Tim Benz: Pirates’ inactivity at 2020 trade deadline - I can't even fake a reaction

I got nuthin’.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington gave us nothing in terms of trades before Monday’s deadline. So I’ve got nothing in terms of a response.

I can fake it if you want. I can gin up some faux outrage over front office inactivity. Or I can dial up some angst over the team’s failure to get a theoretical hidden gem of a prospect from a contender in exchange for a failing asset on this year’s listless team.

But that’s all I’d be doing. Putting on a show.

The Pirates aren’t in a position — or a mindset — to buy at the deadline. And they’ve got nothing worth selling. So let’s not kid ourselves. What was meant to happen, did.

The stuck-in-the-mud Pirates are still spinning their wheels. There are two obvious reasons why the Buccos are a Major League-worst 10-22 in Cherington’s first year as GM. He inherited a team with very little talent. And he doesn’t have the budget to go out and buy much more.

Plus, in a truncated season with no clear indication of what revenue streams will look like for 2021, the rest of Major League Baseball was less willing to part with components of their future on the off chance that scraps from the Pirates’ table will satiate them in the present.

“I don’t know how much (the restructured season) affected the industry in terms of the amount of trades or the type of return,” Cherington said Monday. “It didn’t feel like a limitation in terms of what we were able to talk about. We just didn’t get offers that we felt were compelling.”

Can you blame other franchises? Coronavirus risks. A wildly uncertain playoff bracket. Limited desire to assume the terms on a contract when no one knows if tickets can be sold next year.

Why bother taking on a Pirates veteran for 30 more games during an asterisk-hanging season in exchange for a player who may help your franchise in years to come.

Not to mention that the few Pirates worthy of optimism coming into this year have all been injured or surprisingly unproductive.

Josh Bell, Bryan Reynolds, Adam Frazier, Joe Musgrove, Gregory Polanco, Trevor Williams. They are all in the midst of seasons well below what was anticipated.

“There’s so much track record on those guys,” Cherington said specifically of Bell, Reynolds and Frazier. “I think the track record still should (be) — and is — weighed more heavily than 100 at-bats in 2020. So I feel confident about what those guys are going to be going forward.”

That might be an exaggeration. I’m not sure how much “track record” Cherington is referencing. Reynolds had a solid first season. Bell had a few good months last year. Frazier has always been slightly above average. As far as those pitchers go, Williams had an excellent second half in 2018. Musgrove profiles as the fourth starter on a good team.

Let’s not get too crazy about what we think other teams should see in these guys. But, if Cherington thinks they are better than that, keep ‘em for 2021 then. They don’t cost much.

And add talent around them.

I’ll pause for a moment so you can contain your laughter.

Even Keone Kela, a lithe-throwing right-hander who could help any team out of the bullpen has spent most of the year injured or away from the team for covid-19 concerns. So who wants a guy with a bad arm and an even worse disposition?

“We just didn’t find opportunities this July that we felt really moved the Pirates forward,” Cherington said. “There will be more opportunities to do that. We’d much rather hold than make trades that we’re not confident in that later come back and bite us.”

Too many people have spent way too much time attempting to answer the hypothetical question of, “What are the Pirates doing in 2020?”

Are they “building” as Cherington continues to say? Are they rebuilding as the fans demand? Are they still retooling as former general manager Neal Huntington used to insist?

Who cares? It’s semantics.

Wanna know what the Pirates are doing? They are muddling through an abbreviated, bizarre 2020. And whatever they build — or rebuild — they will get halfway through a flip. And when it’s time to put on the roof or sell-off, they’ll sell like they always do.

At least this year they didn’t give away talent for middling return to save money as they often do.

They just held onto their own middling talent until perhaps they are in a position where they might get a better haul this offseason.

Might.

Come to think of it, forget trying to drum up outrage. Maybe I should just fake some excitement?

Nah. I’ll just do that when I try to convince you the Steelers can get to the Super Bowl this year.