The Pirates have announced that they’ve traded former closer Tony Watson to the Dodgers for infielder Oneil Cruz and righty Angel German. The Dodgers were reportedly interested in the Orioles’ Zach Britton, but appear to have settled on Watson as a backup option — though he’s certainly a talented pitcher in his own right. To clear space for him on their 40-man roster, they’ve announced that they’ve designated journeyman slugger Peter O’Brien for assignment.
The 32-year-old Watson has a 3.66 ERA, 6.8 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 46 2/3 innings this season. He was booted from the Pirates’ closer role in June but has had modest success since then, with a 2.79 ERA, 15 strikeouts and six walks in 19 1/3 innings since June 9.
Watson carries a 2.68 ERA, 7.9 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 over parts of seven seasons with the Pirates. The hard-throwing lefty gives the Dodgers another potential late-inning option to complement closer Kenley Jansen and another lefty to pair with Luis Avilan, although there’s no official word yet on what Watson’s role will be. He’s struggled against righties this season, allowing a .294/.360/.525 line against, but he’s had success against them in the past. He makes $5.6MM this season and is eligible for free agency in the fall.
Cruz, 18, was batting .240/.293/.342 with 110 strikeouts and 28 walks while playing shortstop and third base for Class A Great Lakes. He received a $950K bonus when the Dodgers signed him out of the Dominican Republic two summers ago. MLB.com ranked him the Dodgers’ 17th-best prospect, noting that his left-handed swing could eventually produce good power and that his size — he’s 6’6″ — makes him likely to make a permanent move to third base at some point.
The 21-year-old German had a 1.91 ERA, 10.1 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 while pitching 33 innings of relief at Great Lakes. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a low-level reliever, he does not rank among MLB.com’s top 30 Dodgers prospects. Various online reports indicate that he throws in the mid-90s, however.
FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweeted that the two sides had struck a deal. Jon Heyman of FanRag tweeted a deal was close, with Rosenthal originally tweeting the two sides were discussing a trade. Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted the Pirates would receive two minor leaguers.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Hmm…the Dodgers don’t need to change much.
Fking Dodgers
Hater
Lighten up. Take it from a Pens fan, you want other teams to be jealous of your team..
You think the good teams, including the Dodgers wouldn’t try to get better? They gave up some decent player prospects to get some additional talent. If it was just money, maybe I understand you. So what did your team do?
Would rather not even make a trade. Sometimes I feel like this team makes deals just to make a deal and keep the fans happy this guy isn’t terrible but I don’t think he’s much better than anyone we already have. If we can’t get Britton or another shut down left reliever just hold onto our prospects. Seems like we either not make a deal or make a trade that doesn’t necessarily even help us.
This is exactly what it is, this is a trade for those guys that say…”the front office is the greatest at the buy low!” Which is completely untrue. For everyone I can list at least one paid high guy. Fahken Dodgers… welcome to LA Watson.
Thank God for that Darvish trade huh? Didn’t think we’d ever make a big trade!
Watson would be a way back back up plan
If this is it for the Dodgers, and they don’t win the WS, then Friedman needs to go. He’ll have proven himself to be a small market GM that lacks the balls to go for it.
That’s exactly what the yinzers say about Huntingdon here completely pretending that it’s not a small market.
Good to see bargain basement Bob in action. The bucs just picked up Benoit.
Are you serious. The team as won 4 consecutive divisions and now has the best record in baseball. That is because in years past they refused to trade prospects like Seager, Bellinger and Pederson. To expect them to give up a Walker Buehler or Alex Verdugo for Darvish is insane. He is having a down year and is a free agent in two months. These rookies are under team control for 6 years if they work out. I’m glad they did not give up their top prospects for a rental or a reliever with a injury history.
