Trades Ten Years Later - Miles Mikolas for Chris McGuiness

Pirates receive: Chris McGuiness. Rangers receive: Miles Mikolas

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The Names: Pittsburgh Pirates receive: Chris McGuiness. Texas Rangers receive: Miles Mikolas.

The Team Context: This is the only moment in time where I’ll be able to write about the Pittsburgh Pirates’ team context ten years ago and have it be a positive experience. The 2013 Pirates had captured the hearts of Pittsburgh, winning 94 games and making their first playoff appearance since 1992. The home fans made their presence felt in a Wild Card win over the division rival Cincinnati Reds, then lost a 5-game heartbreaker in the NLDS to the division rival St. Louis Cardinals. But with young stars like Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole set to return in 2014, there was justified optimism in Steel City.

Miles Mikolas was acquired by the Pirates in November and thus had not been a part of any of the good vibes described above.

The Texas Rangers had a good year in 2013, finishing with 91 wins, but did so in a particularly heartbreaking fashion that include a 72nd loss in a “Game 163” against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rangers lost this game, which served as a tiebreaker for the second Wild Card spot, and missed the playoffs despite spending 95 days leading their division. Bummer, better luck next year!

In November 2013, the Rangers had traded longtime star Ian Kinsler for bigger star Prince Fielder to lock down their first base position, and I’m heartbroken that I started the blog just barely too late to discuss that one. The relevancy of that context for this trade is that Texas really did not need first base depth.

The Player Context: Miles “The Lizard King” Mikolas had arrived in Pittsburgh that November via San Diego, where he made MLB appearances as a reliever in 2012 and 2013. He was regarded as a low-end prospect who had previously eaten a live lizard and was likely to pitch out of a major league bullpen, notwithstanding the fact that San Diego and Pittsburgh had just decided they’d rather not have him do so. Off the field, the dude was widely known for eating a live lizard (though in fairness, he ate the lizard right on the field).

Chris McGuiness had just been designated for assignment by Texas, who gave his roster spot to new free agent signing Shin-Soo Choo. McGuiness was selected by Boston as a 13th round draft pick from Charleston, South Carolina’s The Citadel in 2009 and was acquired by the Rangers in a 2010 trade where the Red Sox added Jarrod Saltalamacchia. He got his first theoretical chance in MLB when he was selected in the Rule 5 Draft by Cleveland after winning the 2012 MVP award for the Arizona Fall League, but he failed to make the opening day roster and was returned to Texas before the 2013 season started. This turned out to be a fairly temporary delay for McGuiness, as he made his debut that June in a loss to the Blue Jays when regular 1B Mitch Moreland was injured. He was sent back to AAA about two weeks later after going 6 for 34 and posting a league-adjusted OPS+ that was 96% worse than league average.

The Trade: My speculation is that Pirates’ general manager Neal Huntington was in a weird productivity loop after having such a successful yet incomplete season in 2013. The team Huntington had assembled was the best Pittsburgh had seen in generations, but work remained to be done to build the team up to the class of a strong NL Central division. At the same time, notoriously cheap ownership was unlikely to open up the checkbook for really meaningful free agent additions. When such manic improvement energy pairs with a lack of capacity to actually do anything about it, there’s not much left but to get creative however possible. The Pirates’ offseason consisted of two low-scale signings of Edinson Volquez and Clint Barmes on one-year deals for a combined $7 million, then a bunch of minor league signings and weird fringe roster trades like “acquiring Miles Mikolas from San Diego” and “trading Miles Mikolas a month later.” They weren’t actually doing anything, but at least they looked busy.

