Trade Talk Tuesday: Josh Harrison Headlines Grabow/Gorzelanny to Cubs Deal
The late 2000s were some of the darkest days of the Pittsburgh Pirate's 21-year losing streak. They had some good players at the time, but former General Manager Neil Huntington was implementing his rebuilding plan, which involved trading away many of these players. A lot of the moves made sense for the Pirates both in the situation they were and financially, but for a fan base that was yearning for a winner, the moves became increasingly frustrating. One of those moves involved trading one of the Pirates top relievers, John Grabow, and a decent MLB starting pitcher, Tom Gorzelanny, to the Chicago Cubs.
The trade brought back a package of three prospects that was supposed to be headlined by pitcher Jose Ascanio. Also included in the package were pitcher Kevin Heart and a low Minor League middle infield prospect by the name of Josh Harrison. At the time, the trade didn't look like much, but now looking back it might have been a trade that helped the Pirates make the playoffs four years later. It is time to take a look back at the trade 11 years later and see if the Pirates got a good deal, or if it was the Cubbies that got the upper hand this time. Let's take a look as part of Trade Talk Tuesday.
Cubs Get: RHP John Grabow and LHP Tom Gorzelanny
Reliever John Grabow worked his way up through the Pirates Minor League system and, despite his ups and downs, became one of the best and most reliable relievers in the Pirates bullpen. In his six seasons with Pittsburgh, he pitched to a 4.19 ERA and was in the midst of his best season of pro ball at the time of the trade. In 45 games for the Pirates during the 2009 season, Grabow had a 3.42 ERA in 45 games and had struck out 41 batters in 48 innings of work. His move to the Cubs did not come as a surprise to Pirates fans after watching many of the team's stars be traded in a similar fashion in the earlier seasons.
After the initial trade, Grabow stepped up and was even better in Chicago lowering his ERA to 3.24 in 30 games while striking out 16 batters in 25.2 innings of work. However, his control was vanishing as he walked 12 batters during that time and became more of a lefty specialist for the Cubs. He would pitch for two more seasons with Chicago and never returned to the dominant form he had during that 2009 season. He posted ERAs of 7.36 and 4.73 in his two seasons and started to struggle mightily with his control. During his final season in Chicago in 2011, he ended up walking 28 batters in 67.1 innings of work while striking out just 38.
Grabow would elect free agency at the end of the 2011 season and signed on as a Minor League Free Agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He never made it to the Major Leagues in LA and would end up being released following the 2012 season. Still, Grabow, was a vital member of the Chicago Cubs bullpen for two and a half seasons, doing especially well against left-handers. He helped solidify the Cubs bullpen during a time when they were transitioning to a new young core of players. Grabow played the veteran role well late in his career and helped guide both the Pirates and Cubs younger pitchers.
When Tom Gorzelanny was drafted in the second round of the 2003 draft, the Pirates thought he was going to come up and be the next ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, when he came up he never truly formed into the ace that the team needed. He only had one season where he picked up double-digit wins and only had two winning years in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. The Pirates have him several chances to succeed, but he never lived up to those expectations. With so many top prospects available in the Cubs system, and the Pirates looking to rebuild, Huntington threw Gorzelanny into the trade to try and pry some more of those prospects away from the Cubs.
After the trade, Gorzelanny would split time between the Cubs starting rotation and the bullpen and pitched ok. He went 4-2 with a 5.63 ERA in 13 games, seven starts, over 38.1 innings of work. He would come back to the Cubs for the 2010 season and once again only produced sub-par numbers. He went just 7-9 with a 4.09 ERA in 137.1 innings of work with the Cubs. His strikeout numbers were good with 119, but he walked 68 batters and allowed an opponent batting average of .260. He once again bounced between the bullpen and the starting rotation and never truly claimed his spot.
Gorzelanny did not make the MLB club for the Cubs in 2011 and was traded to the Washington Nationals following the season. This started his career of being a journeyman as he played for four different teams over the course of his final six big league seasons. He had one more great season out of the bullpen in 2014 when he posted a 0.86 ERA but would retire following the 2015 season. Now, Gorzelanny is helping the next great ballplayers as the pitching coach at Iowa, a position he has held for the last two years. Gorzelanny was not the man the Cubs really wanted when they traded for him, and he ended up fizzling out late in the 2010s.
