Major League Baseball

The trade market for pitchers is out of control, and it's only going to get worse

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:10 p.m. ET

Dieter Kurtenbach

The San Diego Padres traded starting pitchers Andrew Cashner and Colin Rea to the Miami Marlins on Friday morning — you might have noticed.

It was a fairly big deal before the Aug. 1 MLB non-waiver trade deadline. The Marlins are tied for the second National League Wild Card and they added desperately needed starting pitching.

Cashner provides the Marlins an innings eater behind Jose Fernandez and Adam Conley, and Rea is a long-term play — he was a top Padres prospect with middle-of-the-rotation potential — that can fill in for the injured Wei-Yin Chen in the rotation for the next few weeks.

And for all of that, the Marlins gave up a top-15 MLB reliever, a 26-year-old righty starter with a career 3.69 ERA who’s under team control until 2020, a top pitching prospect, and the team’s top position prospect.

The deal has been characterized as a “gross overpay” by the Marlins, but it’s indicative of how lopsided the trade market is right now towards teams selling pitchers.

There are more than a dozen teams that are looking to add starting pitching or impact arms in the bullpen ahead of Monday's deadline, and because there are only a few teams looking to sell, and most are being stingy with their pitchers, any team looking to add a piece to their rotation or bullpen for the playoff hunt is going to have to follow the Marlins' lead and grossly overpay.

The premium prices for pitchers was set earlier this month, when the Boston Red Sox gave up one of the 15 best prospects in baseball, Anderson Espinoza, to land Drew Pomeranz from the Padres. It's only going to get worse.

Last week, the Cubs traded four solid prospects, including Baseball America’s No. 27 prospect, shortstop Gleyber Torres, to the Yankees for reliever Aroldis Chapman, who will be a free agent in two months.

Before the season started, the Yankees needed to only give up their No. 8 and No. 13 prospects — that’s their system, not in all of baseball — to acquire the flame-throwing lefty from the Reds. There’s no effective way to quantify it, but the price of a pitcher has gone up exponentially, even if Chapman’s performance has remained relatively steady year-to-year. (And it's not as if Chapman's off-the-field issues were behind the price difference — they haven't changed much.)

The Red Sox and Cubs can get away with overpaying because they’re trying to win a title this year and they have a stacked farm system that can withstand the premium prices.

The Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers are also looking for pitchers ahead of the deadline, and both teams also have impressively stocked farm systems — and teams that looking to move a pitcher for prospects at the deadline are having to reevaluate their standard of what an “outrageous" demand is.

If Andrew Cashner can land a top pitching prospect and a No. 1 position prospect, what would White Sox ace Chris Sale land on the open market? Two top-50 national prospects? Three? Four? Would the Boston Red Sox need to hand over the entire roster of the Portland SeaDogs, their Double-A affiliate? There doesn't seem to be a limit. They already turned down a "king's ransom."

No wonder the White Sox are listening to offers for the American League’s starter in the All-Star Game, as well as All-Star lefty Jose Quintana, and closer David Robertson.

The prices are so high for anyone with a healthy elbow, a decent fastball, and experience in front of large crowds, that the Pirates, who are still in the hunt for a playoff spot — two games out of a Wild Card as of Friday afternoon — are shopping their All-Star closer, Mark Melancon.

Trade of Melancon would NOT signal #Pirates are conceding. Could close with Feliz/Watson. Deal worth exploring given potential return.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 29, 2016

The Pirates should be buyers, but they can’t pass up these deals.

Here’s how ridiculous it is out there:

• The Nationals reportedly were willing to offer the top pitching prospect in all of baseball, Lucas Giolito — who led off my “No trade list” — for Yankees reliever Andrew Miller in a straight-up deal. Such a move would be an absurd coup for the Yankees, but given what the market is, the Yankees reportedly aren't interested. They can get more.

• The Orioles gave up: The O's were extremely interested in Cashner, according to Ken Rosenthal, but missed out by presumably a wide margin. Without a minor league stockpile, and in desperate need for arms, the Orioles signed reliever Logan Ondrusek Friday. The righty had been pitching in Japan.

• After paying him $2 million for two bad starts, the Rangers designated Kyle Lohse for assignment earlier this week. Friday, he declined the Triple-A assignment and became a free agent. Chris Cotillo of SB Nation joked that in this market, he could command $100 million.

The crazy thing is, it’s only going to get more crazy from here. Teams have until 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday to make a lopsided deal.