The Pirates are making some changes to their front office, per a report from MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf. Stumpf notes that director of coaching and player development John Baker is moving into a new role with the club that will see him oversee the club’s performance team. While the move has not been announced by the club to this point, Stumpf adds that the search for a new farm director is already underway as Baker vacates the position.
A former player who spent parts of seven seasons in the big leagues, Baker retired from his playing career in 2015 and caught on with the Cubs in their front office that offseason as a special assistant. Baker eventually stepped into the role of mental skills coordinator with Chicago and remained in that role with the club until he departed for Pittsburgh during the 2020-21 offseason to take on his aforementioned role as director of coaching and player development. As Stumpf notes, the Pirates began implementing more individualized development plans for their players under Baker’s leadership.
With Baker now changing roles, the Pirates will need to fill both the farm director role. As Stumpf notes, that’s not the only high-level role that’s as of yet unfilled in Pittsburgh as the club will also need to hire a new director of pro scouting after moving him to a different, unspecified role within baseball operations. Those yet-to-be-named farm and pro scouting directors will join a wave of personnel hires by the Pirates this winter that already includes international scouting director Max Kwan, VP of research and development Kevin Tenenbaum, hitting coach Matt Hague, and assistant pitching coach Brent Strom.
More notes from around the NL Central…
- Cubs fans received some good news yesterday when Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic reported that right-hander Ben Brown has been cleared for a normal throwing program this offseason. The 25-year-old was acquired by the club at the 2022 trade deadline in the deal that sent right-hander David Robertson to Philadelphia but didn’t make his big league debut until this year. The youngster looked quite good for the Cubs early in the season with a 3.58 ERA and 3.11 FIP in 55 1/3 innings of work while swinging between the rotation and bullpen. He struck out 28.8% of opponents faced against a walk rate of 8.6% but saw is time in the majors cut short by a stress reaction in his neck that sidelined him for the remainder of the season. Chicago reportedly plans to add a starting pitcher to the rotation alongside Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, and Jameson Taillon this winter, which could leave Brown to either compete with Javier Assad and Jordan Wicks for the fifth spot in the rotation this spring or else spend the year in the bullpen.
- The Cardinals are hiring Matt Pierpont as their director of pitching, as Pierpoint himself noted on X (h/t to Adam Jude of The Seattle Times). Pierpont, 33, pitched in the minor leagues for seven seasons before catching on with the Mariners as a coach prior to the 2021 season. Since then, he’s risen within the organization to the role of pitching coordinator. Now, he’s been promoted again as he moves on to St. Louis, where he’ll be tasked with working to improve the club’s internal pitching options. Andre Pallante and Sem Robberse are among the young pitchers at or near the major leagues, while top prospect Tink Hence dominated the Double-A level and could also look to make his big league debut at some point in 2025.
Quinn matthews
Yeah he’s the guy for 2025 to get excited about. But McGreevy should get a shot. Graceffo too. The Cardinals have good young pitching it’s not all elite arms but it’s good and there is a lot of it.
Exactly. He is the ace in waiting, and hopefully soon.
Pirates rearranging the chairs on the deck of the titanic
The one that has already sunk
Pirates are on the come up
Pirates (and padres) got burned by bringing up skenes & merrill early
They’re down to 5 yrs left of those players
And neither tm got PPI pick
Skenes had to pitch like the best pitcher in baseball to win Roy. He was so dominating in minors they pretty much had to call him up. Padres I don’t know. They couldn’t find a excuse to hold him back a few weeks? I dunno. If Cubs did with Bryant anyone can.
Who do you think will end up having the best career of the top 3 nl roy? skenes merrill or chourio?
Skenes could be one of the best pitchers of his generation. If he stays healthy, I think it’s Skenes. Merrill was incredible last season, but it was his best season, including the minors. I think, because pitching health is so volatile, it’ll be Chourio who could be the next Juan Soto.
I don’t like to think about stuff like that but if it was draft of those 3 I am taking Skenes. 2 bats weren’t close to winning MVP. If Skenes pitched all year he wins cy young. What do teams always desire, pitching pitching pitching. Skenes could contend for Cy young every healthy year. 2 bats I I don’t feel the same about. I think all 3 are the real deal though.
These 2 bats vs say current top 10 prospects like Crews Mayer etc? I will take these 2 who already done it at mlb level.
True, but a bad take. It’s not good for baseball to hold back guys like this. One broke camp as an everyday player. (A good one). The other is showing he’s “the next coming”. It’s good to see mid-market teams go for it. Fans pay for good product, not watered down garbage. Go for it!
@paso
Pete Alonso was brought up early & is now a FA
you think mets fans are happy he’s gone 1 yr early? A tm just has to wait 3 weeks and it equals 1 more full season
It’s a fine line. You want guys to work hard. There humans. When they are ready they are ready. Jared Jones was clearly ready. Made opening day roster. Pirates told him he wouldn’t be finishing the season at mlb. Way too many innings. He got hurt so it didn’t come to it. Pirates did the right thing and gave him his service time. Also if they wanted any chance at extending him they had to. Skenes needed some minor league time and even said it benefited him. Now they could have held him til June. No super 2. No chance of Roy. But they accomplished their development goal. Kept his innings down. He was ready in May so they called him up. Surprisingly the Pirates handled it pretty much perfect.
As for Jones getting hurt and the Pirates doing the right thing about giving him the service time, an injured player cannot be demoted to save service time. The MLBPA would have been all over that one. He stays on the active roster until he is healthy, and then do what you want.
even with the pirates extreme minimal spending, I feel like (or maybe just hope) that they would spend theb on bucks on skenes. hopefully by then Cherington is gone
also happy thanksgiving
If the Cardinals keep hiring away more of the Mariners pitching development staff, they would get better ROI than any free agent signing they could make.
Its been a privilege sinking with you tonight
I respect Ben Cherington. He admitted failure and took responsible. Unfortunately he needed to be fired. He could somehow figure out how to develop but the odds aren’t good. If he keeps failing it just sets the franchise back even more. It was time to give someone else a chance.
Let’s look beyond development. Which the Pirates are terrible. BC can’t even perform the basic function of signing FA’s. The money he gives out to veterans ends up flushed down the drain.
Maybe the analytics department needs to be revamped as well
He does free agents better than most. Anderson Quintana VV Santana Perez were fantastic. Hill Chapman Grandpal even MAT worked out fine. Rowdy meh. Good idea but his early slump was brutal. Should have went Santana the safer move. He trades better than most.
It’s development development development. If he could do that he’s a top 5 gm instead of 15 to 20. And refusing to fire Haines Shelton.
Cardinals will trade Hence for pennies. It’s what they do.
The Cardinals hiring of Mariners coach Matt Pierpont to be the Cardinals Director of Pitching, and the hire of Guardians Director of Player Development Rob Cerfolio to oversee the Cardinals overhaul of the Cardinals minor league system has the potential to have a more significant positive impact on the Cardinals than any of the free agent contracts the Cardinals have handed out over the last decade.
Thats a rather low bar. Almost all the talent the Cardinals have had over the last decade has come from the draft or trades. This idea that the Cardinals can’t draft and develop simply isn’t true they just dont always let their young talent play.