Pirates Get: IF Josh Harrison, RHP Kevin Hart and Jose Ascanio
When the initial trade was made, Josh Harrison was the last prospect thrown into the deal to complete the five-player move. He would turn out to be the top piece in the trade and was a part of all three of the Pirates playoff teams from 2013 to 2015. He served as a utility player for most of his career and ended up playing every position on the field for the Pirates except catcher, although there was one game where he started to put the gear on. He would stay with the Pirates for eight years from 2011 to 2016 and was named a three-time all-star. He would finish his Pirates career with a .277 batting average while hitting 52 home runs and 269 RBI.
His best season with the Pirates came during the 2014 season when he broke out as a utility infielder for the team. He would end up hitting .315 that season with 13 home runs and 52 RBI. It was during this season that he played all eight positions for the Pirates and he was named the first utility player to make the all-star game since Omar Infante. It was that season that helped earn him the full-time starting second baseman job down the line. After that season, he had a string of four straight seasons of hitting .270 or above and became not only a fan favorite in the city but a star earning two more trips to the All-Star game while in black and gold.
However, his Pirates career would end with turmoil as Harrison would get into a battle with the front office. Following the trade of Andrew McCutchen, Harrison demanded a trade and would be granted his release following the 2018 season. He would end up signing on with the Detroit Tigers, but injuries limited him to just 36 games last season. He is currently in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. However, the Pirates gave Harrison his first start in the Big Leagues and turned him from a throw-in piece to complete a trade to an all-star caliber player in the Major Leagues.
When Kevin Hart came to the Pirates, he was the guy who was going to replace Tom Gorzelanny in the starting rotation. Hart was having a good season with the Cubs in 2009 going 3-1 with a 2.60 ERA in his first 27.2 innings of work. He had experience in the starting rotation and ended up plugging right into that role for the Pirates. However, things would quickly derail for the right-hander as in ten starts with Pittsburgh he went just 1-8 with a 6.92 ERA. He was plagued by the home run ball, giving up eight on the season as opponents hit .333 against him. He had lost all the momentum he had at the start of the season and struggled to finish the 2009 season.
Things continued to go downhill for Hart as he was suspended to start the 2010 season and an injury would prevent him from playing any baseball at all in 2010. He tried to come back in 2011, but would never make it back to the Pirates. He elected free agency after the 2012 season and only played a few more seasons overseas. He was thought to be one of the top players involved in the trade, but he ended up not living up to those expectations and eventually falling out of professional baseball. He filled a very short term need for the Pirates and was easily replaced by free agent Kevin Correia the next season.
The biggest piece of that 2009 trade that sent Gorzo and Grabow to the Cubs was top-prospect Jose Ascanio. He was a starting pitching prospect who had success throughout the Minor League system. That success never translated for the Pirates as he only played in ten games all out of the bullpen for the Pirates. In both seasons with Pittsburgh, Ascanio had an ERA over six and allowed a .345 average against. He only had two separate stints with Pittsburgh and neither of them showed that he belonged in the Major Leagues.
He suffered elbow tightness during the 2011 season, and that was the last time that Ascanio would appear in Major League Baseball. He has since been playing in the Puerto Rican League but has not made it back to professional baseball. Ascanio was once a player to watch, but his stuff did not translate well past Triple-A. He went on to play well in the Puerto Rican league but as far as his value in the trade, he did not live up to what the Pirates suspected. It is a guessing game with whether or not prospects will pan out, and for the Pirates this time it didn't work out.
Winner: Pirates
I mark the Pittsburgh Pirates as the winners of this trade because of the success that Josh Harrison brought the team. He was a key piece to the Pirates playoff teams of the early 2010s and made his mark in Pittsburgh. Harrison was the only player of the five traded that had any long term success with his team. What looked like a salary dump in 2009, turned out to be a big move towards making the Pirates playoff contenders once again. That wraps up this edition of Trade Talk Tuesday! Be sure to come back next week for more trade coverage and stick with us for more Pittsburgh Pirates news whenever you want it.
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