Pirates Going After Greinke or Hamels?

If you have not seen it yet the highly regarded Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports Baseball wrote a interesting article on Monday talking about the Pirates and how they should go after either Zack Greinke of the Brewers or Cole Hamels of the Phillies and you can read that by clicking here. I have a lot of respect for Rosenthal I think he does a lot of good stuff and brings up some interesting points but this idea is just crazy and would not be worth it for the Pirates for multiple reasons.

The first reason being the Pirates would have to give up way to much. Obviously I can't say anything for sure because I am not Neil Huntington so therefore I have no idea what deals are actually being proposed and not proposed but I think that if you just wanted to trade one or two prospects you would defiantly have to give up one of your top three guys. The Pirates top three guys included Jameson Taillon, Gerrit Cole, and Starling Marte all of whom are performing outstanding in the minor leagues and are expected to have excellent major league careers.

If the Pirates did get either Greinke or Hamels they would be undoubtedly be a two month rental because of their contracts expiring at the end of the year. Some people might say why don't the Pirates just stop being cheap and sign these guys when the year is over? The answer to that is weather you want to believe it or not the Pirates are still a small market team, they do not build around signing big time free agents which both of these guys are going to be. Both Greinke and Hamels will receive monster contracts and the only way the Pirates will be able to afford those is if they just decided to not sign anyone else the rest of the off-season.

The second reason this is stupid is because the Pirates biggest need in my opinion is not pitching. The Pirates are still ranked sixth in all the the Major Leagues in team ERA but are only ranked twenty-sixth in total runs scored. If you had never watched the Pirates play before and you saw this stat you would say that the Pirates needs are on the offense side of the game not the pitching. Although the Pirates scored the most runs in the MLB in the month of June their offense is still the weak point of the team. If you are going to throw away prospects do it for hitting not pitching.

The third and final reason is because you have perfectly capable pitchers in AAA that could come up any day you want at no additional cost and perform possibly just as well. Rudy Owens has had a 2.45 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP to this point in AAA. In my opinion the worst this could transition over to in the Major Leagues would be a 4.00 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP which is still very good for a player that you would have to pay nothing for what so ever. Plus there is the possibility that they could perform better, because for all we know he could keep a sub 2.50 ERA and be the teams third best pitcher. Also Jeff Locke and Justin Wilson are also posting very good numbers as well and are also ready to come up at any time and perform well.

I am not in any way denying that getting either Greinke or Hamels would help the Pirates down the stretch but I do not think that it would be worth it for the Pirates to give up a big piece of their future just to have a guy that plays once every five days for two months. This is a neat idea by Rosenthal but I don't think it would work. Maybe he's right it might bring a few more fans to the ballpark for the rest of the year but is it going to bring more fans then when Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon are pitching for the next six years? Why go for it now when you can go for it the next six or seven years if not longer. The Pirates have a nice team now and are shaping up to have even a even nicer team in 2014 lets not throw that away for another year that might or  might not be a playoff year.