Neal Huntington probably should lose the Toronto Blue Jays’ phone number. Or at least hide it every August.
Nothing could match the disastrous Aug. 21, 2008, deal that sent iconic catcher Robinson Diaz south in exchange for Jose Bautista (though it’s fair to note that nobody saw Bautista becoming Babe Ruth II).
But the Aug. 1, 2016 trade, the one that sent Francisco Liriano, his contract and two prospects to Toronto in exchange for Drew Hutchison, is looking worse every day — and it looked really bad the day it happened.
It never looked worse than Tuesday, when the Pirates banished Hutchison and his bloated spring earned run average to the minors.
That leaves Trevor Williams and Tyler Glasnow fighting for the fifth spot behind No. 4 Chad Kuhl.
In a related note, did you happen to see who’s slotted fifth in the Chicago Cubs rotation?
That would be Kyle Hendricks, reigning National League ERA champion and the guy the Cubs chose to start Game 7 of the World Series. Sure, it’s No. 5 in name only as the Cubs configure among Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, John Lackey and Brett Anderson.
And yet … and yet … we have people praising the Pirates for the Liriano deal because it “freed up” the $17 million left on his contract and thus enabled the club to bring back Ivan Nova, re-sign David Freese, lure free-agent Daniel Hudson and maybe even reduce the national deficit.
Heroic stuff!
I’m not saying those players won’t help. They were all sensible signings. I’m saying that when we’ve reached the point where the Pirates merit back slaps for executing a blatant cash grab in order to free up a relative pittance so they can conduct business at a bare minimum, we’ve truly hit bottom.
Full disclosure: Three weeks ago, after Hutchison started well in Bradenton, Fla., I wondered why everybody was so down on the guy. He had a decent major league track record, after all. He was simply coming off a lost season, right? The headline above my Post-Gazette mailbag that day read: “What’s so bad about Drew Hutchison?”
The answer to that question appears to be this: “His pitching.”
Going back to the final two months of the 2016 season, Liriano immediately flourished for the Blue Jays and continues to do so. Hutchison immediately floundered for the Pirates and has never stopped.
In eight starts for Toronto last season, Liriano posted a 2.88 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 49⅓ innings. Through four spring starts, he had a 1.88 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 14⅓ innings.
Hutchison had a 5.56 ERA in six appearances with the Pirates last season. I’m waiting for NASA to get back to me with his spring ERA. It was so high as to not be calculable by conventional means.
So let’s not be fooled here. Let’s review the particulars of this horrifying trade, piece by piece. Because sometimes the only way to escape the haze of the happy narrative is to take very basic look at reality.
This is what actually happened …
• The Pirates whiffed on a critical first-round pick, 14th overall, in 2013 in catcher Reese McGuire. Just three years later, he was used as afterthought collateral in a trade that netted Hutchison and “financial flexibility.”
(Three picks after McGuire, the Chicago White Sox took shortstop Tim Anderson, who had a promising rookie year in 2016 and just signed a six-year contract worth $25 million.)
• The Pirates could not rescue Liriano, essentially explaining it away as, “Oh well, the National League caught up to him,” only to see him immediately find his form in Toronto. Not a great look.
• The Pirates really did covet Hutchison for some time, a fact that now seems utterly frightening.
So no, the Pirates do not deserve praise here. Not for getting rid of Liriano. Not for signing players they should have been able to easily afford whether they had kept Liriano or not. And certainly not for dispatching Hutchison to Class AAA Indianapolis, where they will pay him $2.3 million.
What else were they going to do, fit the bleacher bums with batting helmets every time he pitched?
Now, several developments could remove some of the stink from this deal:
• The Pirates could trade for Jose Quintana. That would make folks forget in a hurry.
• Glasnow suddenly could locate home plate on a regular basis and make the leap from question mark to exclamation point.
• Williams could shock the world.
• Liriano could relapse into the unwatchable corpse he was for the better part of four months in 2016.
• Hutchison could reverse field and become the Pirates’ latest successful reclamation project.
You bettin’ on any of those?
Joe Starkey: jstarkey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @joestarkey1. Joe Starkey can be heard on the “Starkey and Mueller” show weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: March 31, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