If they get into the playoffs and lose as a result of having a rotation that’s made out of glass, the “I told you so”s are going to be out in full force. I don’t think they should overly, but there are options out there. This FO has a history of not going for a finishing move and just letting it ride in the playoffs. A team on pace to win 100+ looks like a sure thing but nothing ever is. You can’t just assume everything will keep working out with a rotation that includes the ever-durable Ryu, the already-once-demoted-to-the-pen Maeda, and a blister with an arm.
Who said anything about Darvish? This is the richest team in baseball with an absurd farm system and a great major league roster. They could’ve afforded to give up prospects for multi-year assets like Britton, Gray, Quintana, Justin Miller or even Brad Hand. But they settled for Tony Watson, a guy who played on a team that got considerably better after they replaced him at closer.
But hey, enjoy those 4 division titles. And just remember this — if Friedman had the balls to trade for Andrew Miller a year ago, he would’ve been the one pitching to Miguel Montero with the bases loaded in G1 of the NLCS…
And as Friedman apparently grew a sack prior to the deadline, I’ll close the conversation. He needed to do something. And it looks like he did.
One of the main reasons why LA is even good right now is that their “small market GM” refused to part with guys like Seager and Bellinger. He also got guys like Taylor, Wood, and Kike for next to nothing.
This comment has aged well.
Justinept look in the mirror.
Wouldn’t be a bad pick up for LA, would not require a whole lot to get him.
Sorry, not who we are looking for, pass…
Dodgers shopping at Dollar Tree
well, everything is a dollar there…
No big deal. The pirates will take pennies on the dollar.
Dodgers got him. Hopefully that means Britton won’t be going there
Watson immediately becomes their best LH reliever
Watson is definitely an upgrade over Avilan without the Britton price tag. I like it!
Yup
Do the Dodgers have any Felipe Rivero’s laying around that they don’t need?
If they did they won’t have traded him. friedman has a good gauge on his prospects.
Good luck Tony!
Can’t wait to see what the return is, if he could net even an average prospect I’d be content.
Yeah, if they could even get a Taylor Hearn caliber guy with upside, that would be great.
People forget the Pirates got two 100 mph lefties for Melancon.
That Melancon trade could have a positive ripple effect for the Bucs for over a decade. Gotta figure if Rivero stays healthy and dominant, He’ll definitely be flipped as he approaches free agency. Hearn had a probably season ending injury (oblique issue I think, not a huge long term concern but will keep him out for a month plus so his season is most likely done) but handled his workload well and can definitely strike batters out. I have high hopes for Hearn and hope he can develop an affective changeup to pair with his upper 90s heat and slider so he can stick as a starter.
They’re saying 2 minor leaguers as of right now.
Dodgers should sell
Nice trade. I agree with keeping top prospects. Bringing up Buehler in a few weeks might be equivalent to any deal they might have made.
For the people who thought pirates were trading cutch and Cole or taking large amounts of salary r delusional..
I actually told my friend the only thing that may happen was Watson leaving… still time but lol
And ya the pirates r a low-market team… how r they not? Hmmm
I think the only ones that thought that were the ones calling up the radio shows saying that “If they trade Cutch, the stadium will be empty for all of August and September.” Talk show fans in Pittsburgh get really odd when the team tries to trade one of their good players away. If it happens to be a guy that grew up here it’s 5 times as bad. Remember Neil Walker? There were people p*ssing themselves over that one.
Ya I remember… we haven’t made playoffs since.. but ya I know what u mean… bad timing on the reply I think
And btw cutch has been in trade rumors many times now… the nats actually should’ve gotten him instead of Eaton (even before the injury)
Tony has been a good trooper and I wish him all the best, but he needed to get out of Pittsburgh and I’m not overly worried about how great the return is. The Bucs can replace most pitchers from within the organization at this point.
Watson has the second lowest exit velocity right behind Hill is what Dave Cameron just tweeted. Might provide some insight. I’m glad Friedman passed on all these high priced pitchers. There’s no sure thing among them anyway and I like this team as is.
