After five years under General Manager Ben Cherington, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league system has taken a step backwards.
When Cherington took over ahead of the 2020 season, Baseball America ranked the Pirates with the 24th overall system in the game. Baseball America’s update this past August, following the draft and trade deadline additions, had the present-day Pirates ranked 27th.
Cherington was brought in as the General Manager after the Pirates were getting little help from their minor league system in Pittsburgh. They had top prospects, but those players didn’t perform until they left the Pirates. That has changed for the better since Cherington has taken over, though the impact has been limited.
This past season, the Pirates were led at the Major League level by rookies Paul Skenes and Jared Jones. Those two joined Mitch Keller’s continued rise to form a rotation trio that could lead the Pirates for years as one of the best groups in the game. And they pitched while being supported at the plate by the first full season from an improving Oneil Cruz.
Cherington inherited Keller and Cruz. The Pirates won a lottery for the chance to draft Skenes. Jones was taken out of high school in the first draft under Cherington, and has been a success in a way that the Pirates haven’t seen in the past.
With these pitchers, the Pirates are also seeing a level of success they haven’t seen in the past.
The Pitching Pipeline is Fixed
If there’s one thing Cherington has done well, that has been fixing the pitching pipeline to Pittsburgh.
This was an organization that excelled at scouting pitching in the draft, especially out of the high school ranks, even before Cherington took over. Jones played into the existing scouting department’s wheelhouse. The following year, the Pirates had the first overall pick and used it to save money on Henry Davis, spreading the money to prep pitchers in the early rounds.
One of those picks was Bubba Chandler, a 2021 prep pitcher who ended up the organization’s Prospect of the Year in 2024. Chandler would have been eligible for the draft this year had he not signed with the Pirates for $3 million in 2021. He likely would have been a 1-1 candidate, as a guy who ended his season looking like he was on the verge of the Majors.
Pittsburgh Pirates 2024 Minor League Season Awards
- 2024 Prospect of the Year: Bubba Chandler
- 2024 Hitting Prospect of the Year: Jhonny Severino
- 2024 Breakout Prospect: Carlson Reed
The selection of Chandler as the Prospect of the Year had competition from fellow pitching prospect Thomas Harrington. The Pirates drafted Harrington out of college in the late first round in 2022, and he’s quickly moved to being on the verge of the Majors. The Pirates also had a pitcher as their breakout prospect, with 2023 fourth round college pick Carlson Reed standing out in A-ball this season.
Pirates fans can now dream about a rotation of Skenes, Keller, and Jones, with Chandler and Harrington leading the pitching-heavy top 50 prospects who could round out the group.
For years, the Pirates have had pitchers emerging in similar fashion, only to struggle in the Majors in Pittsburgh. There are two things which I believe have helped to clear the pipeline.
First, the Pirates made two player-friendly moves with Jones and Skenes. Jones was lights out in Spring Training, and the Pirates gave him an Opening Day rotation spot to validate his success. The move they’ve done so many times in the past would be to send Jones down to the minors to at least gain an extra year of control.
Skenes was sent down for a few weeks, but he was called up well before the Super Two deadline. What this meant at the time was that the Pirates were committing to the likely chance of an extra year of arbitration for Skenes, who had an ERA below 1.00 in Triple-A. They also called up Skenes early enough to give him a chance in the Rookie of the Year race. His 1.96 ERA in 133 innings at the Major League level looks deserving for the award, and he’s almost certainly going to be a top two finisher. This will give him a full year of service in 2024, would make him arbitration eligible regardless in 2027, and will also make him a free agent a year earlier.
The Pirates had two of the game’s top pitching prospects and they didn’t hold them back, outside of some caution with the workload from Skenes. They didn’t manipulate the call-ups in order to gain extra years of control and they didn’t delay to avoid higher salaries in 2027. Skenes pitched well enough to remove any contractual benefits the Pirates could have received this year in the time they kept him down.
I view this as a positive that the Pirates sent Skenes and Jones to the Majors together so quickly. I think it had a positive effect on Keller, at the very least. By the end of the year, it was clear that the Pirates were building around those three starters. The performance of the trio makes it clear why the Pirates are building around the group.
