Friday Insider: How they really feel about Cherington
I must've described Ben Cherington as a dead man walking a dozen times this summer.
Not because I'd ever been told he'd be fired. That didn't happen once. Not from anybody from any level at any time. And not on May 9, the day Bob Nuttinginvited me over to PNC Park to talk after he'd just fired Derek Shelton.
But we did talk. And I'd have other talks with those above and below and around Cherington. And the setting was such that it'd become inconceivable in my eyes that, with what the Pirates' own people -- all the way to the top -- thought of Cherington's performance to that point ... there was no way he'd be back. Just no way.
And if there was, because of Nutting's own insistence that day that "we have to fix this in 2025," it'd be that the 2025 team would somehow surge into something. Which, of course, never came close to occurring on the way to a 71-91 finish.
OK, we square on that much?
Good. Because, being blunt here, I'm sick of hearing or reading suggestions that I was misled by sources in this event. If anything, those sources were being excessively open with me -- again, all the way to the top -- in sharing what they felt were issues with the GM.
What did they say?
In no particular order, and limiting these to people of actual authority:
• Cherington's early trades of veteran players for prospects were terrible. Now, that's not exactly an opinion. They were, in fact, terrible. But to hear that acknowledged is decidedly different.
• Cherington's drafts lacked depth. The obvious hits were recognized -- Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler and Konnor Griffin, in particular -- but the misses plainly were what defined this assessment. And not even a glaring miss-to-date in Henry Davis at No. 1 overall, but more so the lack of substance in later rounds.
• The minority owners had/have no use for Cherington. Didn't even want to hear what he had to say in their own sessions. Couldn't stand how he talked. Couldn't stand how he came across as condescending. Couldn't stand how he'd never admit any fault in all the failure happening under his watch. This blew my mind.
• Heard from one of those minority owners just this week. Didn't speak on the record, but I'm comfortable sharing that this individual further blew my mind.
• Dating back to my trip to cover the Pirates' series in Seattle, I heard things from players and even the coaching staff that laid out, in painfully specific terms, how and why Cherington was holding back progress at the big-league level. The one that stands out was enforcing a hitting approach that flat-out didn't apply to the hitters on the Pittsburgh roster. In other words, when he was in Boston, the Red Sox were loaded with natural patience and power at the plate, and they punished opponents that way. The Pirates, as no one needs me to remind, have neither trait, and they were catastrophic in every way. So the players and staff were for-real just working around whatever came from Cherington and his analytics army. And they had zero problem telling me this. Open defiance.
I don't know how much Nutting knew about that last one, though I did report it from out there, but I know he knew about the rest. Just as I know that he thought about firing Cherington when he fired Shelton. Just as I know that he'd weighed at the time that, if he fired Cherington, any new GM would want to do a rebuild to some degree in an attempt to build up the hitting. And Nutting isn't interested in a rebuild with Paul Skenes here.
That's what I've got. As far as I can go with what I've got, anyway.
Anyone who'd heard all that criticism I'd heard over the summer wouldn't just have called Cherington a dead man walking. They'd have done so in bold face and all caps.
Why wasn't it enough for Nutting?
Man, I'm tired after nearly 20 years of trying to explain why the Pirates do dumb things ... of trying yet again to explain why the Pirates do dumb things.
This one isn't just dumb. It's derelict. It flies in the face of not only what the public wants, not only what the season-ticket holders want while cancelling plans en masse, not only what the players and even the coaching staff want ... but also what the man at the very top made excruciatingly clear that he himself wants.
Know what else would be dumb?
Continuing to invest in this trash. And I don't mean just me. I mean anyone.
Whatever it was that prevented Nutting from firing a guy he legit would love to fire ... I don't even want to know. I don't care. Because whatever it was, it couldn't have had anything to do with sports. Or, within that, winning. Or anything else related to responsible stewardship of a franchise.
There are two teams in town that, while imperfect, are all about sports, all about winning. Sure, the Steelers and Penguins operate within salary cap systems, and maybe Major League Baseball will finally install one of those, as well. But that doesn't alter that the Pirates' motives in behaving as they do betray who they are at the core. Who they really are.