I’m guessing the Dodgers gave up a couple of replacement sleds for the Alpine Slide at Nutting’s 7 Springs Resort, some sparklers to give out as a free promo item at Pirates Fireworks night, and 300,000 hot dogs the Pirates can sell at dollar hot dog night. Am I right?
Oh and Nutting gave the Dodgers all of his international bonus slot money, because he won’t be spending that.
The Pirates have been spending in the international market. Just no huge names to blow all of the bonus money on a couple of guys. They chose to sign several guys and not just a couple..
99% of the world cannot wait until the yinzers in Pittsburgh that still think the 70’s Steelers were not taking steroids, die off and quit making idiotic comments about baseball and stick to their sport. This fetish with Nutting’s wallet has to stop.
The fetish will stop when he is no longer a owner.
You are right, Bob Nutting is a better owner by orders of magnitude than somebody like oh say, Mark Cuban would be.
Please. Cuban is not walking through that door.
The “Nutting’s Wallet” parrots who regurgitate the fat guy’s schtick are essentially baseball welfare queens.
“He’s a billionaire!!! Tenth richest owner in baseball!!!!”
So, they want him to take his money and have a Dodgers/Cubs payroll while they pay Altoona Curve prices.
I have never once heard a yinzer say, “hey, we as Pirates fans don’t even generate 10% of the revenue that Dodgers or Cubs fans do for their team, let’s pay more for tickets and beer!!!”
If they changed big market prices for beer, the yinzers who are tired of the “small market excuse” from Huntingdon would be pleading “small market” all day long to vendor to get the Iron City a few bucks cheaper.
So you’re happy with the current FO of the Pirates? And ownership?
Considering where past ownership and front office types put the Bucs into 20 years of horrible baseball, yes, I will take the Pirates as they are now.
Let me ask you a question…because I never understand the yinzer math here…
If Nutting is as cheap and terrible an owner as you say, that makes the job that Huntingdon has done go from impressive to AMAZING, right?
He works for the cheapest owners who not only doesn’t care about winning but actually wants to lose…or something…and funnels all of the money for new ski lifts….YET somehow….he built a team that made the playoffs for multiple years…built a team that won 98 games and would have won any division in baseball except the one they played in….that’s amazing, right?
If you want to claim the owner is cheap, etc. (you might be right, we’ll know after the new cable deal) so be it…but at that point you either have to say that the front office has a great job OR you have to deny reality and pretend they didn’t win all of those games.
I think Huntington generally does a great job given the massive constraints he operates under (lousy TV deal, owner who refuses to ever show a short-term loss for long-term gains), tough market where the Pirates are 3rd banana to the Steelers and Penguins, resulting in bad fan support.
He’s probably a top 5 GM in baseball.
I think there are plenty of things to legitimately criticize the Pirate FO for (moving Cutch to the 2 hole, shifting around the defense and making all 3 guys worse, babying the players with too much rest, etc.) but instead the critics try to attack their player moves and the reality is Huntingdon has been 90% great in that regard, with no huge misses.
Not a bad pickup for the Dodgers. Tony is back to where he was before he got moved into a closer’s role and he is doing well setting up again. Hope as was mentioned above that the Bucs got a couple of decent prospects for Tony. They really did not have to have him with the team they are fielding right now. With Kang out all year and Marte out for 80 games plus the playoffs, they really need to look to next year as the year to compete to win.
Looks like the Bucco’s are sellers. Here’s to another 20 years of crap.
Yes, they will never recover from losing Watson and his 22 remaining innings of pitching that they lost.
Sorry forgot about how you diehards get so hot and bothered by the thought of prospects and then lose it when Huntington comes out and says “We’ll be better in the future”. Although I’m still wondering what that date is on that so called future.
