Pirates GM Ben Cherington on trading Jacob Stallings: 'It's not supposed to be easy'

When the Miami Marlins approached the Pittsburgh Pirates about dealing for Jacob Stallings at the trade deadline, Ben Cherington resisted the temptation to part with the eventual NL Gold Glove catcher.

That the Marlins remained “continuously persistent” after the season made the Pirates general manager reflect and reconsider his position, even though Cherington expected Stallings to remain with the club.

“We were approached to the point where we started to look at, could we maintain strength at the position and gain young talent at the same time?” Cherington said Wednesday afternoon on a video conference call with reporters. “We worked through that sort of on parallel fronts and ultimately felt like, if we could do both, then it fit with what we’re trying to do as an organization.

“That just made sense for us, even if it was hard. In this case, you know, it was hard because we respect Stalls. But, as we talked about before, we’ve got to be disciplined about adding players and adding talent however we can and as much as we can. We care about having strength behind the plate as we grow this team and help our own pitchers grow. I feel like we’re able to accomplish both with this trade even if, even if it was hard to do. It’s not supposed to be easy.”

Cherington is aware of the backlash from fans who have watched the Pirates trade All-Stars in Starling Marte, Josh Bell and Adam Frazier, Opening Day starters in Joe Musgrove and Jameson Taillon, closer Richard Rodriguez and now a Gold Glove winner in Stallings.

With the team continuing to operate in teardown mode, Cherington was asked whether All-Star center fielder Bryan Reynolds — a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger finalist — is safe or the next to go.

“We’re really lucky to have Bryan Reynolds,” Cherington said. “First and foremost, what we’re working towards every day — and all of energy is going towards — is to try to win as quickly as possible. Obviously, we need good players to win. We need lots of good players. When we make trades, it’s simply because we see an opportunity to get more players, potentially more good players. But if we already have players that are performing at that level and have a chance to be here when we believe we can win, we’re going to be pretty motivated to hold onto those guys. …

“What I would tell our fans first and foremost is we’re spending every ounce of energy that we can to get to winning as fast as we possibly can. It’s certainly going to be a lot easier to do that with Bryan Reynolds on the team.”

Trading Stallings for right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson and two prospects, righty Kyle Nicolas and center fielder Connor Scott, was the most challenging of many moves Cherington made this week.

The Pirates nontendered first baseman Colin Moran and pitchers Steven Brault and Chad Kuhl, parting ways with three starters. They avoided arbitration with shortstop Kevin Newman and outfielder Ben Gamel by signing both to below-projection contracts. And they added free agents in left-hander Jose Quintana, first baseman Yoshi Tsutsugo and catcher Roberto Perez to one-year deals.

Cherington was excited about signing Perez, a two-time Gold Glove winner with Cleveland who turns 33 on Dec. 23, to a one-year contract worth $5 million. Perez is a career .206 hitter but hit 23 home runs and had 63 RBIs in 2019, his first season as a starter, and has a plus-76 defensive runs saved in his eight-year career.

“He’s an excellent defender,” Cherington said. “He’s coming from an organization that has done a great job and one that we admire, in terms of its pitching development and pitching infrastructure. … He’s known as fierce competitor, passionate. He comes from a long line of great Puerto Rican catchers, so continue that tradition. There’s pop in the bat.”

As for the return on Stallings, Cherington envisions Thompson and Nicolas as potential starters. Cherington called Thompson “an interesting case” who has a chance to figure into the starting rotation, a late bloomer with a “really good cutter” and multiple secondary pitches who throws strikes and generates weak contact.

Cherington described Nicolas a “big, physical right-hander with a really good fastball (and) slider” who is working on his command and developing a third pitch. Cherington sees Scott, a 2018 first-round pick, as an athletic outfielder with pop who is starting to figure things out.

“We’re excited about getting to work with him, frankly, and getting him in our hitting program,” Cherington said. “We hope there’s some untapped potential.”

Signing Newman to a one-year deal worth $1.95 million raised some eyebrows because he batted .226 with a .574 OPS last season. A year after demanding Newman improve his defense only to see him become a Gold Glove finalist at shortstop, Cherington is optimistic he will attack his approach at the plate with similar tenacity.

“One of the things we admire about Kevin is that when he has a challenge in front of him and he’s given a challenge, he works his tail off and gets after it,” Cherington said. “He’s almost narrowly focused on accomplishing a task. He was challenged last winter on his defense and, sure enough, he improved it. I know from talking to him a lot during the season and after the season he feels challenged about his offense and he’s committed to finding a way to improve, so we trust him to do that work. We’ll see how that plays out. We look forward to seeing what he does with that challenge.”

Cherington also confirmed Newman is staying put at shortstop going into spring training despite playing some second base late last season to give the team a look at other players at the position.

Tsutsugo will be the target at first base as the Pirates parted ways with Moran and signed the Japanese slugger to a one-year, $4 million contract. Cherington said the decision was based on both Tsutsugo’s ability to make good swing decisions and hit with impact — he had eight doubles, eight home runs and 25 RBIs in 43 games with the Pirates — but also because they didn’t want to go through arbitration with Moran.

Cherington didn’t rule out a return for Moran.

“I told him on the phone that, we believe he’s a good major-league baseball player and better than he showed last year and (we) would want to keep the door cracked and see what happens later in the offseason,” Cherington said. “I’m sure he’ll have other opportunities, too.”

Cherington also left open the possibility Brault could return, though the Pirates found his injury history “frustrating.” Kuhl, who started on Opening Day but finished the season in the bullpen, made it clear he wanted to remain in the rotation.

“We just felt like at this particular time it was best for him and all of us to give him a chance to get into free agency,” Cherington said, “and see what happens for him there.”

Cherington said he and manager Derek Shelton told every pitcher in a starting role to prepare to enter spring training ready to “fight and win a job.” Cherington would like to add another starter to the rotation, whether through trade or free agency but already is factoring Quintana and Thompson into the competition.

“We also feel like, while we don’t have guys with a lot of proven track records — certainly, a lot of guys we have are still figuring themselves out at the major-league level — what we do have, we think, is a lot of them,” Cherington said. “There was nobody that we assumed is in our rotation, but there are a lot of guys who have a chance to be.”