Pirates’ Jared Jones ‘very available’ in trade talks (report)
The Pirates made one trade during the Winter Meetings that landed them a much-needed bat. Pittsburgh acquired first baseman Spencer Horwitz from the Guardians for three young pitching prospects.
The trade was the Pirates first significant move, and it looks like they might continue to dip into their pitching surplus to land additional offense.
According to Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Bucs are open to the idea of trading hard-throwing Jared Jones. The 23-year-old is considered “very available” in potential trade talks, according to Hiles.
Ahead of the Rule 5 draft on Wednesday, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington was asked if he would make additional moves that would involve current members of his pitching staff.
"In theory,” Cherington said to Pirates beat reporters. “I mean, obviously, at some point, you got to be careful. We want to maintain that as a strength, and you go too far, you start to dig into it too much, and all of a sudden, you can get yourself in trouble. So we'll need to be thoughtful and careful about it. Still feel like that's an area of strength and depth. We'll just have to see what comes. We're still interested in adding to the team. We think there'll be a lot of opportunities to do that. We don't feel like we're in a rush to do that. We'll stay after it, and we got a couple more months to work on it."
Mitch Keller is another pitcher available and could cost less in terms of players or prospects. He is set to make $15.4 million in 2025, $16.9 million in 2026, $18.4 million in 2027, and $20.4 million in 2028, the final year of his deal, according to FanGraphs.
If the Pirates are open to trading Jones, the Red Sox should be interested.
Jones completed his first year in the bigs and had a strong season, posting a 6-8 record while recording a 4.14 ERA and 4.00 FIP with 132 strikeouts to just 39 walks over 121 2/3 innings in 22 starts. By the end of July, Jones’ ERA sat at 3.56 with 98 strikeouts, but a right lat strain derailed his momentum. Once he returned off the injured list in August, the righty didn’t really look the same on the mound.
There’s a lot to like about Jones; he’s a strikeout machine, owning a 26.2% strikeout percentage to just a 7.7% walk percentage, according to FanGraphs. His fastball was his most valuable pitch, ranking in the 72nd percentile in fastball run value, which really means that only 28% of the league had a more valuable heater. His fastball velocity ranked in the 93rd percentile at 97.3 mph.
One issue was his hard-hit value, which ranked in the eighth percentile at 44.5 percent. If the Red Sox add him to their pitching program, Boston can work on his breaking stuff under the guidance of Andrew Bailey, pitching coordinator Justin Willard, and DriveLine founder Kyle Boddy.
Jones, 22, has a ton of potential and is controllable through the 2030 season, which makes him an incredible trade asset. With five years of full control, a package to acquire a pitcher of Jones’ caliber will be aggressive. After trading four prospects for new ace Garrett Crochet, Jones will command a big package to entice the Pirates to trade him to Boston.
The Red Sox have been shopping Triston Casas and Wilyer Abreu this winter in an attempt to acquire pitching. Casas has been floated as a Mariners trade target. With Horwitz in the fold, the need for Casas is diminished, but Abreu may still be intriguing.
The Pirates are loaded with young hurlers, and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow likely has made a call to Cherington to gauge the cost for Jones.
