Casaletto: Why the Blue Jays should give the Pirates a call

Veteran Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Chris Archer could help the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting rotation, writes Canadian Baseball Network scribe Lucas Casaletto. Photo: Jim Mone/Associated Press

December 13, 2019

By Lucas Casaletto

Canadian Baseball Network

It’s almost official: the Toronto Blue Jays have signed a free agent.

On Wednesday, the club reportedly agreed to a two-year, $24-million contract with right-hander Tanner Roark - formerly of the Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, and Oakland Athletics.

Roark is slated to join Matt Shoemaker, Chase Anderson, Trent Thornton, and Ryan Borucki as the presumed locks in the starting rotation. Top prospect Nate Pearson will factor into the equation at some point, with Anthony Kay and TJ Zeuch battling for a spot, as well. This has all the makings of an unfinished project with more additions ostensibly on the way.

General manager Ross Atkins continues to express how aggressive the front office has been since the Winter Meetings kicked off, with manager Charlie Montoyo and team president Mark Shapiro both vouching for their GM. As of this writing, starters continue to fall off the board at a fast pace, with Rick Porcello as the latest to go, agreeing to a deal with the New York Mets.

Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler, Michael Pineda, Jordan Lyles, Josh Lindblom, and Michael Wacha have all signed in the past week or so, as the cupboard gets thinner and thinner. It’s left the Blue Jays focusing on a pair of southpaws, specifically Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dallas Keuchel, as their main targets. They’re not alone, with the Minnesota Twins reportedly in talks with Ryu, and the Los Angeles Dodgers a threat to sign any pitcher now that Cole has taken his talents to the Bronx.

It remains to be seen what aggressive means to Atkins and Shapiro. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reported shortly after the Lindblom signing that the Blue Jays made a “significant” offer to the right-hander, leaving many to wonder what kind of deal was on the table (Lindblom agreed to a three-year, $9 million contract with Milwaukee). If the Blue Jays miss out on Ryu and Keuchel they will be left with very little, so if it’s not the highest offer, chances are they won’t sign in Toronto.

Once the free-agent market settles, the Blue Jays - and most pitching-seeking clubs - could look to the trade market as a way to improve the starting rotation. Andrew Stoeten of The Athletic recently published a detailed piece in which he assessed every club’s starters and tried to narrow down which of them could be made available through trade.

There’s one team that really sticks out.

After a string of success from 2013 to 2015, the Pittsburgh Pirates have one winning season to show for it ever since. The club has been mired with off-field incidents, most notably charges laid against closer Felipe Vasquez, and turmoil in the clubhouse, which led to the firing of long-time manager Clint Hurdle and general manager Neal Huntington. The latter has since been replaced by former Blue Jays executive Ben Cherington, who hired Derek Shelton as the team’s new manager (Shelton was Toronto’s quality control coach back in 2017). Cherington also scooped up former Blue Jays scouting director Steve Sanders, who joined him.

Front office subtractions aside, this represents an intriguing opportunity for Atkins and the Blue Jays. It’s not to suggest Cherington would facilitate a deal with Toronto just because of his familiarity and rapport with the organization, but it is rather difficult not to link the two clubs as ideal trade partners.

The Pirates are said to be shopping essentially every major leaguer with value, most notably Starling Marte, Josh Bell, and Adam Frazier. While it appears to be a tad cooler on the pitching side of things, let’s safely include Chris Archer and Joe Musgrove to the list of potentially available assets.

Let’s start with Archer, who is quite familiar with pitching in the American League East. Archer, now 31, was part of what is likely to be considered the worst trade of Huntington’s tenure in Pittsburgh. In the deal, the Tampa Bay Rays acquired Tyler Glasnow (has accrued 3.2 bWAR and 140 strikeouts in 116 innings since the trade) and Austin Meadows (finished with 33 home runs and 142 wRC+ in 2019) en route to a 96-win season. Unpredictably, it’s Archer that has struggled to produce value with the Pirates. The right-hander pitched relatively well following the trade (in 10 starts, Archer outperformed his 4.30 ERA with a 4.00 FIP), striking out 60 in just over 52 innings.

This past season was a different story.

