Literally as I was submitting the last post, another article popped on MLBTR re: the Pirates, this time from Jon Paul Morosi over at FOX (full piece here). It mentioned that both Starling Marte and Jameson Taillon were pulled from the table (or maybe never put on the table) in Justin Upton talks:
For now, though, Upton is a fantasy. Huntington thus far has refused to part with minor league outfielder Starling Marte or right-hander Jameson Taillon. At least one — and maybe both — would represent a fair price for a player of Upton’s ability (fourth in the NL MVP vote last year) and cost certainty (three years at $38.5 million, starting in 2013).
It doesn’t say anything about Gerrit Cole, so I’m not sure if we should derive that he is in play. So there is a lot of back-and-forth, sometimes conflicting, stuff out there which is how it goes in July during trade season. But things change so I’m not taking any of this as 100% gospel. Heck, Upton’s no-trade list has evolved since when this first started to now with I think only Cleveland being on both iterations that we have seen of the 4-team no-go list. Joining them right now are the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. Originally Detroit and Oakland were a part of the listing.
Stay tuned. Two weeks until the deadline and it should be a blast leading up to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see something happen that goes completely against a report from sometime before whether with the Pirates or a different team. Misdirection and misinformation is part of the game.
Paul, why the recent interest in writing about the Pirates again? You sure were gone for awhile…
Just balancing my time better. I’ve spent a lot of my free time job searching since the season started as well as my commitments at BP and my own site which put PP on the back burner unfortunately. I never stopped watching/paying attention to the Pirates, just wasn’t writing about them like I’d have wanted to, especially for a site that I’m paying for. Those who come here deserve more so I gotta step the hell up.