Stealing First Base

In their last deal before the trade deadline (assuming nothing else is announced), the Pirates have acquired Ryan Ludwick from the Padres in exchange for cash or a player to be named later.

As far as price goes, the cash/PTBNL deals are about as cheap as it gets. Which is good, because Ludwick is about as marginal of an upgrade as it gets.

Ludwick’s a pretty good defender in the outfield, but he’s not the hitter he used to be. It’s true that Petco plays a factor in his bad numbers this year, but he also hasn’t hit well on the road, posting a .258/.300/.389 mark away from Petco. His 2008 season seems so long ago now. His greatest value may be in the fact that he’s currently set to be a Type B free agent, meaning if the Pirates offer him arbitration and he refuses they get a compensation pick in next year’s draft. (The same, by the way, is also true of the recently acquired Derrek Lee.)

Like Lee, there are some mitigating factors to this trade. While Ludwick hasn’t hit very well even away from Petco this year, he still should provide a marginal upgrade over Garrett Jones in the short term. (Fangraphs WAR has Ludwick at 1.0, Jones at 0.8). And perhaps returning to the NL Central – where he’ll face familiar pitchers and familiar ballparks – will help him. He probably (read: definitely) shouldn’t be starting when Jose Tabata and Alex Presley are both healthy, but it was a move the team needed until then. Especially since Tabata still has a while before he returns.

This went from rumor to confirmed in the blink of an eye. Near the end of today’s game, rumors about Derrek Lee to Pittsburgh started popping up. This made sense, as the Orioles acquired first baseman Chris Davis, so they would have to move Lee to get him playing time. Then, we found out the return would be a low-A hitter from the Pirates. A few minutes later, it was confirmed that the hitter was Aaron Baker.

Baker is almost nothing to give up here. He’s got some power potential, but he’s not really a prospect. He started out in competition with Matt Curry, but Curry blew him away and is in AA now (and hitting well for a guy who leapfrogged from low-A to AA.) With Alex Dickerson signed from this year’s draft class, Baker doesn’t really have a spot in the Pirates system anymore, so it’s no skin off our nose to send him to Baltimore for a veteran Major Leaguer, and maybe Baker can work out for the Orioles.

In my post earlier today I called Lee “a polished turd” as compared to Lyle Overbay, who is simply a turd. However, there are some mitigating factors here that have led me to the conclusion that it’s not an entirely fair assessment.

Firstly, the NL Central is not the AL East when it comes to pitching. In the AL East, Lee was facing CC Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and the entire Rays rotation on a regular basis. That’s some of the best pitching in baseball. In the NL Central, his toughest mound opponent will be Matt Garza or Chris Carpenter or Shaun Marcum or Zack Greinke. None of those pitchers are anyone to sneeze at, but none of them are among the very very best in the game either. I said in my earlier post that a move back to the NL might benefit Lee, but that I wasn’t willing to pay much to find out. Baker isn’t much, so there you go.

Secondly, Lee has been a second half player for the past few seasons, and it looks like that trend is continuing this year. He’s hit exactly half of his 12 homers in July alone, and he’s slugging .533 this month. July is also when Lee started to heat up after a bad start with the Cubs last year, then he proceeded to OPS .878 in August and .915 in September and October. There’s no guarantee that he’ll hit that well this time, but the possibility is there.

Do I think Lee is going to suddenly morph back into the .300 hitter that could put up 35+ homers, steal double-digit bases and play great defense at first? No, those days are behind him. But maybe he can hit 15 homers for us, smack some doubles and get on base, and hey, he does still play great defense.

At the very least, Lee is sure to provide an upgrade over Lyle Overbay at first. Maybe he’ll even provide a significant upgrade. Maybe he’ll be a polished turd, but as Pat from WHYGAVS said on Twitter, “Even a polished turd is better than a bowl of diarrhea.” For everyone that says “I want to acquire someone without giving up any significant prospects,” Lee is pretty much the exact type of player you can get.

As the trade deadline approaches, the calls for the Pirates to add a “bat” to their lineup to produce more offense have gotten louder.

One thing that’s become clear is that this is definitely a seller’s market. The two biggest offensive contributors on the market in Carlos Beltran and Hunter Pence have already been dealt. In return for Beltran, the Mets got prospect Zach Wheeler and depending on what report you’re reading up to two players to be named later. The consensus seems to be that the Pirates have some good prospects, but none of them are as good as Wheeler and nobody was going to top San Francisco’s offer. In return for Pence, the Astros got prospects Jarred Cosart, Jonathan Singleton and two other minor leaguers from the Phillies. With Domonic Brown already in the Majors, Cosart and Singleton were the two best prospects in the Phillies system.

After seeing what the Giants had to give up for two months of play from Beltran and what the Phillies had to give up for Pence – a good, but not great player – I’m glad the Pirates didn’t make those trades. The farm system may be stronger than it was two or three years ago, but it’s by no means strong enough that the team can afford to give up the best prospects they have for a rental player.

Some people have called for the Pirates to shift gears and become sellers at the deadline, offering up Jeff Karstens or Paul Maholm and seeing what they can bring in. While I think there’s merit to that (especially re: Karstens, as I doubt he ever has value this high again), I don’t think the Bucs should become outright sellers. They’re still in the race, sitting 2.5 games back from the division as I type this. If they can’t add anyone of consequence, I’d rather see them stand pat and hope for improvements from Pedro Alvarez and the return of Jose Tabata, Alex Presley and Ryan Doumit.

