the pitching staff at 26. Players in their 30s, such as Daniel Hudson and McCutchen, are the exception in the Pirates clubhouse as opposed to the norm.
鈥淭en of our (active roster) have less than one year of service,鈥� general manager Neal Huntington said this week. 鈥淔ifteen have less than three years of service. We鈥檙e a young roster.鈥�
The typical targets when a team starts to sell are older players who are on expiring contracts. The Pirates simply don鈥檛 have very many of those. Catcher Chris Stewart (team option for 2018) and first baseman John Jaso aren鈥檛 likely to fetch a haul.
The only traditional seller-at-the-deadline type of target would be closer Tony Watson. With the season Rivero is having in line behind him (0.47 ERA) and the Pirates鈥� history of trading closers before they became free agents (three in a row), Watson is likely going to be on the block whether the Pirates are competitive or not.
Then there鈥檚 McCutchen, who the team tried unsuccessfully to trade last winter. His numbers through the beginning of May are worse than the career lows he posted in 2016. If the Pirates weren鈥檛 satisfied with the haul they were offered for McCutchen last winter, it鈥檚 hard to imagine the return has gotten better. Perhaps the potential readiness of Austin Meadows could force the Pirates鈥� hand and change the asking price, but a McCutchen trade seems less likely right now than it did six months ago.
Cole has been rumored to be available, and the New York Daily News last week suggested the Yankees could be interested. But Cole still has two years of team control remaining after this one, and this Pirates team could be poised to compete again as soon as 2018.
If Jung Ho Kang can return, Starling Marte can keep himself in the lineup and the Pirates鈥� slew of younger players show improvement, that鈥檚 the foundation for another run sooner than later.
The Pirates would only need to trade a player like Cole if they were planning on a full-on, tear-it-all-down kind of rebuild.
But they don鈥檛 need that. They鈥檝e already done it.