 |
| Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press |
The Pirates made three high profile trades last offseason. They sent starting pitcher Joe Musgrove to the San Diego Padres, starting pitcher Jameson Taillon to the New York Yankees, and first baseman Josh Bell to the Washington Nationals.
At
the time, it was a clear message to Pirate fans. Nobody is safe in this
rebuild if they can be used to acquire young and talented prospects.
Those being dealt were also all players who would be unrestricted free agents
by 2023, the year when most of these shiny new prospects are supposed to either
be debuting or well established in the MLB. If you are not protected past
that year, you are not valuable to this organization.
However,
instead of looking at these trades as salary dumps and purely means to clean
house, the trades have actually started to look pretty great for the
Pirates. Let's grade these trades one-by-one after another season's worth
of data. This is the second of a three-part series focused on the
trading of Josh Bell.
Josh Bell to the Nationals – C
The
Josh Bell trade to the Nationals is starting to look as if the Pirates may have
gotten the worse end of this deal. In
exchange for Pirates first baseman Josh Bell, the Nationals sent right-handed
pitchers Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean to Pittsburgh.
I think in regards to the data we have from the 2021 season, this trade
appears much worse than the Jameson Taillon trade we outlined in Part 1.
Bell was
not coming off of injury nor had he had a terrible injury history like Taillon
did going into last offseason. In fact,
Bell showed, at times, he could be the best hitter in the entire
league. He certainly lacked consistency,
but Bell had a first half in 2019 like the Pirates haven’t seen in
many years. He then had a very down shortened
2020 season, but as I have said in the past, I am throwing out that season for
any analysis purposes.
Bell
still lacked consistency with the Nationals in 2021, but put up solid
power numbers. He hit 27 homeruns and 88
RBI, which would have ranked him first and second respectively on the Pirates
2021 roster. In fact, the only other
Pirates to even reach double digit homeruns , other than Bryan Reynolds - the Pirates stat leader in everything, were Gregory Polanco and Colin
Moran. The Pirates certainly could have
used the power this season and potentially the next several. However, at 29 years old, and the ability to
become an unrestricted free agent in 2023, the time had come to receive something
in return for Bell.
However,
the ‘something in return’ also did not produce as well in 2021 as those received in theTaillon trade.
Wil Crowe
Wil
Crowe has not performed very well in the big leagues. And while it is a small sample size, it is
enough experience now to not consider Crowe a “prospect” anymore. Also, because this season was his first real
big league experience, pitching just 8.1 innings for the Nationals in 2020,
people may still see him as a youngster developing into himself. Unfortunately, Crowe will enter the 2022
season at the veteran age of 27. The
time for development is nearly over.
Crowe
had an up and down 2021 season. He pitched
well in his first start with the Pirates, giving up just one earned run in four
innings. He would then take the Mitch
Keller like path of having one good start, followed by one bad start, and so
on.
This
all came to a head on June 1st when Crowe gave up eight earned runs to the Kansas
City Royals. However, in classic Crowe
fashion, he then cashed in five decent starts out of his next seven, with a six
inning shutout performance on July 30th against the Philadelphia
Phillies. His final start of the season was six
innings, no runs and nine strikeouts on October 1st against the
visiting Cincinnati Reds.
However, toss in several other really bad starts he had and it all culminated into a ho-hum 4-8 season with a 5.48 ERA and only three Quality Starts in 25 games started. He also had much too high of a WHIP at 1.57 to be effective.
A season like Crowe had in 2021 would not earn him a spot on most team’s 2022 rotations, however I do expect him to appear in the Pirates' rotation come April. The
only positive is that Crowe got the opportunity to cut his teeth in a season
that did not much matter for the Pirates whether they won or lost in his appearances. This season was about getting the young guys big
league experience and Crowe certainly got that.
Eddy Yean
Eddy
Yean is similar to Maikol Escotto from the Taillon article. He is a prospect and is way too young at
age 20 to truly evaluate. He has plenty
of time to grow into his body. However,
we did get to see some of his work this season, and overall, it was not great.
Yean
started eight games among his twenty-two total appearances. He had a 5.27 ERA and a below average 1.43 WHIP. He walked far too many batters (39 in 66.2
innings) and decreased his career Strikeout to Walk ratio.
However,
as I said, Yean is still very young. He
also is rated as the Pirates 30th prospect, just scraping into that
coveted top 30 list. He also could still very
much be a part of the Pirates rotation for the foreseeable future if he
develops and performs better.
Concluding Thoughts
Because
Josh Bell performed well in 2021 and both Crowe and Yean did not, this trade
gets a lower grade. However, Bell did
potentially peak in 2019 and is not getting any younger. Also, while the Pirates could use Bell's power now and down
the road, him being at 1st base may have log jammed the third base
position and taken away very valuable major league at-bats from Ke’Bryan
Hayes. Those factors are why this trade
is not graded even harsher, but at this point it looks like the Pirates
received the worse end of the deal.