Cherington: Larger plan still is on track
Pirates’ goal for next year, beyond is developing prospects, bringing them to majors
Ben Cherington plans to keep the door open and the lights on. Beyond that, the Pirates general manager finds himself in an interesting spot entering Year 3.
It’s one without a ton of clarity, in large part because it’s tied to the maturation and major league readiness of young players, and that sort of thing isn’t always linear.
The wins and losses, the same as they were in 2020, were not good enough. And the GM — who spoke plenty about fan frustration and how he sympathizes with those yearning for a better on-field product during a 45-minute Zoom call with local reporters Tuesday — isn’t hiding from that.
At the same time, Cherington said he was pleased with some of the progress the Pirates showed this year, mentioning their improved defense; individual steps forward taken by guys like Bryan Reynolds, Jacob Stallings and Kevin Newman; minor league success and improved player development; and even the MLB debuts of exciting prospects such as Roansy Contreras and Oneil Cruz.
“We feel good about the progress we made as an organization this year,” Cherington said. “We believe there were significant steps taken in terms of overall depth of talent throughout the organization. We feel good about the continued progress we’ve made culturally at the major league level — the effort, defensive improvement, baserunning, attention to detail and the fight we saw throughout the year.
“We also played better as a team at the major league level down the stretch, despite trading a lot of good major league players off the team over the last two years. I think that makes us feel really good looking forward that the work that we’re doing is going in the right direction.”
As the Pirates continue offseason meetings and begin to chart a plan for not only the winter months but also into spring training, let’s take a look at a couple salient points from the GM’s final (formal) media availability of the season.
• Will they spend more money this offseason? That question was asked a couple different ways, and it never really netted a straight answer from Cherington, who repeated a couple times something that went like this:
“Of course there’d be value to improving the 2022 team, and that will be our aim to do that. We just have to do it in a way that’s consistent with what we believe gives us a chance to build a winning team here and a sustainable winning team here over time.”
Now, the context: Cherington talked about how whatever the Pirates do, it needs to fit within the larger plan. That’s another way of saying they’re going to build this with younger players, and they want to be careful to not spend on someone who might block a prospect pushing for a shot.
Pessimists might look at that and say the cheap Pirates are only interested in cheap labor, but are they wrong for wanting to turn things over to young players who work cheaper than veteran free agents?
As Cherington continued, the door isn’t closed on adding anyone; it simply has to be the right guy. Yoshi Tsutsugo, for instance. And Cherington said those talks should start this week.
“We want to improve,” Cherington said. “We want to see steady growth, absolutely, from our team. We just have to be focused on specific player acquisitions that are consistent with what we believe gives us the best chance to not just get a winning team, but to sustain it over time.”
• Will they extend key players? It’s hard to criticize the Pirates for taking their current, homegrown approach. Look at Major League Baseball’s flawed financial system, where no true floor or ceiling exist, and this sort of stuff is the closest you’ll find to a level playing field.
Think about it: There’s nothing that prevents the Pirates from finding or developing players. They have the same opportunities — financial and otherwise — as the Dodgers and the Yankees. They simply fall short, for a variety of reasons, on the opposite end of the spectrum.
At the same time, as much sense as it might make to grow the produce in a garden out back, customers are going to walk into the restaurant wanting to eat; someone has to cook a meal with actual ingredients, and the Pirates have an obligation to their fans to put that on the table … er, field.
Enter Reynolds, who produced the fifth-best fWAR in the National League this season. Reynolds should have blinking lights on him as a walking, talking reason to buy into the Pirates’ plan. Sign Reynolds, and you might persuade a larger group of people to spend their money on supporting you.
“As we get into the offseason, that’s a door that we want to open again,” Cherington said when asked where extending Reynolds stood on his offseason priority list. “That’s not specific to any one player. We want to continue to have an open door to that conversation with players as they get to our major league roster.”
• What might the 2022 roster look like? In a sign of where the Pirates stand right now, the fourth question asked of Cherington involved two players who have not yet played four MLB games — Roansy Contreras and Oneil Cruz. It was essentially whether they’ve established themselves as clear parts of the future here.
The short answer there would be yes. The context is that they’re hardly alone.
As the Pirates press into the offseason and look for a targeted add or two, the fact remains that this should be a largely homegrown bunch in 2022, one that’s likely not a lot different in terms of winning percentage but certainly an outfit more deserving of the investment.
Contreras and Cruz will be headliners, sure. But it should also include guys such as Mason Martin, Ji-Hwan Bae, Rodolfo Castro, Cal Mitchell, Canaan Smith-Njigba … or even High-A Greensboro players from this past season like Quinn Priester, Nick Gonzales, Carmen Mlodzinski, Henry Davis or Jared Triolo.
“We’re excited about the group that we can already see being part of that spring training roster, but we’d love to add to that this offseason with players who can make that a deeper group,” Cherington said. “We certainly want to keep getting deeper. We just want to do that in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the potential opportunity of a young player that we believe in.”