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MLBTR Poll: Josh Bell’s Future

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The Pirates have a new general manager in Ben Cherington, whom they officially introduced as Neal Huntington’s replacement Monday. Pirates owner Bob Nutting indicated then that the Pirates, a few weeks removed from a 69-win season and their fourth straight year without a playoff berth, don’t regard anyone on their roster as untouchable. Even before Nutting made that revelation, many considered high-profile Pirates such as Starling Marte, Chris Archer and Keone Kela as trade candidates. But in the wake of Nutting’s comments, there’s an even bigger name in the mix: first baseman Josh Bell.

Would the Cherington-led Pirates dare shop Bell, who has arguably emerged as their first franchise player since the Andrew McCutchen era came to an end after the 2017 season? Bell, like McCutchen, is a homegrown Pirate made good. A second-round pick of the Pirates in 2011, Bell debuted in 2016 and posted mediocre numbers (relative to his offense-driven position) during the first three years of his career. But the switch-hitting Bell broke out this year during an All-Star season in which he slashed .277/.367/.569 with 37 home runs and 116 runs batted in – an impressive amount even if you regard RBI as an antiquated statistic.

So what’s the problem for Pittsburgh, which seems to have a real building block on its hands at first? As is often the case, it’s about the money. The 27-year-old Bell’s projected to make an affordable $5.9MM via arbitration in 2020, though he has just two more seasons of arbitration control thereafter. And considering their current state, it may be unrealistic on the Pirates’ part to expect they’ll turn back into contenders during Bell’s remaining arb years.

The Pirates could extend Bell in that time span and retain him for the long haul, though as of July, super-agent Scott Boras didn’t sound optimistic about a new deal coming together. Boras took aim at the Pirates for not showing a willingness “to go out and invest in a great young player for a long time,” also criticizing the team for a payroll that has barely climbed (relative to its profits) across the past two decades.

It’s hard to argue with the opinionated Boras regarding the Pirates, especially considering they still haven’t signed anyone for more than the $60MM extension they gave former star catcher Jason Kendall back in November 2000. Bell would likely rake in more on his next pact, but should Pittsburgh make an aggressive push to lock him up at this point? Should the team simply keep Bell and continue going year to year with him? Or maybe now is the time to trade Bell, who’s more appealing than all free-agent first basemen on the open market.

(Poll link for app users)

Nutting, Cherington Discuss Pirates’ Offseason

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The Pirates have finally cemented a structure in the front office, having officially hired Ben Cherington as general manager. While the club still needs to settle on a field manager, it can also turn towards restructuring a roster that endured a disastrous second half in 2019, both on the field and off. Cherington and owner Bob Nutting met with Pittsburgh media today (including Rob Biertempfel of the Athletic) to discuss the organizational outlook. As expected, changes figure to be in the works.

No player on the roster is off limits in trade, Nutting indicated. He’ll instead give Cherington free rein in player movement. As Biertempfel notes, that figures to be most relevant for the respective futures of Starling Marté, Keone Kela, and Josh Bell, all of whom are productive enough to catch other teams’ attention but are three or fewer years from free agency.

Marté and Kela, especially, figure to be bandied about the rumor mill in the coming months. The Pirates weren’t believed to be shopping Marté when the offseason began, but that always seemed likely to change and the club has since installed Cherington in place of former GM Neal Huntington. Kela, meanwhile, was seemingly part of the club’s fraught clubhouse that boiled over at season’s end. That said, he remains an extremely talented reliever (2.12 ERA in 32 appearances in 2019), so he figures to draw interest elsewhere.

A Bell trade, while perhaps not as likely, would certainly shake up the first base/DH market. The 27-year-old had a disappointing second half, but his full-season .277/.367/.569 slash line (135 wRC+) remained stellar. Neither scouts nor defensive metrics have ever loved Bell as a first baseman, but he certainly looks the part of a middle-of-the-order masher. Speculatively speaking, the Blue Jays, Rays, Red Sox, Twins, and Nationals are among the dozen or so teams who would make sense as Bell suitors. After all, he comes with three seasons of team control and is only projected for a $5.9MM arbitration salary, so he could appeal to organizations in various markets and at different stages of the competitive cycle.

Does that mean the Pirates are destined for a full rebuild? The owner did let on that a change in the organization’s outlook may be necessary. “Shooting to be an 81- or 82-win team year after year is not going to be acceptable,” Nutting told reporters, including Biertempfel. “At the same time, 69 wins is never going to be acceptable. I don’t subscribe to (the notion that) a couple of 69’s leads to a winning team.”

