Grading Ben Cherington and the Pittsburgh Pirates front office at the season’s midway point

This must have been a challenging first half of the season for Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington.

His team opened play with low expectations and immediately burst into first place in the NL Central. Then May brought a collapse back to reality, and Pittsburgh hit the 81-game mark at 39-42.

That probably beats preseason hopes, but it does leave the Pirates 4.5 games out of first.

Through the ups and downs, Cherington has kept a fairly even keel, avoiding the instinct to make a lot of personnel moves in the hope that one of them might reinvigorate his still-contending team.

But the question of the moment isn’t how much Cherington has done, but how effective, if at all, it’s been.

Grading the Pittsburgh Pirates at the midway point of the 2023 season

What follows is a mid-term assessment of Cherington’s personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the team’s performance.

The standard of measurement is Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Cherington impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how Cherington stacks up by those five yardsticks.

Acquired or traded

The Pirates were relatively active players in the trade market over the course of the offseason. Cherington acquired seven players by trade, purchase or waiver claim who have seen time with the major league roster this season, and he did so at a loss of five members of the 2022 team.

The problem is that as a group those dozen personnel moves have not been especially helpful to the Pirates’ cause.

The Pirates got outfielder Connor Joe on the cheap from Colorado (he cost only a minor leaguer) and for a time it looked like a genius move. Through 20 games Joe was hitting in the .370s, and was a major reason why the Pirates held first place in the division as late as May 10.

But as the Pirates’ record receded, Joe’s offense dried up. He finishes the first half at just .237 and looking like the Rockies knew all along what they were doing in dumping him for a prospect. His WAA now sits at -0.8.

When Oneil Cruz suffered his season-ending injury, Mark Mathias became the default middle infield option. Picked up from Texas in March for a minor leaguer, Mathias never showed enough offense to hold down a regular spot, batting .231 and losing his job to Ji Hwan Bae and Tucupita Marcano. With a -0.4 WAA, he was designated for assignment last week.

Two of the departures have been noteworthy. Infielder Kevin Newman was traded to Cincinnati in November for Dauri Moreta. While Moreta has been a moderately useful addition to Pittsburgh’s staff, Newman has been a drag on the Reds’ youth movement. Pitcher Bryse Wilson was sold to Milwaukee in January, and Wilson has been a useful addition to the Brewers’ bullpen.

Farm system

The farm system has to be any growing team’s wellspring. In Cherington’s case, that has meant the development of such set pieces as third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, pitcher Mitch Keller, and most recently shortstop Oneil Cruz.

The leg injury that prematurely curtailed the season and development for Cruz forced the Pirates to scramble their mid-infield plans. It has also multiplied the importance placed on the growth of another system product, second baseman Ji Hwan Bae.

The question is whether the 23-year old Bae is up to the challenge of learning on the job. He’s batting .238 with a .609 OPS, which even for a young middle infielder isn’t very good. He’s also taking his bat to the field, producing a -7 Defensive Runs Saved score. It all adds up to a -1.2 WAA.

The new hope is that recent promotion Henry Davis may be the answer. An outfielder and former top draft pick, Davis debuted in mid-June and has had a fast first two weeks: a .311 average, an .802 OPS and a +0.2 WAA. All he has to do now is keep it up for the next three months.

As a group, though, the eight rookies Cherington has used in 2023 have not produced well. Their collective WAA is -1.8, and while Bae is responsible for the bulk of it five of Cherington’s eight callups have hurt rather than helped the team.

Overall

That the Pirates remain in contention in the NL Central is both a comment on the division’s weakness and also a tribute to the team’s core. It has little, unfortunately for Cherington, to do with the personnel changes he’s made.

Here’s the first-half report card on the Pirates front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA               Grade

Acquired              -1.3                       D

Traded                  -0.1                       C

Signed                  -1.1                       D

FA Lost                 -0.4                       C

Rookies                -1.8                       D

Overall                 -3.7                       F

The problem with Cherington’s first-half report card is the utter absence of any area of strength to it. By none of the five means through which a general manager can help his team has Cherington actually done so.

In no case are the negatives substantial. But they add up to an unacceptable drain of talent, especially for a team that’s supposed to be on the rise as the Pirates are supposed to be.

And make no mistake, this team should be on the rise. Cherington has amassed what appears a mass of young talent in Ke’Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Henry Davis, Jack Suwinski, Mitch Keller and David Bednar. The return of Andrew McCutchen and the extension given to Bryan Reynolds should be upgrades.

That it hasn’t really worked out to date is partly the fault of the players themselves, but Cherington has not yet found the inspirational move that can spur a team from on top of the organizational chart. Perhaps the Davis promotion will be that. If it is, Cherington’s end-of-season grade may improve.