The Pirates are right in the middle of a full on rebuild. Honestly, it should’ve happened several years ago. General Manager Ben Cherington is wheeling and dealing. Since he started, he has traded anyone resembling a household name from the team. What has he got back? He’s loaded up on young talented that they can develop into the next crop of household names. He’s also already drafted high in the first round and is poised to add more top talent this year with the first overall pick. Does this guarantee a contender down the road? Absolutely not. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done and a lot that can go wrong. The key is to have depth and that’s where the Pirates have always been lacking. It isn’t a new problem either.
As long as I’ve paid attention and followed the Pirates, which is roughly 34 years, developing a robust farm system has never been their strong suit. A couple guys here and a couples guys there, sure. They had that. For the most part, most of them fizzled out or were dealt. Sadly, most of them fizzled. Add in several bad trades that didn’t net anyone with a high ceiling and your left with a recipe for failure.
In the late 80’s, General Manager Syd Thrift went full rebuild. He traded anyone he possibly could and pulled in many of the key players that led to those early 90’s divisional winners. Getting guys like Andy Van Slyke, Mike LaValliere, and Doug Drabek were crucial additions. He also drafted relatively well getting Barry Bonds and Jeff King. However, the team could never get to the World Series and their key players either broke down or left. This was the beginning of the 20-year slide. The bigger problem was the lack of a plan for the future.
Going into the 1992 season, the most productive players coming up through their system were John Wehner and Steve Cooke. With Bonds and Drabek set to walk at the close of that year, the future wasn’t looking bright. The Pirates had opportunities to deal those guys and reload for the future, but chose to sit back and see how the season played out. They would’ve been smart to trade Bonilla the year before for prospects instead of letting him walk. They did nothing and over the next couple years dealt anyone of value for whatever they could get. Almost none of the guys they got for Jay Bell, Carlos Garcia, Orlando Merced, Jeff King, and others panned out.
The Pirates would go on like this until Neil Huntington took over. Huntington was the first GM since Syd Thrift that recognized that Pirates needed to add talent. Huntington recognized that the Pirates needed a robust farm system with multiple prospects at most positions to be developed into productive Major Leaguers. The plan was in place and he got off to a good start. In the years that followed the 2013-2015 Wild Card births, Huntington’s strategy stagnated. The projectable arms that he was known to buy out of college commitments at draft time weren’t developing. Guys would plateau around AA or AAA due to injury or lack of progress. All the pieces that made the Pirates great were falling off and there were no new stars coming up to take their place. Huntington still marched on.
After the much reviled Chris Archer deal backfired, the hole in the process was glaring. Bob Nutting finally pulled the plug on the Huntington regime. Enter Ben Cherington. His plan isn’t necessarily all that different from Huntington’s first few years. Cherington has the same end goal: win with a plethora of homegrown talent. Cherington has made no secret as to how thin the system he inherited looked. Cherington has dealt everyone he could to rejuvenate the system with talent. That’s what Huntington did too. The big difference is Cherington is getting guys we won’t see for 2-3 years. Huntington tended to grab guys closer to making their Major League debut and with a lower ceiling. Will it work?
There’s a lot that can happen to a prospect on their path to the Majors. There’s a lot of guys to keep an eye on. That’s what the Pirates needed to do for the last 30+ years. They needed to make sure the system is was always stocked. That’s how a team with a limited payroll has to work. The Rays and others can do it. Can Ben Cherington and the Pirates? I guess we’ll see.
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