One interesting guy to me is Tanner Rainey, non-tendered by the Nationals. Rainey has had a rough recovery from Tommy John surgery, but he was once seen as a future closer. He showed occasional flashes in 2024, but was used almost exclusively in low leverage situations. I think he has potential as a low cost bullpen depth guy with upside. Maybe a change of scenery and some new instruction would help.
I didn’t go through the whole list. Any interesting position players? (Again, please not Austin Hays).
Ramon Laureano is a highly upgraded version of BDLC who can actually play defense if the Pirates go cheap in the OF and make a splash at 1B.
The most interesting position player though is Eddys Leonard. I would certainly be giving him a call this off-season to see about a split contract: maybe even a major-league deal if they move IKF.
Glanced at Carlson’s statcast data. He really fell off a cliff last year. Makes me wonder about an injury, but honestly, he’s never done much against right handed pitching and I think there’s really where we need to focus our improvement.
I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised or “a little surprised” that BDLC was non tendered. He was literally one of the worst players acquired at the deadline. Cherington needed a bat, he was cheap and could hit the ball over the fence. It was a gamble that failed and now they can move on. They certainly weren’t going to pay him 4M. It’s not like they gave up anything in Forester & Shim. Joe was another slam dunk, with Cook making Joe redundant. Nice first step of the offseason of cost cutting at the fringes of the roster.
What do you mean, "not like they gave up anything in Forester & Shim."
They literally threw away nearly $1.5 million on prospects that were acquired in 2023, less than 2 years in the system. Either they made a bad choice in wasting a 3rd round pick in one of the best drafts in recent memory or they gave up something they valued. I get Shim because of the injury.
I'll jump in. It's not that they have a great outlook it is that if they were still in the Pirates system they may have been used in a future trade. They were still ASSETS that had some value and who knows if Forrester would hit decent (not even great) this year maybe he could be that small add in that gets a needed player. Net: They got nothing and now have nothing in DLC. If they never made the trade they would still have something of some value. I am sure Melkel is not saying they have tremendous value, but values of all sizes great and small are better than no value.
Any chance they let Skenes hit again? I mean, I know he's got stuff to prove still as a pitcher, but, if he gets there this year, do they give him a shot at hitting at some point? I'm curious to see if he can figure that out, too. He is a very smart kid after all.
And there would have been buyers even at the deadline when he was slumping and came back down to Earth.
I actually listened to a Joe Doyle podcast about "under the radar" trade deadline targets and Connor Joe was 3rd or 4th or his list.
And not that Joe Doyle is the end-all-be-all but he does good work and went through Joe's underlying metrics, position flexibility, years of control left, and he wouldn't be a super expensive acquisition trading with the Pirates.
Imo, that’s definitely not true. He was well above a league average hitter at that time, had years of control left, position flexibility, good underlying metrics and would be a really good platoon/bench bat for a contender. He was crushing LHP at that time too.
Even after slumping majorly, he was a still a 92 wRC+. Just 8 points below a league average hitter.
The Pirates were buyers at the deadline? Remember? They weren’t trading any MLB pieces, even at the deadline(besides Brubaker, who was super expendable and didn't even make it back to pitch in a MLB game last year).
They would’ve 100% had buyers for him and would’ve gotten more that just a lottery ticket DSL player.
Josh Walker, who had no options remaining, was a rental and only pitched 9 innings for Indy brought back a DSL lottery ticket.
Well, in my opinion why would a team offer much anything at a for a hitter who quit hitting in the 2nd half of 2022, 2023, and then in 2024? I don’t think any team was really interested in Joe at the deadline.
Totally disagree. I don’t think the Pirates were interested in selling any MLB pieces.
Btw, Joe has a MLB track record of getting on base every year(.379, .338, .339) and had a .386 OBP through May, at the time I began screaming to trade high with him.
If the offer for Joe at the time was not much more than a low value complex or DSL playior or two, I can see why a deal was not made as Joe was at leas t useful at the time. Who is to say the Bucs,were even offered that.
True, I don't know if they were offered anything, but if they were at mid May it would have been at his highest value. Joe was on quite a tear early in the year and was starting to drop off in May.
Got to say, Cherington has me less excited about this offseason than any in memory since I started following baseball offseasons on the internet like 15+ years ago on Whygavs and Onlybucs and that guy Jake's Pirates website. What a pathetic organization. Just grinding down fans into apathy.
I wonder what happened to Jake. As I recall, he was obnoxious but did call for the Pirates to draft a somewhat obscure HS OF from NJ with the name of Trout.
As a believer in anybody is tradable if the return is worth it, you need to make these a little more remotely plausible IMO to make this exercise interesting. Again IMO both of these would be straight up hard NOs for the other teams.
