Pirates make no trades at deadline, but GM Ben Cherington 'working to build a winning team'

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t make any deals by Monday’s trade deadline, despite general manager Ben Cherington saying no one was deemed untouchable and reports he was actively listening to offers.

With the worst record (10-21) and lowest winning percentage (.323) in baseball, the Pirates were expected to be sellers. While Cherington said the Pirates “had a lot of conversation” about trades and thought they “might be getting close at a couple things at a couple points in time,” he ultimately didn’t meet the threshold set for parting with players.

And he remained steadfast in his refusal to call this a rebuild.

“I’ve used the word ‘build.’ I’ll continue to use it. It’s actually the word I believe is accurate, because that’s what we’re working to do,” Cherington said. “We’re working to build a winning team. We believe some of the pieces of that are here. We know there’s a lot we have to do to get better. Certainly that includes the performance of our major league team. It includes individual players getting better. It includes me. It includes all of baseball operations and every activity we have. We just have to keep getting better to build that winning team.”

On Friday, the Pirates dealt center fielder Jarrod Dyson to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for $243,300 in international signing bonus pool. Dyson, 36, was signed to a one-year, $2-million contract as a free agent in February but batted only .157 in 21 games for the Pirates.

Cherington repeated the catchphrases of evaluation, development and deployment that he has used since being hired in November to replace Neal Huntington, but also discussed acquisition and didn’t rule out making moves in the offseason.

“Acquisition can happen at lots of different times of the year, and I think the key is to really focus and pursue on the ones where there’s a clear return that’s helping the Pirates,” Cherington said. “If that doesn’t exist, then we’ve got to be disciplined enough to be patient and wait until it does.

“For maybe a variety of reasons, we just didn’t find opportunities this July that we felt really moved the Pirates forward. There’ll be lots more opportunities to do that, and we’d much rather hold than make trades that we’re not confident in that later come back and bite us. We know that acquisition will be important. That’ll happen in different kinds of ways over time. This won’t be the last chance.”

It didn’t help that the trade value was low on the Pirates’ top players, as closer Keone Kela is on the 10-day injured list with right forearm inflammation, All-Star first baseman Josh Bell is batting .218 with four home runs and 14 RBIs and second baseman Adam Frazier is hitting .207. Four players, including right fielder Gregory Polanco (.120), are batting below the Mendoza line.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweeted there was “some buzz around” Frazier, a Gold Glove finalist last year, because of his career .274/.336/.413 slash line and versatility. Frazier has played second base, shortstop and third base and all three outfield positions for the Pirates.

But Cherington said he wasn’t compelled to make trades just for the sake of shaking up the roster.

“We don’t come into it looking to move any particular player, you know, feeling like we have to do anything,” Cherington said. “We always want to be open and listen and learn and see. Hey, look if there’s opportunities that we think help the Pirates short, medium, long term, those are the ones we need to pursue. Whether a player is performing at or under or over expectations, we’re going to be guided more by, is this making us better or not? If the player’s underperforming, it may impact how other teams feel about it.”

“We try not to let it impact how we feel about that player. We’ve got a lot of players here and some of them, as you said, have not performed to their standard. We expect that a lot of those guys will do that again going forward so we need to be careful about not allowing that to affect our evaluation of them.

“Whether it’s now or this offseason or next July, whenever it is, the focus will be on, how do we get better? If we can cross that threshold to get better, then we’ll pursue it.”

If the trade deadline proved anything — aside from the San Diego Padres showing they are serious about making a playoff push — it’s that Cherington made the right move in dealing his greatest asset, center fielder Starling Marte, in January for a pair of 19-year-old, top-10 prospects and $250,000 in international signing bonus pool.

That is considered a better return than the Arizona Diamondbacks received Monday in sending Marte to the Miami Marlins for left-handed pitcher Caleb Smith, right-hander Humberto Mejia and a top-10 prospect in right-hander Julio Frias, who wasn’t in the 60-player development pool.

“I haven’t really had a chance to look deeply into what the return was,” Cherington said. “Starling is a good player. I didn’t get a chance to know him quite as well as other people here. I know he was really well-liked and thought highly of. We just felt like at the time, this offseason, that it was the right timing. We feel good about that decision, but I wouldn’t be able to compare it to this trade.”

The Pirates are expected to make more roster moves in an effort to evaluate some of their top prospects in September. Corner infielder Colin Moran was activated from the seven-day concussion injured list, and first baseman Will Craig was optioned to Altoona. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, the team’s top positional prospect, is expected to be recalled Tuesday and make his major league debut this week.

And the Pirates are interested in taking a look at relief pitchers Blake Cederlind and Austin Davis and outfielders Jared Oliva and Anthony Alford. They acquired Davis, a lefty, in a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies and claimed Alford off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays.

But their inactivity at the trade deadline was considered a surprise for a team that is building from the bottom.

“You have to make sure that we’re making the right decisions, not only for this year but moving forward,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “I felt if we would have been compelled to do something, we would have made a move.”