There’s a bit of mixed messaging there, but Nutting’s disavowal of consistently fielding average to slightly above-average rosters and hoping things break right is noteworthy. Pittsburgh has, in the past, done just that, eschewing a full rebuild in hopes of remaining on the fringes of the race each year. That served the organization well from 2013-2015, when they ripped off three consecutive Wild Card berths. It has been much less effective in the four seasons since.

No one in the organization fully committed to a teardown, it’s worth noting. As would be expected, Cherington indicated a desire to get acclimated to his personnel before making any decisions. Among those aids will be assistant GM Kevan Graves, who will return in that position, per Biertempfel. Graves served as interim GM after Huntington’s firing and was in the running for the permanent position.. Nevertheless, he’ll remain on hand in his previous role, unlike Kyle Stark, who was let go from his AGM job over the weekend.

With the front office turnover now complete, the Pirates’ on-field product will start to take shape. There are many ways this offseason can go, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted in his Offseason Outlook, and it now seems that everything is on the table. The organization could be in for a drastic reshuffling in the coming months.

Pirates Name Ben Cherington General Manager

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Nov. 18: The Pirates have formally announced the hiring of Cherington as general manager.

“This is an important step forward for our organization,” owner Bob Nutting said in a press release. “Ben has an incredible track record of success having been a part of three World Championship teams in Boston, one as General Manager, and setting the table for a fourth. His passion and ability to identify, infuse and develop talent at every level, including at the Major League level, is exactly what we need to be successful in Pittsburgh.”

Nov. 15: Former Red Sox general manager and current Blue Jays senior vice president of baseball operations Ben Cherington has accepted an offer to become the next GM of the Pirates, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (via Twitter). Mackey reported last night that Cherington had been offered the position but had yet to accept or reach an agreement. Once officially announced as the replacement for the recently fired Neal Huntington, Cherington will quickly turn his attention to finding a replacement for manager Clint Hurdle, who was also fired following the 2019 season.

Ben Cherington | Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

It’s been more than four years since Cherington resigned as general manager in Boston. Cherington was under contract for at least one more season when the Red Sox brought Dave Dombrowski aboard as the new president of baseball operations, and although he was offered the opportunity to retain his GM role, he instead opted to leave the organization. A year later he signed on with the Blue Jays to work in the role he held until accepting this new challenge.

Cherington is best remembered for serving as the key architect of the Red Sox’ 2013 World Series-winning roster. That season was preceded by whirlwind of free-agent additionsS that nearly all panned out; in the 2012-13 offseason, Boston signed Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Koji Uehara, Jonny Gomes, David Ross and Ryan Dempster. That flurry of moves was made possible when Cherington put together one of the most memorable blockbusters in recent history, trading Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers in perhaps the most prolific salary dump of all time. In making that swap, Cherington freed up a stunning $258MM of long-term payroll commitments (none of which had been issued during his time as GM).

Of course, one can’t discuss Cherington’s run in Boston without acknowledging the ill-fated moves that ultimately led the organization to bring in Dombrowski and install him at a higher rank. The Red Sox have only recently been liberated from the last vestiges of the five-year, $95MM Pablo Sandoval contract and the four-year, $88MM commitment to Hanley Ramirez that were issued in the 2014-15 offseason. Rick Porcello won a Cy Young Award in the middle of the first year of the four-year, $82.5MM extension he signed under Cherington’s watch (which didn’t take effect until the season after Cherington left the team), but in the three subsequent years he worked to a collective 4.79 ERA in 569 innings.

Suffice it to say, as is the case for any GM/president of baseball operations whose ownership provides him substantial resources, Cherington’s track record in terms of free-agent pickups and pricey contract extensions is rather hit or miss.

Where Cherington arguably excelled most, however, was in cultivating an enviable stockpile of prospect depth that helped fuel Boston’s eventual 2018 World Series title. Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi and Eduardo Rodriguez were acquired during Cherington’s time as GM, as were then-prospects Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech, who headlined the return sent to the White Sox in the Chris Sale trade. Several key graduations to the Majors and trades by the Dombrowski regime have thinned out the Red Sox’ minor league depth, but Boston was considered to have an elite farm system at the time of Cherington’s departure.