Chandler is the pitcher we need to consider offering for a comparable position player. For example, Chandler for Mayo? By Fangraphs that's about as even of a trade as you could make with both 55 FVs and within a year of each other in age. McDaniel has them a little farther apart, so it may depend on who is doing the evaluating.
I think Ben and most GMs are too risk averse to trade top prospects because if it works, it's expected to work, but if it backfires, it may cost the GM their job.
Do you have a subscription? I’ve been wondering about various permutations of trades involving our pitches and their hitters. Luis Ortiz or Jared Jones for one of their hitters intrigues me, no idea if the O’s would share my enthusiasm though.
Agree, but is there a possibility of finding a pitcher they like for Heston Kjerstad? With the year that Oviedo had in 2023, and coming back from TJ, he could be a possibility. Is Kjerstad worth Ashcraft or Ortiz?
My guess is that the O’s would want Keller for Kjerstad. They would probably throw in a low level prospect or two, but you’re not getting Kjerstad for Ashcraft or Ortiz.
Kjerstad probably would cost a little more than any of those 3 straight up but would be a good starting point.
I think I like going after Soderstrom from the A's a little more than Kjerstad but not by a lot. Oviedo or Ortiz gets closer to the straight up trade or smaller pieces going along.
I, a Pirate fan, like him quite a bit but also would be less than enthused if the Pirates acquired a guy who sucked in '23 and returned to post an ERA a full run under any peripheral metric in '24.
Yeah he's a bit of a wild card. I think I value him more than most. My reason is not overly stat driven but just my eyes saying this guy is learning how to pitch instead of throwing. Cutting his walks and changing his pitch selection.
His biggest mistakes came in counts he was ahead in, throwing a ball too much in the zone, if I'm remembering correctly. Even though the results weren't always good, it shows he wasn't aiming the ball (more a lack of focus) and had confidence in his stuff. His focus became better after it happened and he would compete stronger. I don't think he has reached his ceiling yet but regression is a possibility as well.
I agree with everything you've put down here. I also would hope they try and shop Falter, even though he's their lone LHSP. Go pick up another one from the reclamation pile, like they have every other year, and trade Falter and a prospect(s) for something at the ML level.
Any thought to this idea: if they think BDLC can turn it around you tender him, and then cut him in spring training if you don’t like what you see, ala JD Davis and the Giants? The Giants only had to pay about 17% of his arbitration award, which equates to under a million for BDLC. That’s a potentially affordable risk, even for the Pirates?
To be clear, it would seem that this would necessitate taking him to arbitration, in order to take advantage of the loophole. Arbitrator decided salaries are not fully guaranteed. Those negotiated by the team are.
This is exactly the kind of situation where this move fits. It's brilliantly evil. I picture the Grinch's face when he hatches his plan to steal christmas.
Looking at the complete list, some pretty interesting guys were not tendered.
One interesting guy to me is Tanner Rainey, non-tendered by the Nationals. Rainey has had a rough recovery from Tommy John surgery, but he was once seen as a future closer. He showed occasional flashes in 2024, but was used almost exclusively in low leverage situations. I think he has potential as a low cost bullpen depth guy with upside. Maybe a change of scenery and some new instruction would help.
I didn’t go through the whole list. Any interesting position players? (Again, please not Austin Hays).
Here is a link to the complete list for reference:
https://www.mlb.com/news/non-tendered-mlb-free-agents-2024-2025
Anyone think that Dylan Carlson is salvageable?
And Brent Honeywell was non-tendered by the Dodgers.
Ramon Laureano is a highly upgraded version of BDLC who can actually play defense if the Pirates go cheap in the OF and make a splash at 1B.
The most interesting position player though is Eddys Leonard. I would certainly be giving him a call this off-season to see about a split contract: maybe even a major-league deal if they move IKF.
Glanced at Carlson’s statcast data. He really fell off a cliff last year. Makes me wonder about an injury, but honestly, he’s never done much against right handed pitching and I think there’s really where we need to focus our improvement.
I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised or “a little surprised” that BDLC was non tendered. He was literally one of the worst players acquired at the deadline. Cherington needed a bat, he was cheap and could hit the ball over the fence. It was a gamble that failed and now they can move on. They certainly weren’t going to pay him 4M. It’s not like they gave up anything in Forester & Shim. Joe was another slam dunk, with Cook making Joe redundant. Nice first step of the offseason of cost cutting at the fringes of the roster.
What do you mean, "not like they gave up anything in Forester & Shim."
They literally threw away nearly $1.5 million on prospects that were acquired in 2023, less than 2 years in the system. Either they made a bad choice in wasting a 3rd round pick in one of the best drafts in recent memory or they gave up something they valued. I get Shim because of the injury.
Note: I wasn't high on Forrester as a draft pick.
Neither of the players they traded were good. The attrition rate for a 3rd rd pick in the major league draft is astronomical.
