2:28pm: Slusser has added a few more conceivable players in conversations in an updated version of her story. It seems that the sides could be contemplating some of the A’s relief arms.
1:38pm:Â The dominoes from the Cardinals’ reported acquisition of Marcell Ozuna are beginning to fall, it seems. Per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Athletics’ long-standing interest in Cards outfielder Stephen Piscotty could conceivably come to fruition with a deal before the Winter Meetings end.
Oakland is not willing to part with its best young assets, according to the report, but Slusser says the discussions have revolved around some of the A’s available 40-man assets. One name under consideration, she notes, is infielder Yairo Munoz, a 23-year-old who reached the top level of the minors in 2017.
Piscotty, who’ll soon turn 27, thrived in his first two seasons in the majors, posting a cumulative .282/.348/.467 slash and hitting 29 home runs in his first 905 MLB plate appearances. He ended up striking a six-year, $33.5MM extension at the start of the 2017 campaign.
Things haven’t progressed as hoped since that time, however. Piscotty missed some time due to injury and ended the year with 401 plate appearances of .235/.342/.367 output through 401 trips to the plate. On the positive side, Piscotty did neary double his walk rate to 13.0% even as his power dipped.
Piscotty continues to grade as a solid defender but subpar baserunner. If he can regain his form at the dish, there’s good reason to think he could be a quality regular in the corner — which is just what the A’s are in search of.
Man the cards would be selling low… I would demand at least one good player coming back for the cards
At least ONE? Well I’d hope so! What’s less than one?
A player who can’t even hit .100?
less than one is zero
Whoever downvoted yoyo is lame.
yah this would be a move for the player not the team. It’s not what’s best for the cardinals but it would be a classy move for Mo to move Piscotty close to his mom.
Don’t forget he will make 7 million starting next season. Surprised the A’s want him.
The A’s have around $22 million committed to payroll next year…they roughly have $30-40 million to play with if they so choose.
Send Grichuk before Piscotty.
My guess is that Grichuk would be part of the deal for Ozuna
If thats the case then I’m fine with it.
It’s the supply and demand
As are in demand for piscotty
They As have a really good infield farm system, loaded with short stops
I mean I’d prefer to have them try to pry Luzardo away for Piscotty and someone low in their farm, since they have all of 1 decent LHP in the farm. I’m sure the pitching will be gone after the trading, so its probably worth. They’ve got a SS in Sosa so I wouldn’t be too concerned with that.
Doubtful, as LHP is the biggest weakness in our entire system by far, Puk and Luzardo are building blocks.
Last I checked before promotions 5 of top 10 were short stops
Same system that’s created Russel
Pretty much this. The team was pretty high on Luzardo even before we acquired him from the Nationals, and Puk isn’t going anywhere.
Ask the Rays and the O’s who they want to help is land Machado and Archer, after we acquire Davis!
agreed
I agree.
Grichuk D and base running are way better. If they only move one Grichuk off the bench makes way more sense, financially too. Piscotty needs to get back to line drives and just being himself and not a HR hitter.
I agree with this. I like piscotty a lot and am pulling for him, but grichuks versatility makes him more fitting in a 4th OF role.
if piscotty is going to oakland, then grich wasn’t traded.
I bet grichuk is eventually traded. Martinez can fill the 4thof role. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go to SF after they missed out on both Stanton and ozuna. they’ll probably try for yelich first, but I wouldn’t sleep on grichuk.
Pefect target for the up and coming young and talented Oakland A’s! Great value, great local kid, tons of upside and his price is reduced coming off of a down season.
Love this for the A’s. Wonder what the cost will be. Hard to gauge given his 2017 season.
It seems light, like Jesse Hahn + Logan Shore or Yairo Munoz. (although, Munoz/Shore both very good young talents.)
Lets go!
I’m not sure you’ll get both Shore AND Hahn. One or the other is more likely, and more than likely it would be Hahn. He’s out of options though.
This would have to do with it being a good trade for Piscotty as well, correct?
His mom (and rest of the family) is near Oakland I thought.
Yes, Pleasanton California
Correct, that would be awesome for him and his family!
I knew they were waiting for the cards to aquire Ozuna
Piscotty dealt with some family issues in 2017, as well. Moving him to Oakland to be close to his mother is the right thing, no matter the return.
Exactly, plus that might be the only place he can perfrom in 2018.
Sucky situation.
Very naive comment. He’s a very well paid professional athlete and under team control in STL.
They have zero obligation to deal him unless they get the return they deem fair.
The good news is that Piscotty isn’t really THAT good so I’m sure Oakland has the talent to accommodate a deal.
Technically you would be correct but if you have a player that performed poorly because of family concerns and thinking he may have performance issues again because of the same concerns, it would be the right thing to do in moving said player to a team that is interested and would also be of benefit to the player. You trade the player away to a team like the Twins, even though they are interested, will not benefit the player, it makes the Cards look bad in the PR world. Considering it probably would be an addition by subtraction anyway for the Cards, it is better for your fan base to have them believe you, as a club, did a move for the benefit of the player. Looks good in the media and will play well with your fan base.
You realize he also got hurt quite a bit last season too, right? On more than one or two occasions if memory serves.
I can’t really imagine Cards fans being all that bummed by them trading Piscotty. He’s really mediocre, has been for the past two years. They have Ozuna now so he’s expendable.
But the Cards shouldn’t’ be expected to take less than what the deem fair value for a guy, due to his personal life. That’s just not the way business works, like it or not.
