With the Winter Meetings ready to heat up, one would think Pittsburgh Pirates’ general manager Neal Huntington will be active not only trying to improve the current club, but getting rid of some hefty contracts as well.
Huntington may be able to accomplish both in the form of a potential Josh Harrison trade.
It’s been suspected for months that Huntington would look to deal Harrison this offseason and shed the $10 million that would be on the books in the final year of Harrison’s contract. Harrison does have club options for 2019, at $10.5 million, and ‘20, at $11.5 million.
Over the weekend reports came out that both the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets have expressed interest in acquiring Harrison. The first to report the news was Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Would either team make a good match for the Bucs and Harrison trade?
Let’s take a look.
Why Harrison?
Personally I would be thrilled if the Pirates could get a good return for Harrison.
He’s such a great person to have in the clubhouse, but the Pirates rushed to give him a contract after one decent season and since, his production never lived up to the contract.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Harrison is coming off one of his best seasons as a pro. One in which he set career-highs with 16 homers and a .339 on-base percentage despite not playing after September 2. His final line was a respectable .272/.339/.432.[/perfectpullquote]His value may never be higher and I have a hard time believing that Harrison can duplicate those numbers again in 2018.
He wouldn’t be difficult to replace on the Pirates roster as they already have plenty of guys, including Sean Rodriguez, Adam Frazier and Max Moroff, who can play all over the diamond.
He makes sense for the Mets for a couple of reasons. The first is right now they are looking at a combo of Asdrubal Cabrera, Gavin Cecchini and Wilmer Flores at second base. The other is Harrison can also play third base and the Mets have been unable to come up with a solid replacement at third base due to David Wright‘s injury history.
It also make some sense for the Blue Jays as well.
They did acquire Aledmys Diaz from the Cardinals on Dec. 1 to pair with the often injured Devon Travis, but Harrison would offer Toronto a guy with versatility who can play numerous positions.
Harrison should also make sense for Toronto should they decide to rebuild and deal guys like Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitski. Acquiring Harrison would assure they would have an adequate stop gap for a year.
What do the Mets have to offer?
Matt Harvey is on the block. And the Pirates should stay as far away from him as they can get.
Actually, all joking aside, Harvey is still under team control for two more years so his contract is one the Pirates could afford, but in 19 appearances last season, he had a 6.70 ERA and a 6.37. Throw in the fact that his fastball averaged 94.42 mph, which is down over two mph from 2013 and the Pirates shouldn’t even consider Harvey.
No more reclamation projects for Ray Searage.
On the MLB roster, one guy I would look at is Flores.
Flores will only make a little over $2 million this season and can’t become a free agent until 2020. Like Harrison, he can play all over the field and would give the Bucs a solid backup for Jordy Mercer.
More importantly though, Flores eats up left-handed pitching so he would be a nice bench guy. He hit 18 homers and drove in 52 runs in only 362 plate appearances last season so Flores would add a little bit of pop to a team that needs it badly. But he slugged .553 against southpaws last season so that is a bonus.
The Bucs need to improve their bench and Flores does that.
It would take more than that though.
The Pirates could use an outfielder and Brandon Nimmo is very attractive.
The Mets have been unwilling to part with Nimmo for some time now, but they are also making a play for another outfielder and a reunion with Jay Bruce has been talked about among other things.
If they add an outfielder, Nimmo is squeezed out of playing time again.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In 177 plate appearances last season, Nimmo put up a .260/.379/.418 line with five homers and 21 RBI.[/perfectpullquote]It may be tough to pry Nimmo away from the Mets and would take more than Harrison likely, but it’s something the Pirates should try for.
Again, I highly doubt the Mets would include Nimmo in any trade, especially in one for Harrison, but he should be a target.
Other than that, there’s not much on the Mets roster that both the Pirates should like and can afford.
That should make the deal about prospects.
The Mets won’t deal youngsters Ahmad Rosario and Dominic Smith and likely won’t listen to calls on RHP Justin Dunn or LHP David Peterson, but there are other chips that could get a deal done.
One of those is Cecchini, who made his big league debut as a September call-up last season.
He has a nice bat, but his defense needs some work at both second base and shortstop.
Most of the Mets other highly thought of prospects are coming off injury-plagued seasons, but a name to keep an eye on is catcher Tomas Nido.
The Bucs need a quality catcher in the system and Nido won the Florida State League batting title last season, hitting .320 for High-A St. Lucie while throwing out 42 percent of potential base stealers.
Pretty much every Mets pitching prospect has had arm issues, at both the MLB and minor league level so I would be scared to death to touch one of them.
However if I had to make a deal, maybe a return of Flores and Nido in a Harrison deal. Maybe throw in an arm like Chris Flexen for good measure if you can get the Mets to take on another contract.
What do the Blue Jays have to offer?
They have some nice prospects in Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Nate Pearson, but it is going to take a lot more than Harrison to likely pry them away.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It would be kind of comical though if Huntington shipped Harrison to Toronto for Resse McGuire and Harold Ramirez.[/perfectpullquote]There isn’t too much that jumps out at you on Toronto’s 40-man that makes sense. Starting pitcher Aaron Sanchez would look nice, but that is not going to happen.
Likely if I were to build a trade around someone on Toronto’s 40-man roster it would probably be outfielder Dalton Pompey, who unfortunately is coming off plenty of injuries, including a concussion, which limited him to just 13 games in 2017.
Pompey was billed as Toronto’s center fielder of the future just two years ago, but early struggles and injuries led to a demotion and him being passed up on the depth chart by Kevin Pillar.
He owns only a .22/.291/.385 line in 148 career plate appearances, but he does have a good bit of upside, assuming the Pirates could maximize his potential.
Pompey would earn under a million dollars this season and can’t become a free agent until 2023, which is likely more attractive to the Pirates than his production.
Toronto’s higher end prospects are more attractive the New York’s so the Bucs could target guys like: RHP T.J. Zuech, RHP Sean-Reid-Foley, RHP Connor Greene, C Hagen Danner and plenty of other in Toronto’s Top 20.
Other than some prospects though there isn’t much here that makes the Pittsburgh Pirates better this season.
A deal like Pompey, a reliever and a mid-level prospect may make sense long-term, but it does nothing to help the Pirates get better now.
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