They currently have more value than the pirates got in the trade or will ever get from the trade.
I’m not sure what value a couple of minor league players that will be lucky to get to AA have.
Mel, I’m pretty certain you wanted DLC & Joe to be non tendered.
I definitely did want both non tendered.
I'll jump in. It's not that they have a great outlook it is that if they were still in the Pirates system they may have been used in a future trade. They were still ASSETS that had some value and who knows if Forrester would hit decent (not even great) this year maybe he could be that small add in that gets a needed player. Net: They got nothing and now have nothing in DLC. If they never made the trade they would still have something of some value. I am sure Melkel is not saying they have tremendous value, but values of all sizes great and small are better than no value.
Pretty big hypothetical here. Guys like Forrester & Shim get you guys like DLC. They took a gamble, they lost, they moved on.
Exactly
Just popped up on my Score App that the Bucs non tendered Joe and BDLC. No word on Stratton on that post
The Stratton thing from the Post-Gazette reporter on X (rather than Bluesky, whatever that is... I am just not hip to all the latest technogadgetry).
Lol! Me too. Just have Score for the headline alerts and score updates if I can’t watch or listen to games. No idea of any of background tech lol!
Stumpf (or whatever his name is) is saying that the Pirates are not tendering offers to Joe, BDLC, and Hunter Stratton.
A little surprised about BDLC. Hopefully this means an “all in” offseason.
Any chance they let Skenes hit again? I mean, I know he's got stuff to prove still as a pitcher, but, if he gets there this year, do they give him a shot at hitting at some point? I'm curious to see if he can figure that out, too. He is a very smart kid after all.
Zero imo. This is the most risk averse FO in baseball.
I'm an idiot and am wrong 9 times a day but I'm taking my bow for screaming for the Pirates to trade high with Connor Joe.
I remember us talking about that between draft prospects and I agreed with you.
And there would have been buyers even at the deadline when he was slumping and came back down to Earth.
I actually listened to a Joe Doyle podcast about "under the radar" trade deadline targets and Connor Joe was 3rd or 4th or his list.
And not that Joe Doyle is the end-all-be-all but he does good work and went through Joe's underlying metrics, position flexibility, years of control left, and he wouldn't be a super expensive acquisition trading with the Pirates.
But the Pirates could've gotten something.
Thinking that if any team would had have offered anything, the Bucs would have moved him in a heartbeat.
Imo, that’s definitely not true. He was well above a league average hitter at that time, had years of control left, position flexibility, good underlying metrics and would be a really good platoon/bench bat for a contender. He was crushing LHP at that time too.
Even after slumping majorly, he was a still a 92 wRC+. Just 8 points below a league average hitter.
The Pirates were buyers at the deadline? Remember? They weren’t trading any MLB pieces, even at the deadline(besides Brubaker, who was super expendable and didn't even make it back to pitch in a MLB game last year).
They would’ve 100% had buyers for him and would’ve gotten more that just a lottery ticket DSL player.
Josh Walker, who had no options remaining, was a rental and only pitched 9 innings for Indy brought back a DSL lottery ticket.
Well, in my opinion why would a team offer much anything at a for a hitter who quit hitting in the 2nd half of 2022, 2023, and then in 2024? I don’t think any team was really interested in Joe at the deadline.
Totally disagree. I don’t think the Pirates were interested in selling any MLB pieces.
Btw, Joe has a MLB track record of getting on base every year(.379, .338, .339) and had a .386 OBP through May, at the time I began screaming to trade high with him.
I think it was in May when he said to trade Joe, his stat line was still looking pretty good then.
If the offer for Joe at the time was not much more than a low value complex or DSL playior or two, I can see why a deal was not made as Joe was at leas t useful at the time. Who is to say the Bucs,were even offered that.
True, I don't know if they were offered anything, but if they were at mid May it would have been at his highest value. Joe was on quite a tear early in the year and was starting to drop off in May.
Got to say, Cherington has me less excited about this offseason than any in memory since I started following baseball offseasons on the internet like 15+ years ago on Whygavs and Onlybucs and that guy Jake's Pirates website. What a pathetic organization. Just grinding down fans into apathy.
I wonder what happened to Jake. As I recall, he was obnoxious but did call for the Pirates to draft a somewhat obscure HS OF from NJ with the name of Trout.
Good times all those websites
Speaking of "meh" Austin Hays has Cherington written all over him btw.
If they keep BDLC I can’t see them grabbing Hays as well. Actually very similar players. Probably like Hays bat a little better though?
Wondering why Spotrac says Hays signed a $6,470,000 one year arb deal with Phillies?
Today he gets non-tendered. Anyway I'd love to add Hays over DelaCruz, but he's out of BC's price range. One year removed from All-Star campaign.
