The Pirates have filled their farm director vacancy by promoting Michael Chernow to the position, per source. Chernow has spent eight years within the organization, including the last three as the assistant director of coaching and player development. As the new head director of coaching and player development, he replaces John Baker, who held the position for four years before transitioning into a new role overseeing the performance team back in November. 

Quite a few moves have been made within the Pirates' baseball operations department over the last five months. Michael Voltmer was hired last month as vice president of professional evaluation and strategy and to oversee the professional scouting department. Kevin Tenenbaum was hired as VP of research and development back in October and Max Kwan was hired as director of international scouting at the end of September. 

Ben Cherington acknowledged the movement during the Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas, saying it's the most he could remember in a concentrated amount of time. The farm director position was the final leadership role in the baseball operations department that had not yet been filled.

"Over the course of the last year, year and a half, we've just been really digging into how we can really push ourselves forward in all these areas and it led to seeing an opportunity to either add or adjust personnel in all those areas in order to keep pushing forward and innovating as fast as we can and executing as well as we can," Cherington said last month. "Over a 12-month period, there's not a single part of baseball operations that hasn't been touched, including the major-league staff. I'm really excited about that. We're really excited about that. Now, obviously, the proof's in the pudding. We've got to go and continue to do the work, and show that that's going to lead to great results."