1-17-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
Fans are always going to expect more. That’s fandom.
The Pirates have curated a fan base that has lowered their expectations down to expecting at least some effort. From players who probably aren’t good enough, from coaches who probably don’t have all the right buttons to push, even if they knew what they’d be. From General Managers who by in large are trying to operate a huge machine with little to no room for error, and next to no room to ask for more.
Some of it’s fair, some of it’s not, all of it points back to MLB’s system and an owner who is more than happy to live in it, even if he too wishes it was different.
That said, there are things this franchise could do better, could invest more in, could have a little humility with that could change the fortunes of the Pirates, and unfortunately, it’s been a shortcoming since at least 1995, and that’s Amateur scouting and the development system itself.
It spans ownership groups, it spans GMs, development leaders, scouting departments, increases in analytical departments, infrastructure investment, academies on foreign soil and even MLB rule changes to the amateur talent acquisition methods the game employs.
This stuff is incredibly hard to track because of all that. Right now in MLB, there are 10 GM’s who have been on the job since 2016 or longer. 3 longer than 2009, and only one Brian Cashman who’s been the Yankees boss since 1998.
Point is, when you start wanting to hold clubs, or club executives accountable, for most clubs the guy you want to point fingers at is already somewhere else, or maybe out of baseball all together.
Think about it this way. Ben Cherington was hired in 2019 and on his 40-man roster right now, Carmen Mlodzinski, Nick Gonzales, and Henry Davis were his selections, and 100% untouched by his predecessor. And that’s an entirely reasonable number at this point, especially given there were only 5 rounds of a draft in 2020 and none of the prospects oculd actually start playing.
These conversations get muddy because people will want to add in other players he acquired young and the team developed, but to mention a guy like Liover Peguero in this context, is to ignore that he wasn’t “discovered” by the Pirates, he was acquired. That doesn’t matter for the success of the team, but it does matter for the simple accounting of who came from where, and how did it come to be.
Once a player is drafted/signed they become a professional player, and a whole new set of scouts take over from the amateur scouts who originally advised the team to sign him. In other words, if you want to give the Pirates credit for identifying him and ultimately dealing for him, that’s fine, they deserve it, especially if he continues to develop at the MLB level, but you can’t mix the two. In other words, don’t use the shadow cast by some of the wins by the pro scouts to mask the sunlight that needs shined on this team’s lack of success with the Amateur side.
Money isn’t a problem here. The Pirates, very provably mind you, spend more than almost anyone in baseball internationally, and there are limits on what any team can spend on the market and much like the Amateur draft, the amount that can be spent is predetermined, AKA a pool of money. Teams as of last year, because it had been frozen for a couple seasons may trade for international pool space, not the money, just the space. They literally trade for the ability to spend more money, and yes, the Pirates do and have done this countless times, again, provably, more than most.
Just as provably though, they’ve had precious little success.
Now, for this market in particular, it’s impossible to judge Ben Cherington. His first class, the 2019/2020 he walked into a class that was for the most part signed. But he still made more, filling out the class with names you probably remember like Solomon Maguire and Po-Yu Chen. Earlier in the class Huntington had already inked Tsung-Che Cheng who Cherington just protected this year form the Rule 5 draft.
Here’s why judging him for this class is probably dumb, even while he made some selections, and it’s really the story of how signing Po-Yu came to be.
He was a big time international prospect, no doubt, out of Taiwan, he had been a member of the 2019 World Champion Chinese Taipei Under 18 National Team. To get him and the 1.25 million it would take to get him to sign, Cherington moved two prospects to St. Louis and Baltimore for slot space in the International pool. The prospects sent hardly matter, lottery tickets out, for lottery ticket in.
The Pirates had been scouting Chen for almost 3 years, hardly a Cherington decision, you know, since he was working for the Blue Jays.
Cherington said the Pirates and their scouts rated Po-Yu as the equivalent to a second round pick talent and that was that. Cherington who was just hired, essentially had to throw his trust into a scout who he didn’t hire, about a kid he hadn’t been following for 3 years, and he had to trust it enough to make 2 separate deals to get it done.
“In particular, our scout in Taiwan, Fu Chun Chiang, did a great job getting to know Po-Yu and his family and putting us in a position to sign him,” Cherington said.
