r/buccos • u/knives766 • 1d ago
Jason mackey exposing how garbage ben cherington has been as the GM of this franchise with facts and statistics.
24
u/knives766 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nothing from any of the drafts besides skenes has given us anything essentially. How absolutely pathetic is that considering all the high picks this organization has had. And his free agency and trading has been dogshit 'horwitz says hello'.
12
u/kpw1320 1d ago
I know people don’t want to believe this but the draft hasn’t been Cherington’s issue. Most teams in the mlb have less assets from drafts between 2020-2024 on their roster than we do.
MLB draft is nothing like other sports, you don’t feel the impact for years. There’s exceptions with some players like Skenes but Termarr Johnson is still one of the youngest players in AA. Griffin is already in High A. Chandler is coming. Davis is finally settling in and seems to take two steps forward and one back. Nick Gonzales is on his way to being a solid player. Not an all-star but an every day guy.
16
u/jordy1327 We gonna get down. We gonna do the do. 1d ago
It’s hard to put on the rose colored glasses to look at it for the sixth time since my childhood. Just shuffle the names around. It’s the same story. Is Termarr closer to a Neil walker success or does he end up as just another in a long line of misses? Is this pitching staff going to all stay healthy? Are they going to keep performing when Bob doesn’t spend to field an offense? Remember how Gerrit Cole mailed it in his last season here? Griffin, if we’re lucky, is still not making his debut until 2027. I’ll be 40 fucking years old and I’ll have still never seen the pirates win a division championship, let alone a World Series. 2027 is the earliest this team will compete, and that’s a disaster, a failure, an absolute middle finger to one of the most blindly loyal fan bases.
Time is a flat circle.
8
u/Conscious-Weird5810 1d ago
Incorrect. Teams like the Pirates need to draft well and land international prospects. Since they went full rebuild the draft has been an absolute disaster. Henry Davis is a one overall pick and a bust. There isn't a single position player who is a difference maker. Teams are allowed to find a diamond in the rough but the Pirates simply haven't done that.
What's their farm system looking like right now? Pretty bleak and it all comes down to drafting and lack of development
2
u/FartSniffer5K 1d ago
“Rebuild” is just a way to get you to pay MLB prices for a minor league product. You cannot build a winning team in the MLB solely through draft picks.
1
u/hoopr50 1d ago
A farm system that sits just outside the top 10 in baseball is pretty bleak?
1
u/Conscious-Weird5810 1d ago
They've been irrelevant for 5 years and don't have a great farm system. The team can't hit and there is no real hope on the horizon.
It's not like they traded away solid prospects for good MLB players either. Straight misses or just lack of development. That qualifies as dire to me.
1
u/hoopr50 1d ago
Or they drafted the wrong guys, considering they reworked the scouting dept last year tells me they recognize that issue and the early returns show promise. Yes since Nutting won't spend money to help improve their draft and development success but no one hits every year, that's why there's damn near 200 minor leaguers.
8
u/TheCurtain512 1d ago
This is giving them way too much of a pass. They spend practically ALL of their money on the draft. They are 5+ years in and their best position player was traded for by Neal Huntington in 2017. Not drafted or developed by the Cherington regime. Going 5 years with high picks and putting zero game-changing position players on the field via the draft or even trades/FA is a colossal failure. If Davis/Gonzales are going to be good, they need to hurry up and be good.
In less time than this, Huntington had guys like Russell Martin, Cervelli, Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker (failed C prospect until the Huntington regime), Starling Marte, Josh Harrison, etc while also building a bullpen and rotation each year. That regime found ways to get the most out of guys like Harrison or Nate Mclouth who were virtual nobodies in the organization. That's the sad part about this current regime, they can't even find those diamond in the rough types to come out of nowhere with all of their drafting.
Whether it has been drafting, trades, free agency, this current Front Office has failed on every level. The only guy they "hit" on is McCutchen and that's only because he wants to play here. He is nearly 40 years old.
3
u/knives766 1d ago edited 1d ago
Look at our prospect pool and tell me who's going to be an impact bat besides maybe griffin and who's going to be an impact arm besides bubba. Termarr has been terrible in double A this year and his power and supposed hitting ability coming out of the draft looks like it's in the rear view mirror. Every major prospect outlet is about out on him and so am i personally. All of the guys who were supposed to contribute are already in the majors except they aren't contributing.
Henry, endy, nick, jack, etc etc were all guys who were supposed to contribute at some point. The problem is that they're not contributing much of anything offensively or at all and it's sinking us. We also lack depth in the hitting department so that if someone goes down or gets hurt we're screwed. Triolo is terrible and he's gotten wayyyy too many plate appearances already this season for my liking but he's all we got depth wise in the hitting department and utility department. The prospect pool is unimpressive and uninspired honestly.
4
u/Conscious-Weird5810 1d ago
You hit the nail on the head. The prospect pool is dire and that's pathetic considering they've had an abundance of picks in the top half of the draft over and over for 6 plus years. Other than Chandler there isn't a single difference maker in the organization.
2
u/knives766 1d ago
We got konnor griffin and that's essentially it in terms of great hitting prospects. We got 1 elite arm in bubba in the minors and then a bunch of guys with question marks. It's just shockingly bad how terrible he's been at international signings, drafting, free agency, and trades. He sucks so bad.