Most people say something similar to “I’d like to see the Pirates add a piece without giving up top prospects.” (Yeah, and I’d like to be six foot two and much better looking.) In fact, this piece by Dejan Kovacevic sums up the general consensus pretty well, and basically reads as “I don’t want to give up top prospects, and if the Pirates refuse, I won’t blame them. Until they don’t give up top prospects for a bat. Then I’ll blame them.”

So assuming the Pirates are still trying to add, who’s still out there?

Carlos Pena: He has yet to be dealt. The Cubs say they want to hang on to him because they think they can re-sign him in the offseason, which doesn’t make any sense since he’ll be a free agent and they could just re-sign him anyway. I think it’s a bit of posturing to try to get their asking price up, as before they said that the word was that Pena could be had for a bag of balls and the offer to pay his salary. Are the Pirates interested? Depends on who you ask. MLB Trade Rumors says not so much anymore, but they still have scouts looking at him every game, so they obviously haven’t completely lost interest. Pena would represent the most clear upgrade, as he’s an asset not only with his power and ability to draw a walk, but also because he’d remove a liability in Lyle Overbay.

Jason Kubel: The DH for the Twins is also nominally an outfielder, though he’s pretty terrible at defense. Still, he’s hit quite well this season with a 307/.360/.463 line. According to MLB Trade Rumors, the Pirates have “strong interest” in him. He usually hits 20+ home runs, but it’s unlikely he’ll reach that mark this year due to missing all of June and most of July with an injury. Regardless of the lack of traditional power, he’s been racking up all kinds of extra base hits. There’s reason to think the home run power will make a comeback as well, as his HR/FB ratio is at 7.4% this season as compared to his career average of 12.6%. The only red flag (aside from defense) is a .369 BABIP this season as compared to his career .306 mark. As the season progresses, I would expect to see a lower average and OBP from Kubel but with more power. The Twins say they think they’re still in contention, but they’re six games back from the playoffs right now and I doubt they honestly believe that. It reminds me of Neil Huntington in 2008 saying “We don’t have to trade anyone.” Everyone knew that Xavier Nady and Jason Bay would still be traded, but Huntington had to say that anyway.

Josh Willingham: Another “professional hitter” type, Willingham is a bad defensive outfielder with pop. His batting average and OBP have taken a dip this season from their career norms, but a lot of that can probably be attributed to playing in Oakland, a real pitchers’ park. One thing that’s stayed with him is the power, as he has 15 home runs and a .455 slugging mark this year. The A’s would likely sell, and Willingham is supposedly available for little.

Casey Kotchman: A first baseman having a career year in Tampa, Kotchman would likely represent an upgrade similar to the one Pena would represent, in that he would both be an upgrade in the lineup and he would also remove Lyle Overbay from the lineup. Similarly to Kubel, he wouldn’t provide traditional home run power despite a .451 SLG. Unlike Kubel, he doesn’t have a history of home runs either. In fact, nothing in Kotchman’s history suggests he can keep up his current .329/.388/.451 line. His career line is a much worse .268/.333/.399 which, while sadly still better than Overbay this year, is not better by much. Much of Kotchman’s line is due to a .365 BABIP, which his .280 career mark would suggest is highly unsustainable. The bulk of his batting line comes from a mammoth May, in which he hit .373/.429/.493. He’s regressed since then, though to be fair to him, his June line was .308/.370/.440 and his July line was .309/.369/.426. Kotchman was once a serious prospect with the Angels, but he’s pretty far removed from that now. Still, he’s 28 years old, so maybe he’s put something together in his physical peak and he can finish out what will most likely be a career year for him strong. He comes with a cheap price tag and not much of a rumor mill around him, so I think he could be had, but of everyone on this list he scares me the most. Partly because I’m not sure if he’ll crash back down to pre-2011 Kotchman and partly because Rays GM Andrew Friedman is some kind of evil genius who will trade us Kotchman for Lyle Overbay and Matt Diaz and we’ll think we won, but then Overbay will suddenly hit like Willie Stargell and Diaz will turn into Ted Williams because that’s how things always seem to work out for the Rays.

B.J. Upton: This is so unlikely to happen that it’s barely worth discussing. Upton would likely require top prospects to get, and I’m just not sure that he’s that good, especially considering most of our outfielders are in the same mold as him – value mostly tied to defense, a little power, a little speed. Give it a year or two and I think Starling Marte is similar to Upton, and we don’t have to trade for him.

Derrek Lee: D-Lee was really quite good at one point. Now, he’s 35 and hitting .248/.306/.409 (compared to Overbay’s .228/.301/.343). While he’s still playing the good defense he was always known for at first, at this point in their careers, Overbay is a turd and D-Lee is a polished turd. I’ve heard that Huntington thinks that a move back to the NL could help Lee. Maybe that’s true. But I wouldn’t give up much of anything at all to find out.

The Pirates have been linked to other, less interesting names, but those are mostly tire-kicking links. And there may be some players out there that we wouldn’t think are available that actually are. But if the Pirates are going to get a player without giving up top prospects, it’s more likely to be in the mold of the guys I listed above than a star.