In the past, the Pirates sent an inherent message that money and control took priority in every situation, with the priority going toward saving the organization money and giving them the longest amount of control over the players’ lives. With Jones and Skenes, the Pirates created some goodwill in giving back those forms of power to their young pitchers — in the same year they gave Keller a fair market extension. I think this trio will be a case study on how spending extra money can lead to additional positive results.
The second thing the Pirates did to fix their pitching was implement an individualized development plan under minor league director John Baker. I believe this helped the pitching development the most.
Before Cherington and Baker arrived, the Pirates development system would take the same tactics with every single pitcher. The approach would be to avoid strikeouts and pitch to contact with a focus on innings and efficiency. The teachings would often include gravitating toward a two-seam fastball. And the coaching advice was limited to the coaches in the organization. Players found it difficult to do things their own way.
Under the system that Baker has, pitchers are free to go anywhere for help. The improvements from Keller, for example, came from his work with Tread Athletics. I’ve heard a lot of stories in the system of players learning pitches and grips from other players. This isn’t new for players to learn from players, but the frequency has increased from the past. Most importantly, pitchers are free to work with whatever arsenal they wish, rather than having pitches systemically added and removed.
The old system tried to turn pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow into ground ball pitchers, while avoiding their elite strikeout abilities. The new system isn’t holding back guys like Skenes, Jones, Chandler, Harrington, or any other prospect in the system from pitching their own way, or from moving up when they are performing well.
Cole and Glasnow came up in a system where pitchers were systemically stripped of power.
They were discouraged from being elite strikeout performers. Every single penny that could funnel to the players was pinched by the Pirates. Every promotion was made with the goal of controlling over a decade of a players’ life. Every player under Cole and Glasnow were stripped of their autonomy and cloned into some mythical ideal small market pitcher, no matter how talented they were. The Pirates wanted players to be in their organization for the longest amount of time and for the lowest amount of money, and they forced players to perform in a manner where they’d never get paid as long as they were with the Pirates.
All of that seems to be changing, and it’s easy to see why the starting pitching is the most promising thing in Pittsburgh. Of course, the real bill comes due in 2027 and beyond on Keller, Jones, and Skenes. Let’s not throw a parade for future financial promises just yet.
The Hitting Development is Broken
The problem the Pirates have seen under Cherington has been a lack of hitting acquisition and development. That’s a chicken-and-the-egg problem. Is this due to acquisition or development?
The Pirates maintained the same amateur scouting departments after Cherington took over. They only replaced the draft scouting director ahead of this season, after four top ten picks and two first overall picks. They just recently replaced the international scouting director. Cherington did very little across his first four years to change the approach the Pirates had with bringing amateur talent into the organization.
As noted above, Cherington retained a scouting department that had shown success with identifying pitching. The development changes under Baker have helped give pitchers more power and autonomy over their careers, which I believe is leading to more success in Pittsburgh from the pitchers.
I think the hitting issue has been a problem of talent identification.
Cherington arrived and maintained a scouting department that used first round picks on Cole Tucker, Kevin Newman, Will Craig, and Travis Swaggerty, to name a few hitters taken in the last decade. The same scouting department took hitters with three of the four rebuilding drafts under Cherington, before a change was made last December by replacing scouting director Joe DelliCarri. The Pirates followed with another hitting-heavy draft, largely with the same scouts receiving different leadership.
Perhaps the new leadership will help to filter out the best hitters that the scouts identified. Maybe they’ll go for different types of players and personalities.
It’s possible that the Pirates couldn’t develop hitters, and none of those former first rounders had a chance, regardless of the personalities. Nothing from their 2024 results at any level indicates they have fixed the hitting development.
Throughout the system, the pitching stood out, while the hitting disappointed. The Pirates ended up trading excess pitching for upper-level hitting prospects at the deadline. The trade returns of Nick Yorke and Billy Cook instantly provided the best hitting prospects in the upper levels. This was after five years of not only drafting hitters with high picks, but trading anyone of value at the Major League level for anyone of potential long-term value in the minors. The hitter of the year was Jhonny Severino, who stood out with ten homers in rookie ball. Outside of Yorke/Cook and Severino — who were all outside additions in the last 15 months — the Pirates had very little positive development from their hitters.
