The Pirates Might Be Better Off Not Contending This Year

Well that blog post title isn't something you hear every day, right? I have some reasons for saying what I say though, trust me.

There has been a ton of talk about how the Pirates need to make a trade to improve the offense. A lot of ridiculous trade proposals and much complaining has risen because of it. I've been on the record of saying that a May trade for a starting position player is really unfeasible right now. The Pirates would have to give up far too much to improve the offense externally, which is why the Pirates are not going to do it. They just aren't.

Since we got that out of the way, let's get to what I was talking about in the post title.

It boils down to this. The extra wild card spot is going to lead to more trade deadline buyers than in previous years. More teams will be in contention and they will be looking to add to their squad to make a playoff push. That means the sellers will get more for what they sell.

Also, the Pirates have more to sell than they have in a long time. Erik Bedard, A.J. Burnett, and Joel Hanrahan are all obvious sell candidates. Those are three super arms that could bring back a big time return. Mix that in with what I talked about in the last paragraph and the Pirates could seriously improve this team by trading those three guys. They wouldn't be breaking up the core of the team and they could set themselves very well for next year. They'll still have to buy a free agent or two in the offseason but I could see them getting a pretty nice big league hitter in return for those guys.

This team is set up to really contend in the coming years anyway. Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, and Josh Bell aren't coming this year, and the only one with a chance to get here next year in Cole (probably). It looks like the Pirates are going to have a very strong team in 2014, and anything they can do now to strengthen that team even more would be great.

Losing pieces now to help a team this year doesn't seem like a great idea in the grand scheme of things. Even if they would improve the offense right now they probably wouldn't be a legitimate playoff contender. So why not continue to build the team for the future? They could have an incredible looking roster in 2014 if they take advantage of the trade market this July.

If the Pirates stay in contention and are buyers at the trade deadline, great. It'll be an exciting summer and who knows, maybe we could break the streak. But if not, it's going to be fun to see what we can do at the deadline to try and make those 2013 and 2014 teams look really good. It's a win-win, and you don't hear that often around here.