Archer’s ERA and walk totals spiked to a career-worst 5.19 and 4.1 BB/9, and his batted ball metrics (.347 xwOBA and .480 xSLG) don’t paint a pretty picture, either. That’s where the Blue Jays come in.

Despite Archer’s struggles, it’s really been only one season in which he’s failed to pitch well. The strikeouts (10.7 K/9) are still there, and though he did finish with a career-low 0.7 fWAR, the fastball velocity and spin rates remain strong. A bonus for the Blue Jays is Archer’s contract (he’s owed $9 million in 2020 followed by an $11 million club option in 2021). There’s also a ton of familiarity here. Shapiro was Cleveland’s general manager when the team drafted Archer in the fifth round of the 2006 draft and Montoyo was Archer’s manager in triple-A Durham from 2012 to 2013. They then reunited with the Rays from 2015 until Archer was dealt in 2018.

It’s probably a stretch to assume that Archer will return to form as a perennial Cy Young award candidate, but there’s at least some kind of bounce-back potential here. The Blue Jays don’t need Archer to be a bonafide ace they simply need some stability. Archer, an outspoken and charismatic leader both on and off the field, would also do wonders for the clubhouse and fan base.

Former Toronto Blue Jays first-round pick Joe Musgrove has been a steady starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the past two seasons. Photo: USA Today Sports

Then there’s Joe Musgrove.

A first-round pick of the Blue Jays in 2011, Musgrove’s time with the organization would be brief. The right-hander was part of the massive, 10-player trade that saw Alex Anthopoulos acquire J.A. Happ, among several others, from the Houston Astros back in 2012. Musgrove would appear in 49 games with the Astros, making 25 starts, before he was dealt again, this time to Pittsburgh, as part of the package for Gerrit Cole.

Musgrove has been good, and at times a great starting pitcher in two seasons with the Bucs, striking out 8.1K/9 and outperforming his 4.28 ERA with a very solid 3.72 FIP in 50 starts. In fact, since 2018, it’s Musgrove - not Jameson Taillon or Archer - that has been the Pirates’ most valuable starter. Perhaps most surprisingly, among qualified starters with at least 250 innings pitched, Musgrove ranks among the NL’s top-20 in terms of WAR - ahead of Jose Quintana, Jon Lester, Robbie Ray, and Madison Bumgarner.

There’s a lot to like about Musgrove, who is arbitration-eligible until 2023 and projected to earn somewhere between $3-and-$3.5 million. His spin rates are good and his slider - by far his best pitch - has induced swings off the plate at a monstrous 46 percent rate, mixed with an excellent 41 percent zone rate and 17.5 percent swinging-strike rates. His past season was no fluke.

The Pirates have at least two starters that would instantly boost a thin Blue Jays starting rotation. Archer and Musgrove are both forecasted to be the Pirates’ best pitchers ahead of the regular season, according to FanGraphs’ 2020 Steamer projections. If the Blue Jays want to get creative and or bold, there’s also the possibility of expanding the deal so that it includes Starling Marte or Taillon.

Atkins was quoted recently saying the club could look for an external upgrade at centre field if the fit made sense. Shapiro, for what it’s worth, singled out the position as a need. Marte isn’t what he used to be, particularly on defense, but he’s coming off yet another 3-win season and still grades among the league’s best in Statcast’s sprint speed leaders and exit velocity. Perhaps the Blue Jays focus more on acquiring a starter or two through trade, but Marte - under contract through 2021 - still counts as a viable upgrade over what they have now.

Taillon, an excellent pitcher when healthy, missed all but seven starts this past season and could be out for all of 2020, too. Like Musgrove, Taillon is arbitration-eligible until 2023, but in his case, it’s all about the waiting game. Could the Blue Jays gamble on a talent like Taillon with hopes that he comes back 100 percent at the age of 29? It’s a risky proposition and one that this regime may be unlikely to bank on.

It would be foolish to expect Cherington and the Pirates to sign off on trading any player, such as Archer or Musgrove, to the Blue Jays just because of their former working relationship. With the Pirates in sell mode and looking towards the future, though, there is value and potential to be had here. That’s why Atkins should be calling and leaving voicemail after voicemail, inquiring about several players, with hopes of improving the state of the organization.

Statistics courtesy: FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast