Blue Jays vice president of baseball operations Ben Cherington has established himself as the favorite in the Pirates’ search for a general manager, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Multiple sources have informed Mackey that the Pirates have offered the position to Cherington and are waiting to hear if he’ll accept the job. Whether Cherington or someone else gets the role, expectations are Pittsburgh will “announce a move of some sort on Monday,” Mackey writes.
Cherington is one of four known candidates for the post, joining Pirates assistant GM Kevan Graves, Astros AGM of player development Pete Putila and Brewers AGM Matt Arnold. Graves has been the Pirates’ interim GM since they fired Neal Huntington last month, but even if they don’t promote him, he’s likely to stay in the organization, Mackey suggests.
Should Pittsburgh tab Cherington as its GM, it’ll be getting someone with experience in that capacity. The 45-year-old is best known for his hit-and-miss tenure as Boston’s GM. Cherington succeeded Theo Epstein after the 2011 season and stayed on until his firing in August 2015. The Red Sox did win a World Series in that span (in 2013), but they stumbled to sub-.500 records in each of the other three seasons. As MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk previously noted, big-money Cherington signings such as Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez were black marks on his time with the Red Sox, though cornerstones Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers and Eduardo Rodriguez did develop when he was running the show.
While Cherington had a large payroll at his disposal with the Red Sox, that won’t be the case if he joins the Pirates. Pittsburgh’s perennially a low-budget club, one that opened 2019 with a payroll below $75MM. The lack of financial flexibility helped doom Huntington, whose days with the Pirates ended after four straight non-playoff seasons. With that in mind, the Pirates’ next GM is definitely in for a challenge, though that may make the job more appealing to Cherington. He has reportedly bowed out of previous GM searches because of an interest in rebuilding an organization from the ground up.
We’ll see if signing Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval were more driven by ownership than by Cherington himself.
Regardless, he won’t be able to ink such contracts in Pitt so the issue is moot. He was apparently behind the signings of Castillo and Moncada too but his key in my view was developing a minor league system that produced.
Very well thought out opinion man.
Moncada was actually pretty good last year and should soon be a beast with the league turning to power.
Well crap. He’s done such a great job at player development in Toronto. He’s obviously overqualified for the job and it’s just a matter of time before he gets a GM job again. Hopefully he’s learned from his poor contracts in Boston.
The Pirates GM job is pretty simple.
Don’t use your annual 5mil FA budget on someone who plays zero games(ChisenDL), and you keep your job.
Apparently dissembling both a playoff roster and a farm system back-to-back, gets you an extension around here.
We all know Bob wanted to keep him and not double-pay to fill his role, thus the late firing.
If he leaves, he will have left his mark in Toronto. Under his guidance the last 3 years the drafting and minor league development for the Jays has greatly improved.
Gil Kim deserves more credit than anyone for the improvements throughout the Jays minor league system. Cherington has been on the MLB level. Atkins is still opie.
If he gets the job, I’ll be interested to see what he brings to the table. Huntington was also regarded as a heavy sabremetrics guy But Cherington does have a background with player development.
I think the bad contracts in his tenure with Boston were more driven by John Henry’s desire to win and catching the yankees 27 championships
I dont think Henry or anyone else has ideas a out them catching the Yankees in world series. Not gonna happen in Henry’s life time, and likely ever.
He seems to be a good fit for a smaller market club that will rely more heavily on their farm than free agency.
The power in the NL Central is on its way to shifting. A guy like Cherington is exactly what a team like the Pirates need. Those albatross contracts in Boston don’t have a chance of happening in Pittsburgh but a Mookie Betts, Devers or Benitendi is what needs to be developed.
Kudos to Nutting for at the very least tryin to get it right.
Ben gets what he wants a chance to build an organization from the ground up. And an owner that doesn’t meddle. He doesn’t spend either so hope he is prepared for that.
Why? Why would he want that job? Again, the Pirates owner is an idiot! Hire whomever he can from Tampa Bay who knows how to squeeze blood from a stone!
I think this is a great hire. The signings of Sandoval and Hanley should be credited to ownership, mainly LL. I think he is the right fit for the Pirates.
I agree, 2013 was a weak offensive FA. He signed the 2 top agents after unloading to the dodgers. Guess what, they won the WS that year. Also in 2007 he’s the one that pulled the trigger for Mike Lowell & Josh Beckett. He deserves more credit.
Whoever gets hired for this job is inheriting the worst situation in baseball. A club with very little talent, cheap owners and a disgruntled fan base. Not to mention the fiasco of the Archer trade and the Felipe Vasquez situation.
One Amherst guy replacing another