How about today? The team (organization) got incrementally better. They traded Watson then replaced his production with Benoit making the major league side of things a lateral move but they traded away an organizational reliever in McGarry and received a third baseman, a position which the system has perilous depth, with swing and miss tendencies but power potential and a young arm that doesnt have standout stats but throws hard. Two lottery tickets for house money isn’t very sexy but it’s a positive move.
If they were sellers, Cutch, Cole, Harrison, Polonco and Cervelli would be gone.
What got the Pirates into 20 years of crap was doing what all of the yinzers that listen to the talking heads in Pittsburgh. They traded all of the prospects away for vets. Kept trying to do that for years till nothing was left to trade and all of the old guys stunk after a year or two.
Bull crap. What got the pirates into 20 years of crap was trading away all the talent and weak drafting. Constant horrible and missed picks. Matter of fact the so called prospects in the trades where also horrible prospects as well. Only 10% panned out and those got traded for pens as well.
So we got a back-up LHP option to use behind Avilan??? I hope Liberatore comes back healthy this year
I guess getting a Searage product is the good thing about this
In the next 20 mins, we’ll be hearing that Cutch was dealt for a bag of baseballs in a “salary relief” deal and that Harrison was traded for PTBNL.
Ya ok… lemme know when that happens… I’ll wait
Btw doesn’t have anything to do with this trade but..
Any1 who thought cutch was declining stand up… ok now u can stfd lol
People who thought cole was getting traded… lol have u seen his salary??? I think it’s over in 2020… remember buccos robbed him of a couple hundred thousand.. he’s not leaving.. yet
Looks like the Pirates got right hander Angel German and shortstop/third baseman Oneil Cruz who throws lefty. (ala Mike Squires). .Would you consider this just a salary dump?
Cruz has a very high ceiling, but is far away. 6’6 3B who plays some shortstop and has good power potential. Struggling with his average, but so does almost everybody at Great Lakes.
Doesn’t O’Brien get rave reviews for something though?
Raw power
He doesn’t exactly get rave reviews for his defense
LOL.
Wtf.. Steelers and Penguins in the same small market and thrive and actually won titles since the movie Deer Hunter was in movie theaters
Pirates front office sucks…can’t draft, can’t resign good deals and certainly can’t draft….yinz are crazy
Nova, Cutch, Marte, Polanco, Cervelli, were not good deals?
Remember, the Pirates “proved they didn’t want to win” by trading two months of Melancon for five years of Felipe Rivero.
Stupid cheap losers.
Don’t bother with jguin. He shows up once in awhile, states that the Pirates are losers and hopeless, and lets that statement stand as his “proof” without anything to support it, then leaves again until they make another move or go on a long losing streak. He’s right because…he’s right, in the classic Mark Madden-esque tradition.
Wtf…. salary caps… both the NHL and the NFL have ’em…..no one can out spend them no matter the market…. Pens were dying before the salary cap era in the NHL.
Remember when Bob Nutting tried to sell the Pirates to a guy who ended up in federal prison and then, shortly thereafter, tried to sell the team to a guy who intended to move it out of town only to have Bud Selig stop him?
Oh, wait, that was Mario Lemieux and Gary Bettman stopped him or else the Penguins would be gone.
Nevermind.
And one of the main Pirate haters also leads the pitchfork mob for Bettman.
Facts mean nothing to yinzers.
Funny, you cry about yinzers but when it comes to “pirate yinzers” your the biggest of them all. After all, your the happiest of their course, hopeful of trading anything of value for the next “big steal”.
Hands down the most annoying Nutting fanboy, pirates yinzer of them all.
How is he a Nutting fanboy??? U must be a Madden fanboy… the dude that knows zilch bout baseball and barely knows any hockey
Ya it sux the pirates don’t spend more on payroll but this sport just really needs a salary cap
He basically praised Huntington bc for the most part he’s done a fantastic job (don’t agree with the return on Liriano and Walker but at least he got salaries off the books)
I literally don’t care whether the Pirates win or lose. I’m a Penguins fan who likes trades passing the time in the summer.
