GM Ben Cherington says Pirates will 'keep door cracked' on reunion with Chris Archer

Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said the club wasn’t willing to commit to Chris Archer’s $11 million salary for 2021, given the right-handed pitcher missed last season following surgery.

The Pirates declined Archer’s option over the weekend by paying a $250,000 buyout, thereby making him a free agent, but Cherington didn’t completely rule out the possibility of a reunion.

“I mean, I think our relationship with Chris is in a good enough spot where we can keep that door cracked. Certainly, he’ll want to listen and see what’s out there,” Cherington said Monday morning on a conference call with reporters. “We can all kind of speculate as to how free agency is going to evolve this offseason. The truth is, I don’t know how it’s going to evolve. We’ll have to learn. It feels like that teams and players are probably going to need some time to figure out how everyone is reacting. Not sure how quickly that’s going to move, but we’ll keep the door open certainly for not just Chris but others, too.”

By playing the 2020 season without fans in attendance, MLB teams lost millions of dollars in revenue. That has flooded the free agent market, as many teams are shedding salaries by declining options on players. Cherington said the Pirates are taking a wait-and-see approach to free agency, and he expects players to do the same.

Archer was 6-12 with a 4.92 ERA in 33 starts over two seasons with the Pirates after being acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in a 2018 trade-deadline deal in exchange for outfielder Austin Meadows and pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz.

While Archer missed the 2020 season after undergoing surgery for neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome, Glasnow and Meadows helped lead the Rays to the World Series. Cherington said Archer’s recovery also played a role in the Pirates’ decision to let him go.

“It’s just as simple as, given right now and a lot to learn still in the offseason about where the market goes and where Chris is right right now in his recovery, we just didn’t feel we could commit to that level of salary at this point in the calendar for 2021,” Cherington said. “Talking to Chris, I think he’s working hard and doing well. Coming to get to know Chris a little bit through the year, I really like him as a person. He’s talented, still young. He’s going to recover. I believe he’ll pitch in the big leagues — I certainly hope he pitches well in the big leagues going forward — but we weren’t comfortable committing at that level this early in the offseason.”