More recently, with the Jays, Cherington has worked with a particular focus on the club’s player development efforts. And while a farm system is always a product of a group effort, it’s nonetheless notable that the Jays have churned out notable prospects like Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Danny Jansen while continuing to cultivate an increasingly impressive amount of depth. That may have been one of the most appealing aspects of Cherington’s track record to the Pirates, who currently possess what is considered at best a middle-of-the road farm system (No. 15 at MLB.com and No. 20 at Baseball America).

Continued success in that area will be crucial to Cherington’s success or failure in Pittsburgh, as he’ll have only a fraction of the player personnel budget to which he was accustomed during his time as GM in Boston. The Pirates are perennially among the league’s lowest-spending clubs under owner Bob Nutting, meaning Cherington will need a deep reserve of cost-controlled talent from which to draw as he navigates the financial obstacles that accompany any low-payroll GM’s job.

The biggest offseason questions on Cherington’s roster, once the field staff is set, will be how to proceed with center fielder Starling Marte and right-hander Chris Archer. Both are controlled for another two seasons, and Archer is coming off perhaps the worst season of his career. Marte figures to be an in-demand trade asset given his consistent production and the dearth of quality center-field options on the free-agent market, while Archer could yet have considerable trade value given his raw stuff, affordable contract and a similar lack of high-end pitching targets on the trade market. Determining the right time to pull the trigger on that type of deal will become the norm for Cherington in the years to come, barring an unexpected hike in payroll from ownership.

Erik Gonzalez Undergoes Left Foot Surgery, Will Miss 10-12 Weeks

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  • Pirates infielder Erik Gonzalez underwent left foot surgery Wednesday and won’t resume baseball activities for 10 to 12 weeks, Adam Berry of MLB.com tweets. It’s the second time Gonzalez has undergone surgery as a Pirate. The offseason acquisition from last winter underwent a procedure in April to repair a fractured left clavicle, which was one of multiple injuries that helped sideline him for the majority of the 2019 campaign. The 28-year-old posted woeful production over the 156 plate appearances he amassed, as he hit .254/.301/.317 with only one home run. He’s projected to earn $800K via arbitration in 2020.

Report: Ben Cherington Front-Runner To Become Pirates’ GM

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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.

Joey Cora Candidate To Become Mets' Bench Coach

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  • Pirates third base coach Joey Cora is the latest possibility to take over as the Mets’ bench coach, per Sherman. Cora, a former major league second baseman and the brother of Red Sox manager Alex Cora, has ties to new Mets manager Carlos Beltran and special assistant Omar Minaya, Sherman notes. He managed in the Mets’ minor league system when Minaya was their GM in the early 2000s. Cora, Fredi Gonzalez and Jerry Narron are the only known candidates to become the Mets’ bench coach. Longtime San Francisco assistant Ron Wotus had been in the running, but he’ll stay with the Giants as their third base coach, Daniel Brown of The Athletic relays.

Latest On Pirates’ Front Office Hiring Search

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While the rest of the sport has turned much of its attention to roster decisions and other offseason business, the Pirates are still working to nail down their baseball operations leadership. It seems the process of replacing dismissed GM Neal Huntington is now reaching a culmination.

That said, there is a new name in play that hadn’t previously been known to be under consideration. Astros assistant general manager of player development Pete Putila has been involved in the search, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter). Previously considered by the Giants in their GM search, Putila currently stands as one of the top lieutenants of Houston GM Jeff Luhnow.

Whether Putila is a strong candidate to take the top ops job isn’t known. It’d certainly be a big step up for an executive that had only recently ascended to an AGM title. It is at least theoretically possible he could be considered for a GM title if the Pittsburgh organization ends up hiring a top-level decisionmaker who functions as a president of baseball ops or chief baseball officer.

Most observers appear to see this as a two-horse race. Former Red Sox GM and current Blue Jays exec Ben Cherington is believed to be holding his second-round sit-down today, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). And it appears Brewers AGM Matt Arnold will do the same tomorrow; Robert Murray had tweeted that Arnold would get another interview.

But that’s hardly certain. Internal candidate Kevan Graves, who is currently serving as interim GM, joins Putila as additional possibilities. Graves was believed to be preparing for his own second interview at some point this week, Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic tweeted yesterday. Graves also joined Putila as a candidate for the Giants job that ultimately went to Scott Harris.