Hays is a better version of the bad idea Cherington had, sure.
Gotta agree with you there. Classic Cherington pick up.
Paul for Roman, Marcelo, Kristian, Branden, Miguel,and David. Let the competition begin. Tomorrow two NL West teams, who will overpay?
BTV thinks Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell is a fair deal.
As a believer in anybody is tradable if the return is worth it, you need to make these a little more remotely plausible IMO to make this exercise interesting. Again IMO both of these would be straight up hard NOs for the other teams.
Paul for Colton, Coby,Gunnar,Samuel and Dylan. Which Team says no?
Chandler is the pitcher we need to consider offering for a comparable position player. For example, Chandler for Mayo? By Fangraphs that's about as even of a trade as you could make with both 55 FVs and within a year of each other in age. McDaniel has them a little farther apart, so it may depend on who is doing the evaluating.
I think Ben and most GMs are too risk averse to trade top prospects because if it works, it's expected to work, but if it backfires, it may cost the GM their job.
Bubba is worth half a Mayo according to BTV. Pitching isn't worth as much as hitting. Bubba, Termarr and Konnor Griffin is spot on for Mayo.
Do you have a subscription? I’ve been wondering about various permutations of trades involving our pitches and their hitters. Luis Ortiz or Jared Jones for one of their hitters intrigues me, no idea if the O’s would share my enthusiasm though.
I do yeah. Let me see what I can come up with. Jones and Holderman are about right for Mayo as an example. Ortiz/Holderman = Kjerstad.
I’ll do either trade, even though I have doubts that either will hit enough in the bigs!
Paul for Coby and Colton alone is what BTV thinks is right.
O’s say no.
To Paul Skenes? I doubt it. Or were you responding to the Chandler idea. Sorry, I can't exactly tell.
Baltimore, they aren't giving up Gunnar.
Agree, but is there a possibility of finding a pitcher they like for Heston Kjerstad? With the year that Oviedo had in 2023, and coming back from TJ, he could be a possibility. Is Kjerstad worth Ashcraft or Ortiz?
My guess is that the O’s would want Keller for Kjerstad. They would probably throw in a low level prospect or two, but you’re not getting Kjerstad for Ashcraft or Ortiz.
Kjerstad probably would cost a little more than any of those 3 straight up but would be a good starting point.
I think I like going after Soderstrom from the A's a little more than Kjerstad but not by a lot. Oviedo or Ortiz gets closer to the straight up trade or smaller pieces going along.
I'm genuinely curious how teams view Ortiz.
I, a Pirate fan, like him quite a bit but also would be less than enthused if the Pirates acquired a guy who sucked in '23 and returned to post an ERA a full run under any peripheral metric in '24.
Yeah he's a bit of a wild card. I think I value him more than most. My reason is not overly stat driven but just my eyes saying this guy is learning how to pitch instead of throwing. Cutting his walks and changing his pitch selection.
His biggest mistakes came in counts he was ahead in, throwing a ball too much in the zone, if I'm remembering correctly. Even though the results weren't always good, it shows he wasn't aiming the ball (more a lack of focus) and had confidence in his stuff. His focus became better after it happened and he would compete stronger. I don't think he has reached his ceiling yet but regression is a possibility as well.
I completely agree. They get to it in very different ways, but he and Jones both are completely different pitchers when they have their command.
Either of these two guys in a trade plus signing for conforto, call me crazy but thats a significant step forward for the offense next year
Wasn't there chatter about Bednar tipping his pitches? I'm sure that's not his only problem, but tipping pitches is fixable.
Yeah i think trevor may noted that on his podcast, would like to think thats something we would have caught internally...
I agree with everything you've put down here. I also would hope they try and shop Falter, even though he's their lone LHSP. Go pick up another one from the reclamation pile, like they have every other year, and trade Falter and a prospect(s) for something at the ML level.
Any thought to this idea: if they think BDLC can turn it around you tender him, and then cut him in spring training if you don’t like what you see, ala JD Davis and the Giants? The Giants only had to pay about 17% of his arbitration award, which equates to under a million for BDLC. That’s a potentially affordable risk, even for the Pirates?
To be clear, it would seem that this would necessitate taking him to arbitration, in order to take advantage of the loophole. Arbitrator decided salaries are not fully guaranteed. Those negotiated by the team are.
This is exactly the kind of situation where this move fits. It's brilliantly evil. I picture the Grinch's face when he hatches his plan to steal christmas.
Joe and Dela Cruz should obviously NOT be tendered.
What if games are sort of lame, but what if Bednar and
Holderman hasn’t sucked so bad last year?
And if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass a'hoppin'.
🤣 exactly
What if the Bucs had Judge and Soto so they could overcome the back of the pen sucking, like the Yankees did with Holmes, et.al. ;-)