The Pirates may not need to touch their crown jewels to swing a major trade before the 2026 deadline.
That’s the real takeaway as Pittsburgh sits in buyer mode, but with the usual small-market caution hanging over every move. The farm system has already lost some shine with the graduations of Konnor Griffin and Bubba Chandler, so the front office can’t afford to empty the cupboard just to make a splash.
That’s why Seth Hernandez is being treated as completely off-limits. Edward Florentino would only be in play if Ben Cherington landed a massive star, and Murf Gray’s stock keeps climbing after the power surge that has followed him to Altoona.
But if the Pirates want to go big without gutting the best of the system, Hunter Barco stands out as the kind of trade piece that can actually get something done by August 3.
“Frankly, I doubt other GMs are falling over each other to acquire the position-player prospects the Pirates would be most willing to move. But clubs’ seemingly insatiable appetite for controllable starting pitching makes Barco a nice fit in any trade,” Stephen J. Nesbitt wrote in The Athletic.
That’s the kind of market logic that makes Barco so interesting. Top-100 prospects almost never move at the deadline unless a true blockbuster is on the table, and Barco’s value comes from exactly what teams chase this time of year: a young, controllable starter.
He may not have put up eye-popping numbers in Indianapolis, and his big-league work has mostly come in the role of the guy asked to take one for the team. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Barco was a second-round pick in 2022 for a reason. His path has been slowed by a string of setbacks, starting with his first season at the University of Florida being wiped out by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Then came the elbow injury and Tommy John surgery that ended his 2022 season, which also affected 2023. He missed more time in 2024 because of a left shin injury.
Even with that stop-and-start development, he’s still close enough to a major league starting job to matter. And that’s where the market gets loud. Young starters with years of control are among the most valuable assets in baseball, which is why the Pirates could use Barco as the centerpiece of a serious deadline deal.
The offseason trade of Mike Burrows was one more reminder of how much teams will pay for pitchers like this, even without a long track record. Reid Detmers is another example of the market at work. After a rough 2024 that ended with a 6.70 ERA as a starter and a late move to the bullpen, he’s back in the rotation this season and has posted a 4.05 ERA through 21 starts and 120 innings pitched.
With two years of team control beyond 2026, some believe Detmers could bring back more than Tarik Skubal if he were dealt at the deadline.
That’s the kind of return potential Barco carries, too. His service-time clock hasn’t even started, and his ceiling as a rotation piece for six years gives Cherington a rare kind of flexibility. He can move Barco, land a major addition, and still keep the pitching pipeline in good shape.
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