They used bonus pool money acquired from the Diamondbacks in the Starling Marte deal that brought Brennan Malone and Liover Peguero as well to sign 16 year old Australian outfielder Solomon Maguire.
For perspective only, Solomon is now 20 years old and just completed his third stint with the Florida Coast League in Rookie ball and he’s spent a considerable amount of time on the IL. His path is at the very least murky, maybe they give him a shot in Bradenton, but his early and disrupted stats aren’t promising from the FCL. It’s taken almost 4 years to get here.
Po-Yu is likely going to start in AA Altoona this year. The Pirates took 2021 and split him between the Complex League and Bradenton. In 2022, they gave him a full season in Bradenton where he almost touched 100 innings. In 2023, he was promoted to Greensboro in High A and again, he hit almost 120 innings and did some good things.
Thing is, he’s not dominating these levels like you’d hope. He’s doing enough to progress, and if he’s going to stop showing that much, AA will be where it shows up. The thing they’ve learned and adjusted about him as they’ve developed him is all their ratings check out, with the exception of his command. When he gets to AA, should he not reign it in, the more advanced bats will skyrocket his already borderline too high WHIP. The strikeout numbers however are impressive. Mixed bag, too early to tell, and he’s now 22. In December of 2025 he’ll be 24 and he’ll also need protected from the Rule 5 Draft if in fact he’s made himself someone to worry about being selected.
I say all this because, when I hear things like “we should be seeing some wins on international signings” I can’t help but point back to these two “wins”. Because they’ve had them for as long as anyone Cherington brought in, and it’s too early to judge them let alone his body of work. Any winning we’d have seen already, wouldn’t be Cherington’s doing. Say Castro had worked out, well, kudos for playing him, that’s about it.
The traditional draft, much the same, in fact, I could argue Henry was a bit too fast to MLB and Mlodzinski should be his only representative.
Over the years, the Pirates have changed out scouts, and coaches, and advisors all over the baseball world, and they’ve kept a bunch too. Firing all your “unsuccessful” scouts can damn your organization for years. I already explained how long the Pirates were in with Po-Yu Chen’s family before inking that deal, well, it’s not much different in Latin America, except there are 25 other guys one street over waiting for a crack in your scout’s relationship. Getting back in isn’t as easy as getting out.
So change is slow, evaluation is slow, and ultimately the next GM will get credit for players Cherington brought in, just like he’ll get credit for Huntington guys, who got credit for Littlefield guys.
Overall though, the Pirates system, and all their investment in the Dominican have netted precious few MLB regulars, let alone stars. 2 or 3 wins in the next half decade and that narrative changes, well, that reality changes.
There are some potential wins already here like Luis Ortiz, and more coming like Shalin Polanco and Cheng, Chen, but baseball scouting and development is best viewed through a pretty wide lens and an understanding that when you’re measuring a 16 year old’s shoulder width to project how big his frame might allow him to grow at the same time you’re trying to figure out if he can play baseball, you are never going to have a good hit rate.
That said, you can’t go 0 for 100 either.
That said, Junior Vizcaino was the Director of International Scouting, and he remains in place.
The Top man for Amateur scouting when Cherington arrived was Joe Dellicarri, and he’s now the VP of Pro Scouting. While Will Lawton who was Director of Baseball Operations was moved to Director of Pro Scouting.
They’ve made changes, additions, mostly small, and more than anything, they’ve shuffled titles and responsibilities around many of the same names and faces.
I’m not here to tell you any one of them is doing a poor job, or to point at any one of them and try to explain why the Pirates just don’t get enough wins in selecting amateur talent, I’m simply not educated enough to attempt it, and neither are a lot of GM’s I’d wager, but when something has been poor for as long as this has been poor in Pittsburgh, I’d like to think I could look at a staff directory from 2019 versus 2024 and have it look like I don’t know, 35% has turned over? That’s not been the case, and Cherington surely doesn’t need to feel any allegiance to those who predated him. In fact, by keeping many of them, he now owns them as part of his organization.
Like I said, we’ll probably be judging this in earnest 10 years from now, maybe 2 GM’s from now, but the problem has lasted almost as long as the team has missed out on the Playoffs.
If this doesn’t improve, the team will only ever get so good, it’s not a nice to have in a market this size with an owner who won’t give in and spend more.
Steel City Pirates 