Despite swapping All-Star first baseman Josh Bell on Christmas Eve and Opening Day holder Joe Musgrove on Monday for prospects, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington insisted he did not “make a single move this off-season for any financial consideration “.
Instead, Cherington finally allowed the pirates to be rebuilding, even though he still refuses to use that word. He is in the midst of taking down a team that ended 19-41 last summer, the worst baseball record and the fifth worst winning percentage (0.317) in the franchise’s history.
“Coming off-season, there was no need to move money,” Cherington said on Tuesday in a video conference with reporters from Pittsburgh. “We could have simply kept the same list and entered 2021. There was no need to move the payroll just by moving the payroll. There was no request to do so. We could have kept the same payroll. ”
By sending Musgrove to San Diego just three days after avoiding arbitration by signing for $ 4.45 million, Pirates reduced its payroll to $ 43.55 million projected for the 2021 season. Just the right defender Gregory Polanco ($ 11.6 million) and second baseman Adam Frazier ($ 4.3 million) are expected to win more than $ 3 million this season.
Cherington calls this “commitment to young talent”. He said the Pirates remain receptive to further negotiations before spring training begins next month in Pirate City in Bradenton, Florida.
“We will continue to keep the phone on, so to speak,” said Cherington, “both for calls from teams that might be interested in our players and if we see opportunities that fit, as I said before, building a talent base that we need build to win here in Pittsburgh. We will be open to that. ”
Cherington said Pirates is also looking to add players to the major league squad through negotiations or free agency, with casting the main target, but also with an eye on outfielders and receivers.
Bell and Musgrove’s negotiations brought back seven perspectives: five pitchers, an outfielder and a receiver. Of these, only starting pitcher Wil Crowe (Washington) and reliever David Bednar of Mars (San Diego) have some major league experience. The other contenders they’ve acquired on the market – central gardener Hudson Head, catcher Endy Rodriguez and pitchers Omar Cruz, Drake Fellows and Eddy Yean – are potential young people who are still years away.
“We don’t just want to bring in teenagers,” said Cherington. “That is not the goal when we talk about negotiations and when we look at the players. We are trying to incorporate all information, including risk. Certainly, the younger you are, the farther you are. This poses some risk, no doubt. There is risk. There is talent. There is a subjective assessment on the Scouting side. There is a performance analysis. There is character. There is health. There is only the general exterior, relating to that risk. We try to bake it all together in a stew and see where it takes us. ”
Cherington believes that the Pirates have strengthened their minor league system with the Bell and Musgrove negotiations, the deal with Starling Mars last January, the MLB Draft in June and the hiring of free international agents. Baseball America ranked four Pirates among the top 100 candidates, although the most highly rated, Ke’Bryan Hayes, is expected to start at third base and graduate from that position this season.
“We think it improved last year,” said Cherington of the Pirates farm system. “We managed to add talents. We think that some of these players have improved for us. This is the part that is most difficult to measure, given the year that we have passed. A simple way of saying it is that four out of the top 100 are not enough. We need more than that. We just need to continue. ”
Kevin Gorman is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Kevin by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
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