The Reaction: The most passionate reaction in the admittedly limited research I’m willing to do on this subject came from Daniel A. Neiwert’s post at Pirates blog “RumBunter,” titled “Chris McGuiness Is Not The Answer!”. Neiwert quickly dismisses McGuiness’s admittedly pedestrian numbers and prospect background before getting to the thrust of the issue:

I understand this is probably a depth move. Geez I hope it is. If Chris McGuiness is the Pirates answer at who’s on first then the question needs to be changed – asap. What this trade does signal to me is that Mitch Moreland isn’t coming here. Can you imagine two separate trades with the same team to get a player that plays the same position? Unlikely. I’m not a Mitch Moreland fan so this is great news to me.

With the caveat that Neiwert was absolutely correct about all that, imagine dedicating your athletic career to trying, and failing, to take a guy’s job. You’re already aware that the guy is just Mitch Moreland, so it probably already feels bad enough when your organization concludes there’s no hope of you winning the position after ten days in June where you’re 96% worse than the average baseball player. Then you get shipped off to Pittsburgh and the fan reaction is “well obviously this is not acceptable but at least we aren’t getting that bum Mitch Moreland.” You have to find at least one new apartment and everybody except you wants it to be in a minor league city.

The reaction on the Rangers side treated McGuiness as surplus, easily expendable, depth. They were generally excited to receive a guy who threw pretty hard and ate live lizards.

The Results: Chris McGuiness’s big league career was already over, etched in stone at 96% below league average. He played for AAA Indianapolis through the 2014 season, where his numbers declined across the board compared to 2013. He left the Pirates organization after the season.

Miles Mikolas pitched in MLB in 2014, albeit poorly, making this a marginal trade win for Texas. Although Mikolas hadn’t started a professional game since 2009, the Rangers began using him out of the rotation in 2014, giving him 10 MLB starts and no MLB bullpen action. The 2014 Rangers had one of the unluckiest seasons imaginable with a record-setting number of injuries, allowing Mikolas an extended run in the rotation even as he struggled. This ten-start showcase was enough for the Rangers to spin some value out of Mikolas, albeit not for their MLB roster; his contract was sold to Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants after the 2014 season while Mikolas was on his honeymoon.

The Aftermath: Mikolas had an excellent experience in Japan. He posted a 1.92 ERA in the 2015 season before re-signing with the Giants for another two years and $5M guaranteed. His wife became a social media celebrity in Japan. After two more strong seasons for Yomiuri, Mikolas made his way back stateside, signing a two-year, $15.5 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. In the midst of his first season back in the USA, where he pitched well enough to make the All-Star Game, he acknowledged that being cast out of MLB granted him the necessary humility to grow in Japan while also making a declaration of his new status within the game, saying “I’m not here to eat lizards or talk about eating lizards. I’m a baseball guy.” He has been a fixture in the Cardinals’ rotation ever since and has signed numerous contract extensions to stick around, making about $120 million from St. Louis between 2018 and 2025.

Chris McGuiness signed a minor league deal with Philadelphia for the 2015 season, where his numbers declined yet further before his release in August. He finished his degree at The Citadel in 2016 and became an Account Manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated back in Charleston, showing enough promise to be promoted to District Sales Manager by October 2018 (which hopefully cut the sting of Miles Mikolas’ 6th place Cy Young finish that year). Since 2021, he has been a Regional Sales Manager for LiftOne, a North Carolina-based supplier of industrial and warehouse equipment. McGuiness went 0-for-4 in his final MLB game, an 8-7 Rangers victory over Oakland. His best MLB game was a 6-4 victory over the Blue Jays, where McGuiness went 2-for-4 with the only RBI of his career (a double against Josh Johnson, scoring David Murphy).

The Pirates made it back to the playoffs in 2014 and 2015, losing the Wild Card game each year. They have not won a playoff game since acquiring Chris McGuiness. If the “McGuiness Curse” catches on, you certainly heard it here first:

Upcoming trades:

January 7, 2014:
Bulls receive: Andrew Bynum and picks
Cavaliers receive: Luol Deng

Celtics receive: Jerryd Bayless, Ryan Gomes
Grizzlies receive: Courtney Lee, draft and cash considerations
Thunder receive: draft picks