Perrotto: What Does ‘Urgent Improvement’ Mean For Pirates? (+)
Once the trade deadline passed last week, Ben Cherington used an interesting term in talking about what he wanted to see from the Pittsburgh Pirates for the remainder of the season.
The general manager said he is looking for “urgent improvement” from a team in danger of finishing in last place in the National League Central for a fourth consecutive season.
Urgent improvement can be interpreted in different ways. That prompts the question of what exactly Cherington means?
Cherington expanded on the comment last Sunday during his weekly radio show on 93.7 The Fan.
“I like the idea that we work with urgency but not in a rush,” Cherington said. “I think that there is a difference between being urgent about getting better and being urgent about making the Pirates better and not being in a rush. When you get into a rush, you can make mistakes.
“Urgency can come in all different forms. Urgency can come in the form of roster construction, and I believe there is an opportunity to do that this year and going into spring training.
“Urgency can also come in the form of coaching and scouting and how we process things,” Cherington continued. “Every day, we have to be urgent about getting better, and I’m confident we’ve done the work. I believe that we can do something to get better in any of the things I mentioned.”
The one thing that can seemingly be taken from Cherington’s comment – at least through my interpretation – is the Pirates aren’t in a rush to win at the major leagues.
Cherington has been very deliberate throughout the rebuilding process, even if he and everyone else in the organization is apparently banned from saying “rebuild.”
Cherington waited through his first season on the job before making many major changes to the roster. Those started coming after the Pirates went 19-41 during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season for the worst record in the major leagues.
The Pirates then went 61-101 last season. This year, they are 45-67 and on pace to finish 65-97.
Cherington’s line about “making the Pirates better and not being in a rush,” is a strong indicator he doesn’t feel his team could mount a surprise postseason push next season. That blunts fans’ hopes that perhaps the Pirates could make the same dramatic turnaround pulled off the Baltimore Orioles this season.
The Orioles are squarely in playoff contention after losing 110 games last year.
Yet the Pirates not trying to put together a contender in 2023 makes sense. The next wave of prospects figures to finish its minor league seasoning at Triple-A Indianapolis next season. It is a group likely to be headlined by right-hander Quinn Priester, catcher Henry Davis, and shortstop Liover Peguero.
Thus, the Pirates’ sense of urgent improvement translating to a respectable big league club seems to be 2024. Baseball sources have told Pittsburgh Baseball Now that majority owner Bob Nutting has been telling people privately that ’24 is the target date for contending.
Thus, manager Derek Shelton will have to endure at least one more rebuilding season.
So, what is Shelton’s definition of urgent improvement?
“For me nightly, I think it’s the teaching points that we get within games and then seeing how we react to them,” Shelton said. “We know there’s going to be things that we do wrong. We have to make sure we minimize the amount of times we do them wrong and then we also have to see the improvement within games whether it’s with approach or making plays or different things like that.”
The losses are harder on Shelton than Cherington because he is in the heat of battle. While Shelton understands the organization’s big picture and seemingly has solid job security, the losses do go on his record.
He is 125-209 in three seasons for a .374 winning percentage.
Yet Shelton is confident all the losing – and learning – will lead to wins in the future.
“I think you always want to speed it up, but how you artificially speed that up, I don’t think anybody’s found the remedy for that or found the process for that,” Shelton said of the Pirates’ current situation. “For us it’s just that we have to continue to get better every day. If we do that, we will expedite the winning.”