This isn’t too terribly bold of a prediction, but the Pirates are going to make some moves in the next couple of days. One of them will probably be a Jack Wilson trade, but we’ll get to that in a second. First, the Pirates cleared two spaces on the 40-man roster yesterday by outrighting Jason Davis and Raul Chavez to AAA. This means a couple of things. One is that the Pirates almost certainly have their eye on someone in Monday’s Rule 5 draft. Whether the guy they’re looking for will be there when they pick is another story (I’m talking about Eduardo Morlan). The other thing it means is that I’m going to be pissed if Jamie Romak gets taken in the Rule 5, because Davis and Chavez certainly could’ve been outrighted two weeks ago to make room for Romak.
Beyond the roster moves, Dejan has two names from Detroit that the Pirates appear to be interested in: Matt Joyce and Jeff Larish. Judging by stats and ages, I’m guessing that the Pirates want Joyce and the Tigers would rather give them Larish. Joyce is an outfielder that turned 24 in August, put up a .902 OPS in AAA, then hit .252/.399/.492 in 277 PAs with the Tigers, mostly as a 23-year old. Larish is a bit older (26 in October), plays first base, and frankly just isn’t the same type of hitter that Joyce is.
This is a bit of a tricky situation for Huntington and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. The Tigers are now rumored to be interested in Adam Everett ando be perfectly honest, signing a free agent shortstop with a good glove makes much more sense to me than trading for Jack Wilson. If Huntington holds out for too much of a return, he’ll likely scare off his market for Wilson. Wilson isn’t nearly as valuable as the two guys that Huntington traded at the deadline, which makes this a unique situation for him as a GM.
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