How has the Gerrit Cole trade worked out for the Pirates? We dig into that and more:
• The Cole Deal: The Pirates faced Cole for the first time on June 25, providing a natural point to revisit the trade that sent the first overall pick in the 2011 draft to the Astros for Joe Musgrove, Colin Moran, Jason Martin and Michael Feliz. So far, Houston has extracted more present-day value from the deal. Since the trade, Cole has been worth 9.1 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), a measure of a player's overall value compared to that of a Quad-A type player. The Pirates, meanwhile, have received a combined 5.4 WAR from Musgrove (4.1 WAR), Moran (1.0), Feliz (0.4) and Martin (-0.1). We won't be able to fully score this one for a while, though. Cole hits free agency after the 2019 season, while all four of the players acquired by the Pirates have years of team control remaining. If Musgrove stays healthy and becomes an above-average starter, or if Moran taps into the power that he displayed at Triple-A but not often enough in the majors, the perception of this trade could change. Maybe Feliz and Martin manage to chip in something, too. Of course, it's also possible that the Pirates traded an ace for a guy best suited as a power reliever, a defensively-challenged and doubles-hitting third baseman, and spare parts. Neal Huntington seemed to prioritize quantity over quality in the Cole deal, and the results so far reflect that approach.
• Bats back from the dead: In short order, the Pirates have transformed from a team that couldn't scrape together more than a couple of runs to a mini Lumber Company. In March and April, Pittsburgh had a park and league-adjusted offense that was 25 percent worse than the overall MLB average (25th among all clubs). In May, the Pirates' bats improved to 3 percent below the MLB average (13th). Then, in June, they bludgeoned pitchers for an adjusted batting line that was 11 percent above the big league average (seventh). The biggest difference? Extra-base thump. In April, Pittsburgh's isolated power (ISO, a measure of pop found by subtracting slugging percentage from batting average) was .137. That improved to .151 in May and .189 in June.
• Surprising power: As a prospect, Kevin Newman was known as a contact-oriented batter who rarely went deep. The Pirates' 2015 first-round pick was a singles hitter in the minor leagues (.387 slugging percentage in more than 1,800 plate appearances), and he aspired to be a singles hitter after a disastrous 2018 MLB cameo (.231 slugging percentage). In 2019, though, the franchise's new rookie hitting streak record holder has slugged .482 -- far north of the .442 average for big league shortstops this season. With five home runs, Newman has already eclipsed his full-season minor league total of four in both 2017 and 2018. Newman has been especially potent versus off-speed stuff, with a .720 slugging percentage. In a half-season, Newman has gone from a guy close to being pegged as a long-term utility player to a guy who isn't about to concede playing time to Cole Tucker, Adam Frazier, Kevin Kramer, Erik Gonzalez or any other middle infield option.
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