OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Congrats to the Houston Cheaters on their win

[ChaosAgent]

Newman is the SS whether anyone likes it or not. Shelton and company have preached defense and even if his bat is as bad as last year, he'll be out there more often than not. Hopefully his bat improves and he's traded in June/July. But I'd role Castillo at 2B and let Tucker be a utility off the bench to start.

Now if Hayes is out then you can put Castillo at 3B, Tucker at 2B, and Newman at SS. Split Yoshi/Vogel between 1B and DH. Gamel and Allen in the COF and obviously Reynolds in CF.

I guess, but Tucker is no slouch defensively either. He just sucked at hitting enough that he could never unseat the incumbent (Newman) and Newman's defense was the excuse since Newman himself sucks at hitting. Now Tucker has had a VERY intriguing spring, so I'd give the edge to Mr. Hudgens myself.

It's not like sticking Cruz in there.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

There's a thing called inflation. Cargo got that contract over a decade ago.

And kielmier contract was in 2017 he got 6/53 and a 13 million dollar option that covered 4 arbitration years and 2 free agent years and an option. We just saw Marte get 5/76 that starts in 23 and has an option of 13 million. The mets deal with Marte has him moving to RF and keeping Nimo in cf

 

[ChaosAgent]

Let's not forget that it takes two to tango.

Even if Nutting/Cherington offered Reynolds 6/$100, he would have to accept. And by doing so he would likely eliminate himself from getting a $200+M contract from someone in the future. If his priority is to get to UFA as soon as possible we don't really have a choice but go year-to-year with him regardless.

Like take a look at Cutch. If he didn't take that extension from us and hit the market after 2015, how much more would his career earnings be? $150M?

 

[ImporterExporter]

Nick Gonzales is going to hit. That much I'm willing to bet some possessions on.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Eh Marte is 33 and just got a $19.5 million AAV deal.

I think Reynolds' UFA value is probably around $20 million a year, more if he can stick in CF.

Yes, I think that's a pretty good comparison, and even though Marte is a little older than Reynolds will be when he is schedule to hit FA, I think that's probably around the upper end of what he'd get anyways. I just mean to say that there's a relatively hard ceiling for the team controlled years, and so if you tack on 3-4 and are not lowballing, the total number still isn't going to be astronomical. I imagine that the Pirates don't want to do a deal that has multiple years of commitment in the 18-25/year range, and I suppose there's a world for Reynolds where he can take the best arbitration numbers possible for 4 years and then hope for a big 4-5 year deal.

The Pirates not even attempting to raise the question of an extension is pretty telling, though. That could obviously change in a hurry, and it doesn't rule out revisiting in the offseason, but I'd be really surprised at either. My guess is actually that there's part of us who thinks 2021 will not be repeated, part of us just willing to wait and see, and part of us that wants to see some firm evidence of multiple pre-arb guys starting to have an impact before any real financial commitment (even the lowest bar) really starts.

 

[Gallatin]

I feel like Emp is very riled up on this one for no reason.

Barring all hatred of Nutting etc., since the CBA did not meaningfully change the service-time structure there is no urgency to move Reynolds now.

As I said. If the Pads offered Abrams/Gore/Paddack Reynolds is probably a Padre tonight. But they aren't, so he isn't.

Yeah I completely agree with this.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I feel like Emp is very riled up on this one for no reason.

Barring all hatred of Nutting etc., since the CBA did not meaningfully change the service-time structure there is no urgency to move Reynolds now.

As I said. If the Pads offered Abrams/Gore/Paddack Reynolds is probably a Padre tonight. But they aren't, so he isn't.

See, you can say there is no urgency to move him now, but I can also say there is no benefit to wait to move him. Yes, the Pirates don't have to trade Reynolds right now because he's under team control for 4 years. The team also blows and the benefit Reynolds gives from being a superstar is completely wasted.

I don't think you're going to get more value for Reynolds in a year or two than right now. You can argue they can sit on him as an asset until they get the absolute best offer they can get, but I fundamentally think he has less value with the more money he makes and less team control he has.

Again, if Nutting wasn't such a cheap shit, you just extend Reynolds so the last half of his contract coincides with the team becoming good again. Sure, it may not be pleasant to pay Reynolds $20 million at age 30, but you can offset a lot of those costs by surrounding him with young pre-arb talent. But they obviously won't do it.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Yeah I completely agree with this.

Like there are times when urgency in dealing a player is warranted. Cherington screwed up in not moving Bell after 2019 for instance.

