The key to enjoying the 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates season was, and remains, being rational. They were not going to compete for a playoff spot. Plain and simple. You should have looked yourself in the mirror on April 1 and said, “I will not have high expectations for the Pirate’s record.” However, that does not mean there was not excitement to be found elsewhere with this team.

Realistic Goals

The Pirates had three goals. Generate enough big-league talent to have trade chips, successfully move these trade chips at the deadline, and get the most out of the amateur draft. In all of these cases, so far, the Pirates are undefeated this season.

If you are the type of person to complain that, “it doesn’t matter. They’ll just trade prospects when they get good” or, “who cares, Nutting won’t spend any money,” stop reading. Honestly, don’t watch the games either. Don’t read, watch, or talk about the Pirates. If you are of this mindset you do not fundamentally understand Major League Baseball.

Even the Chicago Cubs are trading players because they are not currently in the playoff hunt. The Washington Nationals are discussing trading Max Scherzer. These are big market teams. This is how the league works. If you are not in the playoff hunt, players with expiring contracts are only worth as much as they can be traded for (i.e. Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole).

Also, money was spent by the Pirates when necessary. The Pirates extended Jose Tabata, Starling Marte, Felipe Vazquez, Francisco Cervelli, Josh Harrison and Gregory Polanco when they felt their window of success was still open. They also traded for guys with expiring contracts like Marlon Byrd, Justin Morneau and J.A. Happ. They did these things when necessary.

OFFICIAL: We have acquired INF Tucupita Marcano, OF Jack Suwinski and RHP Michell Miliano from the Padres in exchange for 2B Adam Frazier and cash. pic.twitter.com/XH4QTeJlof

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) July 26, 2021

Who did you want the Pirates to sign this offseason? Should they have signed someone just to win 70 games instead of 60, or be 10 games back instead of 20 at the end of the season? They were more than one or two players away from being competitive. It did not make sense.

If you are one of the people described in the above paragraph, don’t read my articles. I don’t get paid per click (or even paid at all) so leave. I don’t want you as a consumer of my content. Your narrative is tired. Listen to the flagship Pittsburgh sports radio station because they regurgitate that narrative as well.

Now, onto the show.

New Trade Pieces Emerge

The Pirates had very few trade pieces coming into the season. They had already moved Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Jameson Taillon and Josh Bell. They also released long-time Pirate starter Trevor Williams. Furthermore, after shopping Adam Frazier to the entire league, they could not move him.

Adam Frazier

Fortunately, three players that should be on the block have been largely successful this season. The first is, the aforementioned, Adam Frazier. He has lived up to and passed his potential. As of this writing, Frazier is second in the National League in Batting Average and first in the entire MLB in hits. Frazier was always capable of this, but after batting .230 in the shortened 2020 season, expectations were low.

However, he surprised Pirate fans, and the whole league and became a valuable trade piece. On Sunday, Frazier was traded to the San Diego Padres. The Pirates received a great hull back for Frazier and an additional $1.4 million they were willing to throw in to get their guy. This guy being Tucupita Marcano, a second baseman who ranked #5 in a loaded Padres pipeline.

Marcano was deemed not available by the Padres while negotiating with the Pirates for Joe Musgrove this past offseason. That shows how the Padres felt about Marcano just a few short months ago. I will discuss this trade further in Part 3 of this series.

For everything on and off the field, thank you @A_Fraz12. pic.twitter.com/jkVMx6mj2H

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) July 26, 2021

Tyler Anderson

Another emerging trade piece, that has not been moved as of this writing, is Tyler Anderson. He was a free-agent signing this offseason specifically to revitalize and trade at the deadline. At $2.5 million he was a low-risk signing. He either succeeded and became a commodity at the deadline or he sucked and fit right into the rest of the rotation. Fortunately, he became the former.

While Anderson’s 4.35 ERA is not magnificent, the league overall is struggling to find solid rotation pieces. Additionally, his command this season is attractive to rumored future suitors. He has only walked 25 batters in 103 innings pitched. In a league where a leadoff walk can quickly turn into a 2-run homer and an early multi-run deficit, an accurate starting pitcher is valuable.

Furthermore, just as the Pirates liked his $2.5 million contract, other teams do as well. The luxury tax is reportedly playing a role this season as teams try to make up for last year’s zero ticket revenue. Even big market teams are pinching pennies this season, making Anderson the perfect fit as a fourth or fifth starter.

Richard Rodriguez

The third emerging trade piece is closer Richard Rodriguez. Most bullpens are absolutely dreadful at the moment. Since the MLB locked down on foreign substances, offense has been up and relief pitching has been way down. It appears most of the “sticky stuff” was being used by relievers, at least based on statistics.

Also, the way in which starting pitchers are used nowadays has a huge impact on bullpens. My thought the last few seasons has been, “why are relievers getting that much worse year after year?” The answer is that you need more good relievers than you ever needed before.

When starters were regularly going seven, eight, or even nine innings on a given day, you only needed three or four good relief pitchers at the most. The Pirates really only had Jared Hughes, Mark Melancon, Tony Watson and Jason Grilli in their best seasons as of late. However, now that starters are only lasting five innings, the need for six to eight good relievers has appeared.  There are not enough good relief pitchers to fill the bullpens of 30 MLB teams. This makes Richard Rodriguez very valuable.

Rich Rod has pitched to the tune of a 2.82 ERA and has locked down 14 saves on the season. This is showing to be more of a trend than an anomaly. He has lowered his career ERA from a 14.29 in his debut season of 2017, to now a 3.30 career ERA at the time of this writing. Even though he has not been traded yet, I would imagine there are many suitors out there. My hope is GM Ben Cherington is just trying to sort through and find the best one.

Stay Tuned

In addition to trade pieces emerging throughout the regular season, I also want to talk about the success of the draft and how the Pirates did at the trade deadline. I, however, do value your time and don’t ever want my articles to feel like a novel. Also, we have not reached the trade deadline yet. For these reasons, I will be breaking this out into three parts. Later in the week, I will discuss the Pirates 2021 amateur draft. Then, after the deadline on Friday, I will discuss who the Pirates traded and how I feel they did with the returns.

Stay tuned Pirates fans.

The legend lives. pic.twitter.com/vG74qPJy3B

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) July 25, 2021

The post Wolfe’s Den: The Pittsburgh Pirates are Undefeated This Season (Part 1) appeared first on Pittsburgh Sports Castle.