https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-umjhe-1339479
In order to appropriately recap the Winter Meetings, Craig welcomes Alex Stumpf-Pirates Beat Writer for DK Pittsburgh Sports-down to the basement to discuss the acquisition of Vince Velasquez, the Rule 5 Draft, A Clear Position of Need that Remains and Of Course, the Bryan Reynolds Situation.
Brought to you by ShopYinzz.com! Craig Toth covers the Pirates for Inside The Bucs Basement, and joins his buddy Chris at a 9-foot homemade oak bar to talk Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball. Listen. Subscribe. Share. We are “For Fans, By Fans & All Pirates Talk.” THE Pirates Fan Podcast found EVERYWHERE podcasts can be found and always at BucsInTheBasement.com!
Inside The Bucs Basement 
Good review of what has happened so far this off season. The baseball salary system is weird, way under valued pre arbitration, then maybe average value in arbitration years, then way over valued in free agency, especially in end of contract years.
I got to give Neal Huntington credit for trading an aging McCutchen for Reynolds, in hindsight an excellent result for the Pirates.
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The salary system has shifted from that model a little in recent years. Pre-arb still holds true, arb is a mix of overvaluing and undervaluing that generally balances to around average, and free agency is a chasm of haves and have-nots. For every mega deal like Harper or potential (relatively slight) overpay like Manaea, there are many, many more guys settling for underpaid short deals and even minor-league deals.
That trade was an easy decision, and to your point on hindsight, at the time the expectation was definitely not that Reynolds would play at near-Cutch levels within a few years. On the contrary, NH traded McCutchen too late. The writing was on the wall in late 2015, but other GMs would’ve ignored that and paid a pretty penny for him. NH sold low, not high.
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