Reported in Pittsburgh that Assistant GM Kyle Stark and Farm Director Larry Broadway have been let go. With Coonelly, Huntington, and Hurdle, the group had been together eight years.

Cherington came across really well in Alex Speiers book “Homegrown” about the building of the 2018 Red Sox.

Hopefully, he’ll be given free reign.

Like Huntington/Coonelly before him, he'll doubtless be free to do whatever he wants, as long as it doesn't involve spending money.

Well, that’s disappointing.

Like Huntington/Coonelly before him, he'll doubtless be free to do whatever he wants, as long as it doesn't involve spending money.

Most of the time where the Red Sox went wrong with Cherington as GM were with the big-money deals that Pittsburgh ownership won't allow. It's still unclear how much those deals were Cherington and how much were Lucchino - as the latter was known to make baseball-ops decisions on occasion, in some cases engaging the GM only to tell him to get it done (e.g. every trade involving Josh Beckett).

Cherington's strength as a GM is as the opposite of, say, Dave Dombrowski. Cherington prizes future value. He's not going to trade the farm away to win now. He's likely to trade away a great player on a short-term contract to get good players on long-term contracts. Consequently some of the deals he makes will seem bad in the short run but will pay off in the long run. If you can stomach that - which many fans can't - then he's going to be great.

Reported in Pittsburgh that Assistant GM Kyle Stark and Farm Director Larry Broadway have been let go. With Coonelly, Huntington, and Hurdle, the group had been together eight years.

I remember when Larry Broadway was a prospect. It sounded very weird to have a guy born in 1980 be named "Larry Broadway". 1940, maybe.

Well, that’s disappointing.

What would you prefer?

I remember when Larry Broadway was a prospect. It sounded very weird to have a guy born in 1980 be named "Larry Broadway". 1940, maybe.

Me too. Had to look him up.

1. Never made it to majors. That surprised me a bit, since he was a reasonably high ranked prospect and had some success in AA and AAA. I would have guess he had 50-100 MLB at bats spread out over 3-4 years, but never got the call.

2. Last played pro ball in 2009

3. He's 11 months younger than Albert Pujols. Even going by Pujols' officially listed age.

I suppose it's inevitable that a new GM wants to insert a new team into the FO - but I think the Pirates have really been an under-the-radar drafting/INTL FA/player development org over the prior regime.

Huntington's failure was really that some of the latter day trades for MLB talent backfired... but there are a lot of success stories when it comes to identifying young talent and developing it.

Again - understandable that the new boss wants to bring in his own team, but I'd be poaching the hell out of the scouting/development guys looking for work now...

The Pirates of the last decade remind me (as an NLC guy) of what the Cardinals used to be: They never seemed to get crowned as the org atop the minor league rankings, but you examine the roster and you come up with an awful lot of success stories and a pretty damn good pipeline.

What would you prefer?

A GM candidate who didn't already fail at a job with significantly more resources than he'll be inheriting here? Or at least someone who wasn't just a convenient executive who worked under Mark Shapiro, like every other candidate Korn Ferry settles on in their MLB management searches?

Matt Arnold was also interviewed for the Pirates GM position, and he would've been a fine choice. Someone else cut from similar cloth would've also been A-OK with me.

Last played pro ball in 2009

IIRC, the Huntington-era Pirates signed Broadway as a player specifically with the intention of transitioning him into a front office role.

I suppose it's inevitable that a new GM wants to insert a new team into the FO - but I think the Pirates have really been an under-the-radar drafting/INTL FA/player development org over the prior regime.

Not sure I'm on board with that. The drafts under Greg Smith were straight-up terrible, given the slots they had and the over-slot money they spent. The ones after he got moved into a different role are better, but only sort of middling. The team hasn't produced a significant internal international player since Polanco, who was signed in 2009, and the international scouting director Rene Gayo got fired for lining his own pockets, though there are a few guys in the last couple of classes (Lolo Sanchez, Sherten Apostel, Ji-Hwan Bae, etc.) who show some promise.

It's kind of an open question whether drafting or development (or both) are the cause of the problem, but either way, the team hasn't been getting great results, and that's part of the reason that it's stuck in the position that it is.

I'm wondering about GMs who have done both 'small' and 'large' market helms... Dave Dombrowski and Andy MacPhail are the only ones who come to mind that have done both "big" and "small".

You'd know better than I, Vlad... but I peruse the current roster - and I see Bell, Frazier, Newman, Reynolds (via trade), plus Meadows/Glasnow... Cole... Taillon if he could stay healthy...

Lolo Sanchez, Sherten Apostel, Ji-Hwan Bae

Hey man, you can’t just make up names to prove your point. Or at least choose more believable ones.

I think Cherington is probably a generic stats-savvy GM, which isn't the end of the world.

Hey man, you can’t just make up names to prove your point. Or at least choose more believable ones.

We don't have Sherten anymore, but fortunately his brother Shendrik is still in the system.

We also have one of the true 80-grade names in the minors: Lizardy Dicent.

You'd know better than I, Vlad... but I peruse the current roster - and I see Bell, Frazier, Newman, Reynolds (via trade), plus Meadows/Glasnow... Cole... Taillon if he could stay healthy...

For eleven years' worth of draft picks and international signings. Including a bunch of years where they were picking in the top half of the first round, as well as a bunch when they were going well above slot on bonuses, back when that was still a thing. Bell, for example, got $5M to sign as a second-rounder.

It's not the worst draft record, but neither is it particularly distinguished, given where they were picking and what they were spending. Compare it to Mickey White's draft record during the Bonifay era.

I'm wondering about GMs who have done both 'small' and 'large' market helms... Dave Dombrowski and Andy MacPhail are the only ones who come to mind that have done both "big" and "small".

Duquette and Friedman.

I think Cherington is probably a generic stats-savvy GM, which isn't the end of the world.

Given that the Pirates are always going to be one of the lowest payrolls in the league, a generic stats-savvy GM is probably good for fourth place in the division. They need to roll the dice and try to find someone who can get them an actual edge.

Duquette and Friedman.

Also Sandy Alderson and Omar Minaya.

19 makes a good point about the quality of GMs in action in the NL Central. Epstein has the rep and the record. Girsch certainly has the papers and the Cards did well this season. Stearns has two straight seasons of making a 90ish win team appear. Tough crowd

Given that the Pirates are always going to be one of the lowest payrolls in the league, a generic stats-savvy GM is probably good for fourth place in the division. They need to roll the dice and try to find someone who can get them an actual edge.

If you're the Pirates, you have to go all in on scouting and development, right?

If you're the Pirates, you have to go all in on scouting and development, right?

Scouting and development, but also some kind of unique angle on them to tap an underutilized talent market.

I've had a pipe dream for a while about a team opening an academy in Haiti. There are supposedly a bunch of good Haitian athletes (as you'd expect, since it's the same island as the Dominican Republic, which produces a ton of baseball talent), but they're considered unsignable due to a lack of proper documentation for visa paperwork, as well as institutionalized Dominican prejudice against people of Haitian descent - even the ones living in the DR. But if you could work with the State Department to create some kind of independent birth registry for Haitian children, and then start signing the most athletic of those kids once they came of age 16 years later, you might have an inside angle on a huge untapped player market for at least a couple of years. And it'd be good for the Haitians, too, since functional public records are to everyone's benefit and a few good-paying jobs certainly wouldn't hurt anybody, either.

It doesn't necessarily have to be that specific thing, which is probably flawed in a bunch of ways that I haven't even considered. But they need something on that scale.