Jair Jurrjens: The Starter That Got Away from the Pittsburgh Pirates

At the end of 2007, the Detroit Tigers needed a new shortstop. The Pirates had one, Jack Wilson, that they were willing to trade.

Detroit was willing to part with an advanced pitching prospect, Jair Jurrjens, who almost came to Pittsburgh, but the Tigers finally took the Atlanta Braves' Edgar Renteria instead.

This choice was made through the rearview mirror. Renteria did have a better 2007 than Wilson.

But the value of the two men was comparable in 2008, and the younger Wilson was worth a lot more in 2009. This means the Tigers would have done better with Wilson, and that the Pirates should have gotten Jurrjens.

Apparently, part of the problem was that the Pirates wanted at least one prospect in addition to Jurrjens. In the Renteria trade, outfielder Gorkys Hernandez, whom the Pirates coveted, went to Atlanta along with Jurrjens.

It didn't make sense at the time for the Pirates to trade for outfielders. Hernandez finally ended up with Pittsburgh after he was traded by the Braves, along with two pitchers, for Nate McLouth.

Perhaps the Tigers would have been willing to trade Jurrjens to the Pirates for Wilson, "straight up," if Hernandez was not involved, but wanted someone better if the prospect was included.

Or perhaps, the Pirates were using the "old math" (pre-2005) that required one advanced prospect and two raw prospects for their veteran, even though Wilson was clearly no Nate McLouth.

Jurrjens turned out to be another "Charlie Morton," a year or two earlier. In his 2007 rookie season, he posted a lackluster 4.70 ERA. He improved it by a whole point to 3.68  in 2008, and again to 2.60 in 2009.

Certainly, he was better than any hurler the Pirates had during those two years. And if he had been in the rotation in 2008, there might have been less urgency to trade hard-hitting outfielders for starters.

Renteria was in turn traded to the San Francisco Giants, where Freddy Sanchez ended up. This means if his name were Wilson, the trade to the Giants would have re-established the Wilson-Sanchez double play combo in San Francisco.

That would have been a high price to pay for Jurrjens, but it wouldn't have been that much, given his performance the past two seasons.

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