The Pirates and Astros are reportedly close to a Gerrit Cole trade

The Yankees have been circling a Gerrit Cole trade all offseason. It would have filled one of their final needs for the offseason in adding another arm to the rotation. It would have added yet another probably-lopsided-but-we-won’t-know-for-sure-for-a-few-years trade to add to the list of deals between Pittsburgh and New York. It would have continued to make New York the only team actively making deals during this slow as heck offseason. Everyone (besides Yankees fans) would have been annoyed at the Yankees for at least the second time this offseason.

AND YET. None of that happened.

Because, according to Jon Morosi, the Astros are close to an agreement to get Cole from the Pirates. (According to others like Jerry Crasnick, the situation is a little more nuanced.) Which, when looking at the current state of the league, isn’t too different from the Yankees getting him because the rich are getting a little bit richer. But it’s still better than the Yankees getting richer.

There are no details yet about which assets might be going back to Pittsburgh in the deal, but this is a smart move for the Astros. Their rotation now includes not only Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel (which would be WOW enough for any major league rotation if you stopped there), but also now Cole, as well as the rest of their World Series-winning rotation in Lance McCullers Jr., Charlie Morton, and Brad Peacock.

According to Morosi, the Astros worked to get the deal done now because Cole’s arbitration number hasn’t been decided yet. Since the filing deadline is this Friday, any trade after that would leave Cole’s new team negotiating based on the figures the Pirates submitted instead of submitting the numbers themselves. Not having to trust the Pirates’ instincts in arbitration is a good thing.

He’s under team control until 2020 and is in his second year of arbitration eligibility. MLB Trade Rumors is projecting his arbitration salary to be around $7.5 million or so, which is a major deal for Houston.

In five years with Pittsburgh, Cole had a 3.50 ERA and averaged 156 innings a season in 127 total starts. He also averaged a 112 ERA+ and a 1.217 WHIP. Cole’s ERA rose to 4.26 last season, a career high that exceed the previous season’s career high of 3.88 a year before.

But he also surpassed 200 innings on the mound for the second time in his career, is only 27 years old, and has only dipped below league average in ERA+ once in the last five years (a 99 in 2014, which barely counts if we’re being honest).

Even if he’s not exactly about to kick Verlander or Keuchel out of their spots in the rotation, Cole can be a top starter for the ‘Stros, who could really use another one even if all that means is they won’t go through another offseason praying to whoever they believe in in the hopes the back half of their rotation continues to pull amazing heroics out of nowhere just to win narrow matchups.

The Pirates meanwhile will — oh I don’t know — probably have an open trade adoption with Cole so that they can still write to him and see how he’s doing while they focus on drafting and trading for other diamonds in the rough that they will eventually trade to the Astros or Yankees half a decade from now.

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