This is a moronic way of looking at it. It’s convenient because of his family issue that this is a fit. But it’s bad for PR and for business to move a guy someplace just because of a family issue. Lots of these guys have family issues. It’s bad business and a bad message to send to your fan base by giving guys away as charity. Nobody in their right mind would fault a team for doing what is best for the organization. He’s a well compensated employee. Also, it’s irresponsible to solely place blame on family issues for his slide on performance. He also changed his swing multiple times in an attempt to become a better HR hitter. I’m happy for the guy that it’s all working out for him, but let’s not get ridiculous with this garbage that they owe him anything or it’s bad PR to put your business first, because that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
EXACTLY my point, Chromimw.
Let’s get real here…
Nobody’s saying that the Cards are going to “give” him away. However, I also don’t think they are going to turn the screws here. He’s not Yelich, and the Cards have a surplus of OFers.
I think someone like Liam Hendricks, a ‘solid’ 6th – 7th inning guy with a bit of prior MLB experience is more than reasonable for both parties. A’s aren’t going to give up a Top 10 system guy though, so the A’s aren’t going to pry away someone like Luzardo.
Steven Piscotty is decidedly better than “mediocre”!!! In 2016 he was 4.4 WAR, with 22 HRs, 86 runs and 85 ribbies!! He also was good on defense in right field. 2017 was down because of DL stints and his mom’s illness. I look for him to be more like the 2016 season going forward. Just don’t call him mediocre!! You go Steven!
Agree 100 percent! Family is bigger than Baseball!
He’s a millionaire who can afford first class plane tickets to anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.
He can live anywhere he wants in the offseason.
Where a player lives and where a player wants to be is a relatively inconsequential thing.
What the hell is it with Oakland’s hard-on for this guy?
He’s not even that good.
As the article states, he posted a “cumulative .282/.348/.467 slash and hit 29 home runs in his first 905 MLB plate appearances.” Those numbers are good. Plus, he is still young and comes with a very affordable contract with 5 years left. Also, he is a local kid from Pleasanton which is only 35 minutes away from Oakland.
Didn’t adjust well the second time around once pitching adjusted to him. Tinkered with his swig too much and he took a big dip in production. Those numbers are inflated from his first half season in 2016.
Jakesnake, this could be a real steal for Oakland. Count on it. He IS good.
No idea, but it’s us so there has to be a reason. The A’s do love their high ceiling players. Our top 15 is made up of high ceiling monsters right now.
What do u have against Piscotty?
No one wants Grichuk. That’s the problem.
Not true
prove it…
We need to get some pitching out of this.
Agreed, that would be awesome. A reliever or something helpful.
Take Casilla. No trade. just take him. Please
I also believe that Grichuk should be traded instead of Piscotty. Piscotty had a bad season last year, but he is a great player and should not be trade it.
He’s not a great player. He can be very good, but they tried to make a 30+ HR hitter out of him instead of letting him be the line drive machine he was. They have a starting OF now, keeping Grichuk for the bench if they decided to do that makes more sense. Much better D and base running. Has power. Just just has bad zone awareness and it leads to a lot of K and few BB, but as a 4th OF Grichuk makes more sense. Grichuk away from Matheny and Mabry scares me. I think he might trust himself and relax and play ball and be a solid player.
Agree here.
What the hell is it with Oakland’s hard-on for this guy?
He’s not even that good.
Why did you say the exact same thing word for word as someone else 13 minutes before you lol
Piscotty to Oakland would be great as he’s now a 4th (or 5th if Grichuk isn’t a Marlin) outfielder. Would love to see them add to it in order to get Puk in a return with Munoz though. Maybe Piscotty, Kelly, Gomber plus a prospect for Puk, Munoz, plus that DR SS from last year…Vargas I think.
I like your idea, but PUK is the 3rd best LHP prospect in all of MLB and is a huge part of the talented young A’s core they are building in Oakland. He was the highest drafted player by the Oakland A’s since they took Mark Mulder #2 overall in 1998 (as they simply haven’t had the luxury of a high draft pick due to their consistency from 1999-2014.) He would only be moved for an established ML star, and the A’s aren’t at the point where it would be wise to be attempting those kind of deals.
They also have a very good catching prospect on the way in Murphy, so, although Kelly is a nice player in the STL organization, I don’t think that would match up.
Yeah, Puk is pretty untouchable at this point, unless something major is coming back.
Yeah, looks lopsided once I look at it again.. A’s only have 7 LH SP in the entire org with Puk the only one in their top 30 listing. Couple of lottery ticket prospects for Piscotty seems like the deal to be had from Oakland.
Maybe the Braves would deal for LHP as they currently have 10 in their top 30 prospects alone.
Luzardo is a left handed pitcher, and he’s #6.
I don’t think the plan is to give up any starting pitchers in our top 15. That includes Puk, Luzardo and Holmes is a hard maybe.
Grichuk to TB as part of package for Colome possibly
Archer too and they got the World Series locked up for at least 3 years
Grichuk is next to TB
hopefully this deal gets done. would be nice to get him home to his family with all that they’re dealing with right now
Yeah the Cards are being considerate to a terrific guy who would appreciate being closer to home.
no they don’t have an obligation to deal him, it’s the right thing to do. A business is made of people, and decisions cant just be dollars and cents. You can be like the Marlins and fire a scout while he’s in the hospital with cancer, see what kind of reputation that gets you. A move like this sends the right message to players, that the Cardinals are the type of organization that you want to play for.
Thank you, someone who actually realizes the Cardinals are one of the best in business
Be Hendriks please. I’ve always liked the guy and they need another pen arm or 2.
Giving up Hendriks would be acceptable. We could potentially package Hendriks, Montas (has a 4th option) and Nunez (he’s blocked everywhere).