But this guy, who is:
(A) under team control through the vast majority of his prime
(B) may or may not line up with our window of contention, we aren't sure yet and most importantly
(C) no one has made an offer for that won't also be available to us in two years

It's kinda dumb. Let's see if someone blows us away at the deadline.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Like there are times when urgency in dealing a player is warranted. Cherington screwed up in not moving Bell after 2019 for instance.

But this guy, who is:
(A) under team control through the vast majority of his prime
(B) may or may not line up with our window of contention, we aren't sure yet and most importantly
(C) no one has made an offer for that won't also be available to us in two years

It's kinda dumb. Let's see if someone blows us away at the deadline.

Who guarantees that teams wouldn't try to lowball the Pirates in 2 years like you're accusing them of lowballing them now?

If they're only offering say 80% of his value, who is to say that they wouldn't still be offering 80% of his value in 2 years? The difference is that 80% of his value in 2 years will be way less than 80% of his value now.

 

[ChaosAgent]

See, you can say there is no urgency to move him now, but I can also say there is no benefit to wait to move him. Yes, the Pirates don't have to trade Reynolds right now because he's under team control for 4 years. The team also blows and the benefit Reynolds gives from being a superstar is completely wasted.

I don't think you're going to get more value for Reynolds in a year or two than right now. You can argue they can sit on him as an asset until they get the absolute best offer they can get, but I fundamentally think he has less value with the more money he makes and less team control he has.

Again, if Nutting wasn't such a cheap shit, you just extend Reynolds so the last half of his contract coincides with the team becoming good again. Sure, it may not be pleasant to pay Reynolds $20 million at age 30, but you can offset a lot of those costs by surrounding him with young pre-arb talent. But they obviously won't do it.

The Pirates have talked to plenty of teams about him and they are asking for value commensurate with a 5-6 WAR CF with 4 years of team control in return.

They aren't getting it.

Therefore, you aimlessly speculating on how his value is going to be lower later is pointless. Teams aren't willing to pony up for him, so let's keep him.

Also we could be competitive as soon as next year and improve the team this year and next, setting off a cycle of success, and Reynolds would help in that even if he is traded in 24-25 or whatever.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The Pirates have talked to plenty of teams about him and they are asking for value commensurate with a 5-6 WAR CF with 4 years of team control in return.

They aren't getting it.

Therefore, you aimlessly speculating on how his value is going to be lower later is pointless. Teams aren't willing to pony up for him, so let's keep him.

Also we could be competitive as soon as next year and improve the team this year and next, setting off a cycle of success, and Reynolds would help in that even if he is traded in 24-25 or whatever.

That's not "aimlessly speculating". That's pointing out a cold hard fact that players who cost more money and have fewer years of team control are less valuable. That is anything but speculation, that's just a fact.

Teams aren't willing to pony up for him now, what if they're not willing to pony up for him in 2 years either? Do you sell him off for the best offer then and realize you wasted value by keeping Reynolds at his peak value when the team stunk?

 

[ChaosAgent]

Who guarantees that teams wouldn't try to lowball the Pirates in 2 years like you're accusing them of lowballing them now?

If they're only offering say 80% of his value, who is to say that they wouldn't still be offering 80% of his value in 2 years? The difference is that 80% of his value in 2 years will be way less than 80% of his value now.

No. It's because his value is getting into the realm of a team giving up guys like Cruz, Davis, Volpe, Abrams, J. Rodriguez, whatever. Guys who teams strongly believe are franchise players.

Teams will not give up those players for a not-name brand player. But they will happily give you as many as you need of the tier below, like how we got 3-4 of those type of players in the Musgrove trade, 3 in the Taillon trade, Peguero in the Marte trade etc. etc.

It's not a linear lowball. It's a "golly gee we want to upgrade in centerfield and Reynolds is really good, but we've been hyping up Anthony Volpe as the next Jeter to our fanbase."

 

[DJ Spinoza]

I dunno, I tend to agree that if they are set on trading him no matter what, they should be trying to move him as soon as possible. It doesn't mean they have to take whatever they are offered, but it's well within the realm of possibility that the ask is never met. We've seen it time and again, and even in the case where top prospects exchange hands, the likelihood of actually replacing Reynolds' talent is extremely low.

Honestly, I think the best possibility of a deal(in terms of how I'd assess a return) would be if Seattle would part with Kelenic + pitching. Not sure Hancock is appealing enough as a second piece, but Kelenic is a pretty ideal headliner in terms of age, control, and just being slightly overmatched in his first MLB taste.

I don't really want much to do with Paddack in any prospective deal. He could be a nice player, I suppose, but if you trade Reynolds you really need to commit to it. It's a message that the window isn't until 2025 at the earliest, and Paddack just has three years of control. The return has to be headlined by an elite prospect such as Kelenic, J-Rod, or Abrams, and then include multiple other prospects or players with very little MLB experience.