THE ASYLUM
Friday Insider: How they really feel about Cherington
I must've described Ben Cherington as a dead man walking a dozen times this summer.
Not because I'd ever been told he'd be fired. That didn't happen once. Not from anybody from any level at any time. And not on May 9, the day Bob Nutting invited me over to PNC Park to talk after he'd just fired Derek Shelton.
But we did talk. And I'd have other talks with those above and below and around Cherington. And the setting was such that it'd become inconceivable in my eyes that, with what the Pirates' own people -- all the way to the top -- thought of Cherington's performance to that point ... there was no way he'd be back. Just no way.
And if there was, because of Nutting's own insistence that day that "we have to fix this in 2025," it'd be that the 2025 team would somehow surge into something. Which, of course, never came close to occurring on the way to a 71-91 finish.
OK, we square on that much?
Good. Because, being blunt here, I'm sick of hearing or reading suggestions that I was misled by sources in this event. If anything, those sources were being excessively open with me -- again, all the way to the top -- in sharing what they felt were issues with the GM.
What did they say?
In no particular order, and limiting these to people of actual authority:
• Cherington's early trades of veteran players for prospects were terrible. Now, that's not exactly an opinion. They were, in fact, terrible. But to hear that acknowledged is decidedly different.
• Cherington's drafts lacked depth. The obvious hits were recognized -- Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler and Konnor Griffin, in particular -- but the misses plainly were what defined this assessment. And not even a glaring miss-to-date in Henry Davis at No. 1 overall, but more so the lack of substance in later rounds.
• The minority owners had/have no use for Cherington. Didn't even want to hear what he had to say in their own sessions. Couldn't stand how he talked. Couldn't stand how he came across as condescending. Couldn't stand how he'd never admit any fault in all the failure happening under his watch. This blew my mind.
• Heard from one of those minority owners just this week. Didn't speak on the record, but I'm comfortable sharing that this individual further blew my mind.
• Dating back to my trip to cover the Pirates' series in Seattle, I heard things from players and even the coaching staff that laid out, in painfully specific terms, how and why Cherington was holding back progress at the big-league level. The one that stands out was enforcing a hitting approach that flat-out didn't apply to the hitters on the Pittsburgh roster. In other words, when he was in Boston, the Red Sox were loaded with natural patience and power at the plate, and they punished opponents that way. The Pirates, as no one needs me to remind, have neither trait, and they were catastrophic in every way. So the players and staff were for-real just working around whatever came from Cherington and his analytics army. And they had zero problem telling me this. Open defiance.
I don't know how much Nutting knew about that last one, though I did report it from out there, but I know he knew about the rest. Just as I know that he thought about firing Cherington when he fired Shelton. Just as I know that he'd weighed at the time that, if he fired Cherington, any new GM would want to do a rebuild to some degree in an attempt to build up the hitting. And Nutting isn't interested in a rebuild with Paul Skenes here.
That's what I've got. As far as I can go with what I've got, anyway.
Anyone who'd heard all that criticism I'd heard over the summer wouldn't just have called Cherington a dead man walking. They'd have done so in bold face and all caps.
Why wasn't it enough for Nutting?
Man, I'm tired after nearly 20 years of trying to explain why the Pirates do dumb things ... of trying yet again to explain why the Pirates do dumb things.
This one isn't just dumb. It's derelict. It flies in the face of not only what the public wants, not only what the season-ticket holders want while cancelling plans en masse, not only what the players and even the coaching staff want ... but also what the man at the very top made excruciatingly clear that he himself wants.
Know what else would be dumb?
Continuing to invest in this trash. And I don't mean just me. I mean anyone.
Whatever it was that prevented Nutting from firing a guy he legit would love to fire ... I don't even want to know. I don't care. Because whatever it was, it couldn't have had anything to do with sports. Or, within that, winning. Or anything else related to responsible stewardship of a franchise.
There are two teams in town that, while imperfect, are all about sports, all about winning. Sure, the Steelers and Penguins operate within salary cap systems, and maybe Major League Baseball will finally install one of those, as well. But that doesn't alter that the Pirates' motives in behaving as they do betray who they are at the core. Who they really are.
Yet again, all the way to the top.
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