In the excitement of the early off season, this trade was almost universally cheered as a big "win". A lot of that was the assumption that it was a sign – the team was actually going to spend in free agency and expand the budget.
This is less a question of if you like the three guys we got back (I do), but did we objectively get enough value in the trade? Consider for a moment that Burrows for Brett Baty would have been accepted in this model and seems a match after signing Bichette.
As well as Cherington has done in the draft, the trade history is stunningly bad. Now that the free agent market is dead, the only hope is that this front office can sell away more young talent to fill holes. I'm not convinced their "wins" are even good enough to grant them that latitude.
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Baseball trade values is a garbage system when it comes to valuating trades. Is Mike Burrows good? Yeah. But so is Lowe and they desperately needed a a bat like his in the infield. Mangum isn’t a bad depth OF piece either and Montgomery is at least intriguing.
It’ll of course look bad if Burrows turns out to be a top 25 pitcher, but this is a trade they can afford to lose.
Yes, for Lowe alone. He comes in and is immediately the best bat on the team and solidifies 2B instead of platooning guys that bat .200
Definitely worth it and then to get likely another starter in Magnum and a lefty bullpen piece is just icing on the cake.
I liked Burrows a lot, but I can say I’m not sure if/how much team composition is taken into consideration with baseball trade values. Lowe, Magnum and Montgomery all fill massive needs, and out of the pitchers who should pitch at some point this year Burrows value would be behind all of Skenes, Bubba, Ashcraft, Keller, Jones, and Barco (not necessarily on talent but being a lefty certainly seperates him).
It’s fully possible that Burrows becomes a solid 2/3 starter and Lowe ends up being a disappointment and then walks. If that happens, the trade could end up looking bad, but I still wouldn’t regret it just because the Pirates desperately needed to make a push to actually win this year. You can’t just analyze value in a vacuum and ignore all context.
It becoming a good deal pretty much requires that Montgomery becomes a big weapon
If montgomery doesnt become anything then its a bad deal
Its okay to lose a trade sometimes. In a way I appreciate that they were willing to lose a deal in order to get a good bat in there.
But if montgomery doesn’t improve then no it wont be a good deal valuewise
I don’t mind the trade. But it does bother me that Lowe’s injury history — he misses a lot of games pretty much every year — is often discounted when people talk about his potential impact. Overall, it feels to me like they made some moves that were more suited to a good offensive team that needed to get to the next level … as opposed to a really bad offensive team that needed much more of an infusion of talent and power. They just have not done enough.
I really think Mangum was the sneaky pickup here, I know in today’s baseball analytics world his skill set isn’t valued as much but he’s been a great contact hitter since getting his chance to play full time and he’s a defensive upgrade over anyone we have in the outfield, if we hang onto him he could be our leadoff/LF for the next few years.
Given the shrinking Skenes window, is this team better with Burrows or is this team better with Lowe, Mangum and Montgomery? I believe it’s easily the latter.
Lowe was available at that time of the trade and Baty and Vientos weren’t. You make the trade in front of you and don’t hold out for one that might happen in 2-3 months. This sub would have been insufferable if they went to Pirates fest with only adding O’Hearn to the lineup.
Would it be nice to have Burrow or Oviedo still here and have this piece to dictate terms with to add a 3B, yes, but you can’t fault them for taking a deal they liked at the time instead of waiting till less than a month before Spring Training started in case an opportunity like the one you outlined presented itself
I mean Ill trust the National podcasters, insiders, and analysts that have praised the trade as one of if not the best move of the off season.
Great trade. If Lowe pans out, he’ll get a qualifying offer & potentially land us an extra draft pick as well
Damn. OP should change username to Big Downvote Energy. God forbid they apply a little analysis, whether you agree with it or not.
No, it was a desperate trade for a rental, it will be ok if Mangum or Montgomery turn into something and contribute. At least one of them.
Then you have the issue of Burrows who well could turn out into another Priester now that he has left this dysfunctional org.
At the top I want to say to keep in mind that everything I’m about to say is projection-based (as is everything regarding surplus value until every player involved has played out their contracts), and therefore could look completely different in reality once injuries, developmental changes, random bad seasons, etc… get taken into account:
I understand what you’re saying, but surplus value isn’t the end-all be-all of value in baseball. It’s a good way to look at how organizations make trades in the aggregate over a long period of time, but when you’re at a certain point in your contention window you have to trade surplus value for immediate value.
All teams that want to win a World Series go into the negative for surplus value with trades and free agent signings. Juan Soto’s deal is in the negative for surplus value, the Kyle Tucker trade was negative for surplus value, etc…
You could argue that the Pirates are nowhere near enough to contention based on their record last year to be making a “win now” trade like this, but Skenes changes that dynamic significantly, as does the Pirates’ general reputation as cheap losers.
In a vacuum, 5 years of Mike Burrows is worth more than one year of Brandon Lowe and a couple low ranked guys with a bunch of team control. But Lowe will make a bigger impact on the 2026 season for the Pirates than Burrows would have, and that’s what they need right now. The Pirates *have* to make an effort to contend while Skenes (and Griffin after him) are here. If they don’t, they seriously risk alienating fans and potential free agents even more than they already have.
They’re doing *something* right in the drafting/development department (potentially aided by a ton of luck), but that’s a long term project. No one will stick around to see the fruits of that (or sign on to be part of it) if they can’t do the bare minimum to invest in the product on the field right now
For the long term? Probably not. To win right now? Yeah.
Burrows change-up is elite. It was tough giving that up. I would bet he will become an all-star at some point. I guess we offered Keller, and they countered with Burrows.
But this isn’t a video game, these values are arbitrary and usually outdated. It takes something to get something. Most pundits thought this was a fair trade. We would be complaining if he didn’t make any trade.