Perrotto: Ben Cherington Adeptly Threads The Needle

Ben Cherington was in a tough spot.

The Pittsburgh Pirates general manager’s task was to make his team better for a potential push for a postseason berth. At the same time, Cherington had a limited amount of money to spend. Owner Bob Nutting was not going to sign off on any big expenditures.

So, Cherington did a little of everything leading up to Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline. He added, subtracted, and made trades of equal value.

In the end, despite budget constraints, Cherington made the Pirates better than they were before Tuesday. We’ll learn exactly how much better over the last two months of the season as they enter the final day of July two games out of the third and final National League wild card.

To recap Cherington’s busy two days:

• He traded right-hander Quinn Priester to the Boston Red Sox for infield prospect Nick Yorke.
• He traded left-handed pitching prospect Luis Peralta to the Colorado Rockies left-handed reliever Jalen Beeks.
• He traded minor-league pitcher Nicolas Carreno to the New York Mets for left-handed reliever Josh Walker.
• He traded two prospects – right-hander Jun-Seok Shim and corner infielder Garrett Forrester – to the Miami Marlins for outfielder Bryan De La Cruz.
• He traded infield/outfield prospect Charles McAdoo to the Toronto Blue Jays for infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
• He traded left-hander Martin Perez to the San Diego Padres for left-handed pitching prospect Ronaldys Jimenez.
• He traded pitching prospect Patrick Reilly to the Baltimore Orioles for outfield prospect Billy Cook.
• All in all, an eventful 30-odd hours.

Cherington got low-cost help by trading for Beeks and De La Cruz. Beeks has a $1.68-million salary this season and De La Cruz is making $768,000 as he does not become eligible for salary arbitration until after the season.

Cherington also traded from the Pirates’ organizational pitching depth to add a pair of needed hitters in Yorke and Cook. Though they have been assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis, both could help the Pirates down the stretch as they try to reach the postseason for the first time since 2015.

Kiner-Falefa gives the Pirates a solid veteran option at second base with Nick Gonzales on the injured list. IKF also has a Gold Glove on his resume and is also a strong defender at shortstop and third base

Kiner-Falefa is making $7.5 million this season but Perez’s salary is $8 million. Factor in the money the Blue Jays are paying the Pirates and the Pirates are paying the Padres in the deals and the money is basically a wash.

Cherington being able to find a taker for Perez was important.

The Pirates were concerned they might have had to trade left-handed reliever Aroldis Chapman and his $10.5-million salary to free up money for offensive upgrades. Instead, they kept their strong back end of the bullpen intact with closer David Bednar, Chapman and fellow set-up man Colin Holderman.

That was a neat piece of maneuvering by Cherington. So was making seven trades without giving up any of the organization’s best prospects.

“We always feel like going into a deadline, and this would pertain to the offseason also, that really we need to look at moves in the totality and the portfolio, the total portfolio, because one can impact another and vice versa,” Cherington said. “Ultimately, we’re trying to impact the Pirates through a variety of trades and not one.

“In that sense, I think looking at the combination of moves we made, we feel good that we were able to make address several goals that we had coming into the deadline. Most importantly was to improve our 2024 team, to recognize and honor the incredible hard work and toughness that our player group, our staff is showing and the effort they’re putting in every day.”

Cherington found a way to do it without significantly adding to the budget or mortgaging the future. He threaded the needle quite adeptly.