In the end I think every situation is a dead end bordering on disastrous.

 

[Gallatin]

Like there are times when urgency in dealing a player is warranted. Cherington screwed up in not moving Bell after 2019 for instance.

But this guy, who is:
(A) under team control through the vast majority of his prime
(B) may or may not line up with our window of contention, we aren't sure yet and most importantly
(C) no one has made an offer for that won't also be available to us in two years

It's kinda dumb. Let's see if someone blows us away at the deadline.

I've passionately made similar points at times here during the Pandemic.

I believe in aging curves. They all say that on average, MLB players fall off quickly after 30. And I saw that from Cutch at 29 even? So 30 isn't even a sure thing these days for the end of ones prime from my experience.

Not sure I want 31yr old Reynolds, and you only even get that if you commit to 32, 33, & 34 as well ....

Plenty of folks see it differently though for sure.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I dunno, I tend to agree that if they are set on trading him no matter what, they should be trying to move him as soon as possible. It doesn't mean they have to take whatever they are offered, but it's well within the realm of possibility that the ask is never met. We've seen it time and again, and even in the case where top prospects exchange hands, the likelihood of actually replacing Reynolds' talent is extremely low.

Honestly, I think the best possibility of a deal(in terms of how I'd assess a return) would be if Seattle would part with Kelenic + pitching. Not sure Hancock is appealing enough as a second piece, but Kelenic is a pretty ideal headliner in terms of age, control, and just being slightly overmatched in his first MLB taste.

I don't really want much to do with Paddack in any prospective deal. He could be a nice player, I suppose, but if you trade Reynolds you really need to commit to it. It's a message that the window isn't until 2025 at the earliest, and Paddack just has three years of control. The return has to be headlined by an elite prospect such as Kelenic, J-Rod, or Abrams, and then include multiple other prospects or players with very little MLB experience.

In the end I think every situation is a dead end bordering on disastrous.

God, you guys need to get on different SSRIs.

This is just a misery jerking of circles.
I wouldn't want Kelenic. I mean, I'd take him but not for Reynolds. Too often being initally overmatched correlates to not doing well later on. Lux. Lewis Brinson (the headliner in the Yelich trade which could be a benchmark of ). Jo Adell.

Andy Laroche for that matter.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I've passionately made similar points at times here during the Pandemic.

I believe in aging curves. They all say that on average, MLB players fall off quickly after 30. And I saw that from Cutch at 29 even? So 30 isn't even a sure thing these days for the end of ones prime from my experience.

Not sure I want 31yr old Reynolds, and you only even get that if you commit to 32, 33, & 34 as well ....

Plenty of folks see it differently though for sure.

I think it's that folks here see things through Nutting misery goggles at all times. Which is mostly Nutting's fault.

They want proof that Nutting will actually spend money when we're ready to contend again, and even if he will we'll get no such proof at this time. Everything about Cruz and Reynolds is just a proxy discussion on Nutting.

But if the decision is either get 2 50-100 prospects now or keep Reynolds for 3 years and then trade him for what we got for Marte 1 year away from FA...yeah I'm taking door B on that.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

God, you guys need to get on different SSRIs.

This is just a misery jerking of circles.
I wouldn't want Kelenic. I mean, I'd take him but not for Reynolds. Too often being initally overmatched correlates to not doing well later on. Lux. Lewis Brinson (the headliner in the Yelich trade which could be a benchmark of ). Jo Adell.

Andy Laroche for that matter.

Sorry man, these are wildly different players and situations that you are tossing out. Kelenic has barely half a season of MLB experience and is 22. He didn't play professionally in 2020 and skipped AAA entirely before his debut last year, and then did fine when he was back in AAA.

I don't think it's worth getting laser-focused on any specific player. Kelenic, J-Rod, or Abrams could also come close to the kind of star player Reynolds is, but the chances are slim and they'd have to hit their 90th percentile outcome to do so. Having pitching prospects headline a deal is even worse.

I won't really change my view that trading him is going to be the wrong move. No team that treats all of their players as fungible wins in MLB. At some point the goal should not be to continue accumulating talent in general, but to figure out how to upgrade the bottom half of your MLB roster while you develop your best talent to push the top even higher. We're lucky to have Reynolds in the first place -- you could hardly draw up a much better scenario in terms of risk for a player to commit and build around if the goal is to win a championship in the next 5 years.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I won't really change my view that trading him is going to be the wrong move. No team that treats all of their players as fungible wins in MLB. At some point the goal should not be to continue accumulating talent in general, but to figure out how to upgrade the bottom half of your MLB roster while you develop your best talent to push the top even higher. We're lucky to have Reynolds in the first place -- you could hardly draw up a much better scenario in terms of risk for a player to commit and build around if the goal is to win a championship in the next 5 years.