My main fascination with the Pirates is the absolute disconnect between the local and national media’s opinion on the team and the fan’s resulting disconnect from reality by the local media’s mushroom management.
I’ve liked most of Huntingdon’s moves because they are usually what a team in the Pirates reality should do, which is why most national writers and Fangraph types typically like them, too.
Of course, the local guys don’t want to even bother learning the players on other teams, so why understand context when you can sell the “Nutting’s wallet” narrative to the jealous never left the 412 crowd.
Serious question…
Other than the Rays or Marlins, can you think of a fan base that does less to support it’s team than the Pirates?
Pirates fans generate far less revenue for their team than most other team’s fans do….but Pirate fans are the ones who deserve championships, is that right?
Sorry bell trolls. I’m the penguins fan here. Your the Nutting / Huntington fanboy that believes they can do no wrong. Where I realistically know that neither is good for the pirates and their bs formula will never accomplish a thing in baseball. At least one has to go, and if both did all would be better. A clean sweep starting from scout up threw coaching in the minors would be a big start. But with the current management team intact mediocrity is the standard at best.
LOL.
Yeah, you are a “Penguins” fan. One of the know nothing band wagon chumps who embarrass us real Pens fan.
I remember you from Spectors Hockey, you used to embarass all of the real Pens fans with your blowhardy yinzer cluelessness, but then eventually you got tired of being laughed at for knowing NOTHING about hockey and it’s been much nicer without you the past few years.
When I talk about Pittsburgh having loud and clueless fans, you epitomize it, Yinzer.
You know nothing but a fat guy puts words in your mouth so you want the smart people fired. SO Yinzer. Pure Yinzer. Just the Uber Yinzer.
LOL.
Oh…one more point…
Is Brian Kenny a Pirate fan boy? Does Ken Rosenthal just care about Nutting’s wallet? Is Fangraphs and it’s many writers part of the Nutting scam?
Are the many national writers who praise the Pirates as a “model franchise” who is ahead of the curve on most trends in baseball just clueless Nutting fan boys?
Or are you just a slack jawed Yinzer parroting a fat guy’s BS?
Most people see the reality.
First off, madden much like I have been penguins fans long before your dipper days
Second your nothing more then a Nutting fanboy
Yea….considering they pick before Yankees and Dodgers every year and the list of those top end prospects are better than pirates….get out of here
Bc as a small market team… it’s all bout the amount of money given to these prospects just getting drafted.. the pirates don’t have the financial flexibility to do that for the best guys in the draft (for most part)… u can blame Nutting if u want but not Huntington
That’s y u see them taking a bunch of HS arms recently with high upside
Tell that to the Mets!!!
And Knicks
Why are Pirates fans disappointed about getting ANYTHING for Watson? Hes a pending free agent and he has been horrible in high leverage situations this year. I was shocked that the Dodgers want to take on the liability (and pleasantly surprised as a Nats fan).
Right…..can’t understand all of the complaining. I cringed when Hurdle brought in Watson never knowing what Watson will show up. He was gone in 2 months anyway.
Yinzers just love to complain. And are not happy unless the sky is falling.
They did it during the Pens cup run, they are surely going to do it for the sub .500 Pirates.
Please stop the yinzer bashing. It’s equally as annoying as the unrealistic yinzer expectations.
Yinzer Awareness is an important public service campaign.
People in the rest of the country might wonder, for example, why fans of a team tied 2-2 with home ice in the Stanley Cup Final might act like the sky is falling and all hope is lost. They don’t understand the Yinzer mind.
The Dodgers are not going to use Tony in a high leverage situation. He will be what he does best. Set up guy. He had done fairly well after getting bumped out of the closers job
post-season 7th/8th innings are not high leverage? I doubt they brought him on just to eat innings.
he’s best suited for set up, not closing. good luck tony!
He sure looked good last night doing just that!