Changes coming for Pirates, but GM Ben Cherington credits Derek Shelton for 'progress'

Not that Derek Shelton needed a vote of confidence from his general manager after one of the worst seasons in Pittsburgh Pirates history, but Ben Cherington gave his manager one anyway.

That Cherington and Shelton were seated next to each other Wednesday for a final Zoom conference call with reporters was an indication the Pirates (19-41) finishing with the worst record in baseball in a 60-game season played in a pandemic wasn’t going to cost Shelton his job.

Instead, Cherington gave Shelton a ringing endorsement for building a strong working relationship by being “incredibly proactive and interested in feedback” from players and staff to find ways to get better. Along those lines, Cherington believes the Pirates made progress.

“I always try to go back to sitting down in the offseason, creating a vision for what we want this to look like,” Cherington said. “We talk about player-centered. We talk about great coaching. We talk about putting players in the best position to perform and succeed. All of those things are much easier things to say than to actually do and live every day. I’m really encouraged by the progress we made in all of those areas, and ‘Shelty’ was leading that. …

“We stay in that mindset, we’re going to build a really good thing. I’m really encouraged, and it’s been fun. I’ve already learned a lot from him. It’s a very challenging year in the least for different reasons. I think we were able to help each other out and have some fun along the way.”

Changes are coming to the Pirates, however, and they will start with the front office. Cherington said he is reorganizing the player development system, with farm director Larry Broadway to be reassigned within the organization and more moves to possibly follow.

Broadway, 39, oversaw the Pirates’ farm system for nine years, the past three as senior director of minor league operations. MLB.com ranks the Pirates’ farm system No. 16 in baseball. They have three top-100 prospects, in second baseman Nick Gonzales, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and shortstop Oneil Cruz.

“I think there will be some reorganization in player development, an area that we may see some adjustments in terms of leadership,” Cherington said. “Larry and I have talked about that and look forward to working with him. He’s got a ton of talent. We’ve talked about, maybe this is an opportunity to start doing some different things for the Pirates, so we’re in the middle of that conversation, so I would expect there would be some change in the leadership in player development.”

Neither Cherington nor Shelton addressed whether there would be any changes to the coaching staff, where hitting coach Rick Eckstein, third base coach Joey Cora and bullpen coach Justin Meccage were holdovers.

Cherington re-emphasized the four points that have served as the cornerstones of his philosophy — evaluation, acquisition, development and deployment — and reiterated “nothing’s changed in terms of our focus and commitment to building a winning team.” But he said the Pirates haven’t started to address the player part of their offseason planning, and skirted questions about increasing payroll in a pandemic.

“We’re not going to put any limitations on our team and our potential. We believe in our players. We know we have work to do to get better,” Cherington said. “We have to be honest about where we are and also (have) belief and optimism about where we can go and the improvement we can make.

“A lot of that will come through just continued improvement and, in some cases, a return to sort of historic level, a more expected level of performance with some guys. That’ll be a big part of where the improvement opportunity is. We’ll certainly look for opportunities this offseason to get better, to build a deeper and more talented roster.”

Cherington and Shelton addressed a variety of other topics:

• Despite owning the worst record in baseball, Cherington said he hasn’t “gotten any real clarity” on whether the Pirates will get the No. 1 overall pick for the 2020 MLB Draft but remains confident they will.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that it wouldn’t be based on reverse order of record,” Cherington said. “It seems to me as if we used records to determine playoff seeds so it would seem to me that that would make sense, it follows that we use that to determine draft order but we haven’t heard officially on that.”

• Cherington said Cruz’s involvement in an accident that killed three people in the Dominican Republic shouldn’t prevent him from playing next season.

“No reason to believe he wouldn’t be available for spring training, full participant,” Cherington said. “No information that I have that would suggest he wouldn’t be.”

• Shelton said Cole Tucker, a 2014 first-round pick who switched to outfield in July, still is considered an infielder. Shelton added Tucker can play shortstop or second base.

• Cherington said the Pirates have “about 50” players who will be training for the next six weeks at Pirate City in Bradenton, Fla., with the intention of playing games in mid-October.

“To state the obvious, it’s exciting that players are on the field,” Cherington said. “It’s really important for us. We appreciate the support to do that. Not every team’s doing it, and we are and that means a lot. There’s going to be players that have a chance to get better during this six-week program in instructional league.

“It’s also just a great opportunity to connect with guys and make sure we’re in a good spot going into the offseason with some really important young players, that we have a really clear picture of where they are going into the offseason, whether that’s a new draft pick or international player or someone that’s been in the organization. There’s a lot of benefit from it, and we’re grateful to be able to do it.”