OK. I'm not trading him. We aren't getting the goods in return so we are fine keeping him for the forseeable. What exactly is the problem?

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Kinda strange, but Oliva wasn't really anywhere on the depth chart. He's out of options, so you have to assume they will have him on the roster to start the year. He hits the ball hard and we don't have a ton of RH power, especially with Chavis not really showing much in the spring.

Don't want to read too far into it other than to say I hope it's depth for an impending Newman trade this weekend and Tucker/Castillo are the MIF to start the year (VanMeter can play multiple positions but not well, so I assume he's more of a DH/bench guy).

Edit: lol, just realized he's actually a lefty. Not really sure I get it then, given that Yoshi and Vogelbach have LH power pretty covered, though I guess if they think he's a useful player, half the roster is pretty interchangeable at this point.

 

[Gallatin]

Nick Gonzales is going to hit. That much I'm willing to bet some possessions on.

Agree. I still can't figure out if he's gonna be a power hitter, or not, but he's gonna Rake for sure.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

OK. I'm not trading him. We aren't getting the goods in return so we are fine keeping him for the forseeable. What exactly is the problem?

I don't think we disagree that much -- it's all about hypotheticals anyways, but I do think there's a difficult line to have to navigate for the team if they are intent on trading him no matter what. The reason I say that is that then they are fully giving up on winning for several years, and so there's not much sense to having Reynolds around.

At the end of the day, though, all that we still know for sure is that they are just listening on him, as happens 99% of the time about most players. Everything else is chatter that is leaked from who knows where or speculation based on us not really doing much other than shuffling musical chairs castoffs hoping to have some guys lock on. It's within the realm of possibility that they just don't make any decision right now until they are forced to, and they could see what things are looking like within the 2025 season, for example. Too many ifs and not much real information.

 

[Gallatin]

I think it's that folks here see things through Nutting misery goggles at all times. Which is mostly Nutting's fault.

They want proof that Nutting will actually spend money when we're ready to contend again, and even if he will we'll get no such proof at this time. Everything about Cruz and Reynolds is just a proxy discussion on Nutting.

But if the decision is either get 2 50-100 prospects now or keep Reynolds for 3 years and then trade him for what we got for Marte 1 year away from FA...yeah I'm taking door B on that.

I'd actually prefer Reynolds play out his contract here in Pittsburgh, then go for the highest payday he can get.

The team would have to get really good really fast for this to happen, but that is possible.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I'd actually prefer Reynolds play out his contract here in Pittsburgh, then go for the highest payday he can get.

The team would have to get really good really fast for this to happen, but that is possible.

The pieces are there from a position player perspective. I may not be over the moon on Cruz but I am excited. Castillo could be really good. Castro has an it-factor. One of the outfield guys (CSN, Frazier, Swags) is gonna hit this year.

It's just the pitching, man. If it isn't enough, will Nutting open the purse strings to add? And will Cherington choose as well as Huntington always did?

 

[pistolpete11]

Let's not forget that it takes two to tango.

Even if Nutting/Cherington offered Reynolds 6/$100, he would have to accept. And by doing so he would likely eliminate himself from getting a $200+M contract from someone in the future. If his priority is to get to UFA as soon as possible we don't really have a choice but go year-to-year with him regardless.

Like take a look at Cutch. If he didn't take that extension from us and hit the market after 2015, how much more would his career earnings be? $150M?

True, but how much less would Polanco have made if he didn't take the extension? Or Tabata?

Maybe I'm too conservative, but I'd take the money if it was on the table.

 

[ChaosAgent]

True, but how much less would Polanco have made if he didn't take the extension? Or Tabata?

Maybe I'm too conservative, but I'd take the money if it was on the table.

A lot of it has to do with background IMO. Like, did Reynolds grow up poor? Whereas Cutch, Polanco and Tabata did. Now Cutch DID have his 1st round bonus to fall back on...

I think there are 'levels to this ish" when it comes to money. Reynolds now has earned like $7-8M playing baseball. If he broke his entire body tomorrow. That is comfortable retirement money after Uncle Sam takes his cut. 2 more years even without an extension and he's looking at $25M. Generational wealth. Get the extension and it's $100M. Super duper .01% wealth. What's the marginal utility of another $100M-$200M? Maybe not that much but then you get to be a guy who got into the rarefied air of contracts. Would be a point of pride. And certainly his agent's cut would be greater.