Rosenthal on Upton, Marte

Ken Rosenthal had plenty of trade talk updates as outlined in the latest from MLBTradeRumors.com and it includes an update on Upton vis-à-vis the Pirates:

The prospect-rich Blue Jays are interested in Justin Upton. GM Alex Anthopoulos is pursuing numerous players and willing to listen on all of his own players, Rosenthal writes. The Pirates have shown considerable interest in Upton, but the Diamondbacks don’t view Pittsburgh as a fit.

That tells me that the team has held firm on not dealing one of Gerrit Cole or Jameson Taillon.  That’s not the worst thing ever for obvious reasons, the foremost of which being that those two are incredible talents.  While I am in favor of the Pirates doing a deal to get Upton even if it includes one of those two, it isn’t imperative to their success.  The market is starting to flesh out a bit and we are seeing different names enter the fray.  Pitching is plentiful and while the Pirates rotation has done well, the cliché that you can never have too much pitching became a cliché because it is entirely apt.

I still think adding to the offense will have the biggest impact, but adding one of the bigger arms to James McDonald and A.J. Burnett would also be huge.  An alternative strategy to Upton that could work very well is trading for rental Carlos Quentin as well as someone like Matt Garza or Ryan Dempster from the Cubs.  It seems entirely possible that a pair like that could be acquired without giving up either potential ace.  Garza’s price tag should be high, but his 4.02 ERA might drive down the price (even though it shouldn’t as he is pitching much better than that figure).  I’m not suggesting Theo & Co. would take some C-level prospects for him, but their desire for a Gio Gonzalez-esque return may have softened in light of him not exactly pitching like Gonzalez.

Elsewhere, Rosenthal had this to say about Starling Marte:

Baseball people express doubt about the star potential of Pirates outfield prospect Starling Marte, Rosenthal reports.

Ya, that’s not too surprising for me and it is why I thought a deal centered around him was never going to get an Upton deal done.  I think his ceiling is similar to Austin Jackson which isn’t a groundbreaking comparison as I’m sure I’m not the only one to make it.  But ya know, Occam’s razor and such.  And hell, speaking of Occam’s razor, maybe simply bringing up Marte is the best answer to helping the offense and then they don’t have to worry about to trying to finagle a deal for one of the limited impact bats on the market.  The options for improving the team will be plentiful and in the end I think something gets done that exceeds the Derrek Lee/Ryan Ludwick moves of last year.