Pittsburgh Pirates Trade Rumors: Are the Pirates Listening to Offers for Gerrit Cole?
Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Gerrit Cole seems to be drawing a lot of trade interest as the annual Major League Baseball (MLB) Winter Meetings gets underway.
According to ESPN's Buster Olney, rival evaluators seem to think that the Pirates are prepared to move Cole if they can find the right trade partner. A deal is not imminent, but Pirates general manager Neal Huntington has recently mentioned that trading away one of their key players may be necessary if they want to continue to improve.
"I guess a natural transition is, if we were able to have an opportunity to utilize one of our starters — be it one of our young starters, one of our veteran starters — in a trade that we thought made the organization better, I would think that would make sense for us," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said, via MLB.com.
The question is, will the Pirates part ways with the former first overall pick?
Well, Cole's agent, Scott Boras, does not think so and he has denied that the Pirates were trying to trade the All-Star pitcher.
"Whenever you're a great player in Pittsburgh and you've got four years of service, people start talking about luggage," Boras said, via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
"As far as I know, Gerrit is going to be a principal part of their plan for 2018," he added.
According to MLB Network's Jon Heyman, the New York Yankees have expressed interest in acquiring Cole, and Sporting News' Max Wildstein said he has heard the same thing.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Bill Brink has also reported that the Baltimore Orioles are among the teams that have reached out to the Pirates and asked about Cole.
The right-hander went 12–12 with a 4.26 earned run average (ERA) and a 1.25 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP). He also had 196 strikeouts in 203 innings pitched.
