Tim Benz: When it comes to help for Pirates' offense, Ben Cherington says little while speaking a lot

Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington made his weekly radio appearance on 93.7 The Fan on Sunday. With the season now halfway finished, he was asked what it would take for his team to make the playoffs.

What followed was an eight-minute, uninterrupted soliloquy that was basically a long-winded way of saying, “Eh, we’ll see.”

The easier answer would’ve simply been to say, “We need more offense.” But that would’ve been too easy and too direct. It also wouldn’t have eaten up very much airtime.

And it would’ve implied that he is definitely going to make a trade to help in that regard.

So, instead, Cherington broke down his answer into three subsections, all pertaining to how the Pirates can improve their meager offensive output, as they currently sit with the National League’s worst batting average (.227), second-worst OPS (.655), third-lowest run total (333) and second-highest strikeout total (789).

1. The current players just need to hit better: “Improvement, certainly. That’s where it starts. The reason why that’s where it all starts is because we have more players that can improve — by far — than the number we can acquire,” Cherington said. “We just think about the math. How do you get better? How does that all add up? The opportunity to get better — for every team, not just for the Pirates, but for every team — is always going to come more through the players you already have than players you might be able to get.”

Cherington said that improvement is especially possible in Pittsburgh because the number of young batters still in their early to mid-20s in the lineup has the potential to improve.

“We are relying on young players, and we’re always going to do that here in Pittsburgh,” Cherington said. “That’s really important. We embrace that. It’s exciting. It’s a part of what we’re going to be as a team.”

2. The coaching staff needs to get as much out of the lineup as possible: “Being very intentional, urgent about the strategies, the coaching strategies, the interventions necessary to help players get better,” Cherington said. “Believe in the power of the total group to get better over the course of the second half of the season. … That’s the way we’re going to think. There’s a way forward. It can be better, and we need to sell out to that because the numbers say that if that group improves, it’s still going to make a bigger impact than any single external acquisition we can make.”

3. Make trades to help: “Building the roster over time. That is especially on me to do that and find opportunities to make this team even stronger. Add to the position player group — just add period — in ways that make us better that give us a little better chance to win,” Cherington continued. “We are also absolutely focused on that. We’re at a period where it makes sense for us to consider turning certain players — prospects, younger players — into players that can help our major league team improve in the short term. We’re on the phone every day with teams.”

However, this whole monologue from Cherington about improving the offense did start with one notable preamble.

“Whatever ways we can improve here the second half of the season if we’re in it at the end and pushing into the postseason, it is most likely because we’re a really good run prevention team, and we can win close, low-scoring games. That’s probably how we’re going to do it,” Cherington said.

Then that’s probably not going to happen. Because 83 games into a 162-game season, the Pirates are 40-43. That’s three games out of the final wild-card slot, with four teams to leapfrog.

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In the other direction, it’s also only 2½ games clear of 13th place in the league.

In other words, the Pirates aren’t quite good enough in the pitching and run-prevention departments to separate themselves from the jumbled mess that is the NL’s soft middle.

The top eight NL teams in OPS all have a better record than the Pirates do. The pitching and defense can’t keep pace alone. They need more offensive help. Period. Internally and externally.

Predictably, Cherington cautioned against that prospect, defaulting to how offense is down across baseball and how very few teams are selling off players at this point, thanks to the extended playoff format.

But those are built-in excuses any other general manager could point to on July 1.

Sure, Cherington can sit back and hope phase one and phase two of the team’s plan kick in. He can hope everybody on the roster heats up as we enter the fourth month of the season.

He can hope manager Derek Shelton and his staff have a series of epiphanies when it comes to collective hitting theory, individual mentorship, lineup construction and in-game strategy.

Or he can be realistic and target a potential acquisition or two from other teams who could aid the MLB roster immediately while other franchises sit back and hope on their own.

If the trade deadline comes and goes at the end of the month without that happening, though, I won’t need another eight-minute explanation as to why.

It’s the Pirates. I’ll probably be able to figure that out on my own.