Headline: Pirates walk the plank

Author: Kendrick Imler

After going 19-41 last season the Pittsburgh Pirates organization is looking to rebuild by trading away some of their best players.

In December of 2020, the Pirates traded first baseman, Josh Bell, to the Washington Nationals in exchange for two pitchers Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean. Bell, who had made a name for himself in Pittsburgh is coming off his worst season in 2020. Batting a career-low .226 in 57 games according to ESPN stats, Bell will move to Washington in hopes to give them a first baseman and a good middle-man in the batting order. 

In an interview, General Manager Ben Cherington said,“ In order to build that winning team and get back to that winning team, it’s going to require some difficult decisions at times, Cherington states, “This is one of those”. 

In return for Bell, the Pirates will be adding two pitchers to the bullpen. Wil Crowe, who was the Washington Nationals top pitching prospect, didn’t win any of the two games he started in 2020 but the Pirates are hoping that will change in Pittsburgh. 19-year-old Eddy Yean is the second pitching prospect who has a record of 3-5 while playing in the low minors. But the trades did not stop there.

Recently the Pirates have traded away two starting pitchers Jameson Taillon and former opening day starting pitcher Joe Musgrove. Taillon was traded last Saturday to the New York Yankees in return for 4 prospect players. The trade includes pitchers Miguel Yajure and Roancy Contreras, Maikol Escotto, and outfielder Canaan Smith. 

Musgrove was traded to the Padres in a three-team trade. In return, the Pirates will receive outfielder Hudson Head, pitchers Drake Fellows, Omar Cruz, and catcher Endy Rodriguez from the New York Mets.

The Pirates are looking to start the 2021 season with a very young team. Cherrington and manager Derek Shelton are going to be in this game for the long haul. Each prospect they received from these trades is young and new to the major league world. It may take years till they will be ready to play at the major league level. 

Cherrington had this to say about the young team to NBC Sports, “The younger they are, the further away they are and that does represent some risk, no doubt. There’s a risk, there’s talent, there’s taking a subjective evaluation on the scouting side, there’s performance analysis, there’s character, there’s health. There’s just general upside, relative to that risk. We try to bake all that together into a stew and see where it leads us.” 

Many of the prospects are 20 years old or younger and although there is a chance that they could develop into great players, it is going to take some time. The Pirates won’t be looking to make a playoff run immediately but hopefully, this will be a start for the organization to rebuild and make a run at a world series in years to come. Regardless these are prospects to look out for in the future just to see if the three trades made this off-season were worth it or not.