Pittsburgh Pirates 2024 Minor League Season Recaps
- Triple-A: Indianapolis – From Paul Skenes to Bubba Chandler
- Double-A: Altoona – An Elite Trio of Pitchers and Then Disappointment
- High-A: Greensboro – Termarr Johnson and The Next Wave of Pitching
- Single-A: Bradenton – Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect Depth
- Rookie: FCL Pirates – Zander Mueth and Jhonny Severino Led a Near-Championship
- Rookie: DSL Pirates – The Top International Prospects in Rookie Ball
While Baker has implemented an individualized program that has benefitted pitchers, the hitting development seems like it has gotten systemic, similar to the two-seam push for pitchers in the past. Too many hitters in this system are turning into three-outcomes versions of themselves, selling out for power, even if they were originally scouted as pure hitters with limited power. There was also the case of Nick Gonzales.
Gonzales is the literal test subject for Cherington’s hitting system. He was the first player drafted under Cherington. He was developed under Baker’s system. By the end of his 2023 season and debut in the Majors, the Pirates pointed out how his swing had changed to a detrimental degree from when he was in college. These changes happened in the Pirates’ development system.
The changes that led to Gonzales having a better 2024 season came from him building a hitting facility in his backyard and figuring out a new swing and approach that would work for him.
It’s not a great sign when your first draft pick finds success by going solo with his development to undo all the damage done in your development system.
The hitting approach might be changing. The Pirates made a change at the top when they fired hitting coach Andy Haines. The question is whether they’ll hire a different version of Haines, or go a different direction with the organization’s hitting.
Positive change on the hitting side could be the key to unlocking the entire minor league development system.
New vs Old School Coaching
One downside to the changes under Cherington is that the coaches have shifted from old school to new school coaching in an extreme way that has lost the old school feel for the game.
The Pirates have become an organization that can tell hitters how to maximize their game against any pitcher, without being able to teach their hitters how to maximize their game against any pitcher. It’s telling someone what to do versus showing them how they can do it.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed with this change in coaching is that the Pirates are largely outsourcing a lot of their teaching development. Players who go to outside training camps gain a crucial advantage over the players who limit themselves to the facilities and coaches the Pirates have. Like Keller with Tread Athletics, a lot of the best hitting stories have come from players turning outside the system for advice on their individual approach at the plate.
Over the last decade, there has been a shift in development with these outside facilities. Think of the back and forth like a chess game, with each side constantly adjusting their opening moves and strategies.
- The Pirates were actually at the forefront of this shift when they were employing defensive shifts and heavy sinkerball usage to induce more grounders.
- Hitters around the league started going to outside facilities to learn a new “launch angle” approach, allowing them to counter the 60% sinkerball usage.
- Pitchers began adjusting their mechanics to make all of their pitches appear the same until the last split-second. Increased breaking pitch usage led to more swing and miss from the launch angle swings. The sinker remained, but was reduced in usage, typically in favor of a frequently used slider.
- Hitters have since gone to more of a three-outcomes approach in a reactive response. I don’t believe hitters have come up with a proactive response, similar to the launch angle move. Thus, pitchers remain ahead of hitters, with the league hitting stats declining in recent years.
The Pirates have an opportunity.
Under Haines, the Pirates were just reacting to the most recent adjustments by pitchers. It is my belief that pitchers have pulled ahead in the current game, and will be ahead for some time. The league needs a new opening move on the hitting side.
The opportunity presented to the Pirates is that they can create this new opening move. To do this, they would need to find a better blend of new school and old school coaching on the hitting side. They need more preference given to old school adjustments of individualized mechanics and approach, rather than new school adjustments of pitch selection and a misunderstanding of real power.
Whether the Pirates can capitalize on the opportunity is another thing. They haven’t displayed a knowledge of knowing how to hit at the Major League level. Cherington also doesn’t seem urgent to make mass changes to the approach, instead focusing more on messaging.
The result is that the Pirates have the 27th best farm system in the game out of 30 teams, largely due to their systemic lack of hitting development.