Whoever takes the helm will need to get right to work. The Bucs have loads of needs and some very big questions to answer. In particular, the organization will have to gauge trade interest in star center fielder Starling Marte, who figures to be in quite some demand and could be cashed in as part of a retooling effort.

Latest On Pirates' GM, Managerial Searches

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Blue Jays vice president of baseball operations Ben Cherington and Brewers assistant general manager Matt Arnold will get second interviews this week for the Pirates’ GM vacancy, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network and reporter Robert Murray. Cherington and Arnold are reportedly two of three finalists to take over in Pittsburgh. Pirates assistant GM Kevan Graves seems to be competing with them, as Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic tweets that he also appears likely to receive another interview. Meanwhile, even though the Pirates technically don’t have a GM right now, they’re also carrying on their search for a manager. Twins bench coach Derek Shelton has been particularly impressive to the club thus far, Heyman relays.

Pirates’ GM Search Reportedly Down To Three Finalists

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Since the exit of longtime GM Neal Huntington on Oct 28, the Pirates have been connected to a number of respected front office figures in their search for a new head of baseball operations. Two names, Blue Jays VP of baseball operations/former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington and Brewers assistant GM Matt Arnold, have been identified as two of three finalists for the position in a report from Joel Sherman of the New York Post (link).

Pirates assistant GM and current acting general manager Kevan Graves was named as a candidate in a separate report from Thursday, but it is unclear if he represents the third finalist, as Sherman only names Cherington and Arnold in his report. Blue Jays senior VP of player personnel Tony LaCava and former Red Sox and Orioles GM Dan Duquette have previously been mentioned as potential hires, but it appears that Pittsburgh has begun to narrow its scope.

Arnold had been reported as a speculative fit, but this is the first time he has been definitively placed in the running. A former director of player personnel with the Rays, Arnold has been working alongside Brewers GM David Stearns in his current role since October of 2015. Both he, 40, and Cherington, 45, would represent relatively youthful-yet-experienced additions to the Pittsburgh front office, in keeping with industry-wide trends.

As noted in our Offseason Outlook piece on Pittsburgh’s club, one of these finalists will face a challenging winter when they ultimately assume control of operations. After a 69-93 season that saw the club wrought with internal tension, it remains to be seen if the new Pirates exec will opt toward a full-scale rebuild via trades involving players like Starling Marte and Chris Archer, or if a more moderate re-tooling will be attempted in search of a postseason return.

Pirates Considering Ben Cherington As Baseball Operations Head

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Blue Jays VP of baseball operations and former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington is a candidate to be the Pirates’ next head of baseball operations, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link).  Cherington has worked for Toronto for the last three-plus seasons, after taking a little over a year away from baseball after being fired by the Sox in August 2015.

Cherington joins Pirates assistant GM and current acting general manager Kevan Graves as the only known candidates to take over the Pittsburgh front office.  Other notable names have already been mentioned as potential candidates, including another name from the Jays in senior VP of player personnel Tony LaCava, and another former Red Sox GM (and Orioles GM) in Dan Duquette.  Interviews with potential candidates were expected to begin this week, though there isn’t yet any indication that Cherington has officially sat down with Pirates top brass.

The Pirates cleaned house after 69-93 season that was disastrous on and off the field, as the club parted ways with manager Clint Hurdle, team president Frank Coonelly, and GM Neal Huntington, though all in somewhat staggered fashion over the course of a month.  Travis Williams has already stepped in as the new team president, though the managerial search that was already weeks old was put on pause while Huntington’s replacement was found.

After Theo Epstein departed the Red Sox following the 2011, Cherington (following 13 years in various role in Boston’s front office) took over as general manager.  His tenure with the club saw the Sox finish in last place in the AL East in 2012, 2014, and 2015, yet win the World Series in 2013, giving him one of the most unusual resumes of any top executive in recent memory.  While several mid-tier acquisitions were key to the 2013 championship, Cherington was hampered by bigger-ticket signings that didn’t pan out, most notably Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval.  Cherington was credited, however, with the development of such young starts as Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, and Eduardo Rodriguez, all of whom were either drafted or largely developed during Cherington’s time as general manager.

Multiple teams have had interest in hiring Cherington for GM openings in recent years, though he declined interviews last year, with Rosenthal reporting at the time that Cherington was mostly interested in a situation that would allow him to completely rebuild a team.  The Pirates could represent such a situation, as while the team has talent on hand, an argument could be made that a revamp could be necessary before the Bucs are able to again be truly competitive in the tough NL Central.

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