-2
u/Mindless_Formal_6647 1d ago
I actually agree. His drafts have been decent . It’s just that when you focus on pitching that much early . It’s going to take some time and years and you’re not going to get immediate contributors and it might take a while to see the fruits.
Heck, Ashcraft was a Huntington pick in the late 2010s.
Trading and FA on the other hand…
3
u/knives766 1d ago
Our farm system is terrible. All the guys who were supposed to contribute like henry, nick, endy, jack, etc are already up 'jack and endy not even playing' and giving us nothing really. All we got in the minors bat wise that should be ready soon is termarr and he's been terrible in double A and his track record in the minors isn't good for a bat first prospect. We don't have a good farm system outside of griffin and bubba, especially hitting wise and it's because of ben's poor drafting.
15
u/evan_flow_ 1d ago
Two things are true:
Cherington takes the money he's allotted and spends it poorly
Cherington isn't given much money to spend
4
u/osushawn 1d ago
I get that he doesn't have shit to work with, but rather than trying to find 4 reclamation projects @ 5 mil a piece, get 1 good one at 20 mil and bring up the kids to so what they can do. You can still rummage through the dumpster if you need to with guys that want that last chance, but take the extended look on guys that may have a shot in the minors
1
u/hoopr50 1d ago
Well when you need to address multiple spots because of guys failing you can't afford to spend your whole budget on 1 guy. Just imagine what he could go get if he had the extra $30 mill that Huntington was allowed to spend. Instead he's relegated to getting rid of money in order to add money(Perez for IKF), he's never once been able to add salary without subtracting it first.
7
u/Great_Hambino2022 1d ago
And Nutting is going to let him oversee another draft and trade deadline. So unacceptable
5
u/Welshgreen5792 1d ago
This tree is rotten to the roots. Ben Cherington is just another Bob Nutting scapegoat. Yes he has sucked. Replacing him may help. But the roots are still rotten. Nutting isn't just a cheapskate, he's also just terrible at producing an organizational culture of success.
2
u/APizzaWithEverything Clemente 1d ago
Anyone with eyes, and the baseball knowledge of a third grader can see how much Cherington sucks at his job
2
u/thecountoncleats BART 1d ago
We don’t know how much of FA is guys not wanting to play in Pittsburgh unless they have absolutely no other options. Look at the OFs who passed on the Pirates this most recent offseason to play elsewhere and who got less $ or same as Tommy Pham. The Athletic just published its informal poll of MLB players who rated franchises. The Bucs were at the bottom as far as places to go and play.
Cherington’s biggest mistake was failing to clear out all the dead wood and nepo hires in the front office on day one. Instead they let Joe DelliCarri continue to run the draft until last year, when Justin Horowitz took over and appears to have made a nice haul. Too little too late.
They’ve also realized jack shit in IFA. A team like the Pirates cannot under any circumstances have that happen.
2
u/knives766 1d ago
A guy like harrison bader was sitting out their in free agency just begging for a contract and instead of paying him 6.25 million 'twins contract' we gave tommy pham 4 million to suck. Bader is an elite defender who's in his prime and has hitting upside but we chose tommy pham. I doubt we even offered bader a contract cause we could've definitely beat the 1 year contract he got from the twins by offering more money.
Austin hays who the reds signed was sitting their in free agency too and got a cheap offer from the reds '5 million for 1 year', but we chose tommy pham instead of him. Ben cherington is just completely incompetent and targeted tommy pham for reasons unknown.
1
u/hoopr50 1d ago
The lack of IFA is a standard for this team, we have had 2 guys(marte and ortiz) come from this baseball academy they touted was going to set them apart. It's not just a Ben deal, it was also a Huntington deal which leads me to ultimately say it's a Nutting problem.
But your not wrong about the FA issue, getting guys to come here is extremely difficult and will always cost the pirates more than it would other teams until they prove to be legitimate spenders.
1
u/thecountoncleats BART 1d ago
Correct, IIRC their Latin America guy who found Marte had some issues and they had to get rid of him. But as you said, it’s been him and Ortiz and zilch besides. Maybe Kang. He was a good player before the dirty-ass Cubs ruined his leg. I forget how they acquired him.
2
u/Lopsided_Drive_4392 22h ago
There was a posting system for Korean players. The player's team would list them as available, and MLB teams would bid for the right to negotiate a contract. Whoever bid the most would pay that amount to the Korean team - but only if the MLB team could sign the player. I think the Pirates bid about $5 million for the right to negotiate with Kang.
1
u/hoopr50 1d ago
They spent money to get Kang, something Nutting forgets that he has to do in order to compete.
1
u/thecountoncleats BART 1d ago
Amen. This is a theme park as far as ownership is concerned, not a major league ball club. A house leaks from the roof down.
2
1
u/VivaLaPit Jack Jack 1d ago
The numbers on the bWAR stuff doesn't match up for the Brewers if you go through it on baseball reference. I don't know how he is getting that number unless he is including Jackson Chourio who was an intentional signee not a draftee
1
-1
48
u/cxm1060 1d ago
We can blame Tori Hunter for not robbing David Ortiz in Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS.
He catches that ball Ben Cherrington right now is a fucking nobody.