As expected, Paul Maholm signed a one-year deal with the Cubs with an option for 2013. It’s worth $4.25 million, which is a nice value for the Cubs and certainly a price I wouldn’t have argued with had he signed the deal with the Pirates. The other pitching news today is that the Orioles signed Taiwanese lefty We-Yi Chen to a three-year deal. The Pirates showed at least passing interest in Chen earlier this winter, though it’s possible that his recent injuries (which resulted in some ugly numbers in 2011) scared them off.
You can do the math yourself here, but with Maholm and Chen and Aaron Cook (who signed with Boston over the weekend) all off the market, the Pirates’ choices for more starting pitching depth are awfully limited at this point in the winter. Beyond going out and bringing in more NRIs for spring training (which isn’t an awful idea, of course), the market is pretty much limited to Jeff Francis and Edwin Jackson. Francis would be cheap (I’d expect Maholm’s deal to dictate the terms of his deal), though unexciting, while Jackson (who the Pirates haven’t shown interest in beyond reporters and bloggers hypothesizing, as far as I can tell) would be a bit pricier and require a bit of a long-term committment.
I also think it’s worth noting that the Orioles signed both Tsyoshi Wada and Wei-Yi Chen this winter and they signed Koji Uehara before the 2009 season. I always say that I want to see the Pirates involved in the bidding for NPB players, and this sort of thing is why. It’s sort of a Catch-22 (if you’ve signed some NPB players, you’re more likely to be able to sign more, but if you haven’t, it can be difficult to start, especially if, say, for theoretical example, Akinori Iwamura had a bad experience in Pittsburgh) and the Pirates have signed some teenage amateurs from Taiwan, but it’s somewhere I’d like to see the Pirates make some inroads.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
