CLEVELAND -- Within the next week or so, Bob Nutting and Travis Williams will have wound up their process to fill the Pirates' vacancy at general manager. And they'll choose, barring some late surprise, between Ben Cherington and Matt Arnold.
Here's hoping it's the latter.
Because it couldn't be clearer that a complete break is needed from the recent past.
And above all, because it couldn't be clearer that Arnold brings the most compelling, most dynamic skill set for this particular challenge.
Let me start with this: Whichever way Nutting and Williams go, I'll be on board. So this little exercise today won't be about bashing Cherington anywhere near as much as it'll be about Arnold. But I'd be dishonest if I didn't open by disclosing that I've heard from lots of good, trusted people in the baseball community in the past 48 hours that Cherington would basically represent a continuation of the Neal Huntington tenure.
"Neal II is what you'd get," an American League executive texted me late Tuesday night.
Ouch.
"All those guys still hanging around there now ... Stark ... Broadway," a National League scout texted, "they'll still be there."
Hoka-ouch.
Sorry, I don't buy that second one, even if it was backed by a second source. I've seen and heard too many of the right things from Nutting and Williams in the past month to accept that Kyle Stark, Larry Broadway or anyone else associated with Major League Baseballl's worst drafting/developing system will remain. If anything, the Omar Moreno mess -- and Williams' resultant handling of it -- reinforces that.
To repeat the familiar refrain: Fire everyone.
It also feels shallow to connect Cherington and Huntington because they both went to Amherst College, because Huntington got Cherington a break-in job with the Indians years ago and because they've been friends ever since, though these circumstances have been brought up a lot by those same baseball people. Having commonalities doesn't make Cherington and Huntington the same GM, much less the same person.
But again, I'd be dishonest if I didn't disclose all this as an influence in my thinking. It absolutely is. Nothing could be more grim for the Pirates, after all this change, than to take some other route to status quo.
Arnold's simply the smarter choice. On his own merit.
Although he's only 40, there's nothing he hasn't done as a baseball executive other than lead the operation. While with the Rays, who've gradually become the sport's factory for GMs, he participated in roster construction, drafting and development, professional scouting, domestic and international amateur scouting, contract negotiations, medical matters and, as with everyone in the Tampa Bay braintrust, the increasingly important analytics.
Remember back in late July when Shane Baz, the Pirates' first-round pick who was insanely thrown into that already insane Chris Archer trade, publicly spoke of the instant difference upon joining his new system?
“Almost immediately, the Rays were more — I don’t want to talk bad about the Pirates — just completely different, honestly,” Baz told a reporter from MiLB.com. “It was a whole new perspective, a new approach to pitching."
That was the money quote, but wait, there was more. And the detail's worthwhile: "I saw pretty quickly that I would be big in spin rate and that stuff. They told me my fastball would have the top spin rate in the majors, if I was pitching there right now. I don’t have to be right at the knees every time because the movement is going to be so good, guys aren’t going to hit the fastball, anyway. The slider is so hard, too, that it’s going to be a good pitch as long as the arm slot is the same. The same with my curve and change. That was the first thing they showed me, and when I saw it in action, I just thought, ‘OK, great.’"
Baz heard none of that here. He went on to a terrific season in Class A, then wowed everyone in the Arizona Fall League just now with 100-mph heat.
The kid's 20 bleeping years old.
The point: Arnold played a huge role in establishing the Rays' philosophies and metrics on spin rate, as well as how to properly convey those to their prospects. While Stark and Broadway were focused on table manners, flipping truck tires on the beach and other faux-military nonsense, the Rays and other teams have been teaching pitchers how to pitch.
In late 2015, Arnold moved up to the assistant GM's spot in Milwaukee alongside even-younger David Stearns, now 34, and those two built more of a partnership than a boss-subordinate relationship, as both have openly acknowledged. For example, Arnold's been entrusted with direct day-to-day oversight of all those responsibilities he carried with the Rays, plus a bunch more. The two exchange ideas, thoughts and suggestions pretty much around the clock, with no other assistant in the mix.
I'll remind here: The Rays annually have the lowest payroll in the majors, and the Brewers are based in the majors' smallest market, one that's two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh. And all both teams do, including in 2019, is compete and contend. No excuses. No city-blaming or fan-blaming.
In all, since graduating from UC Santa Barbara, Arnold's absorbed 18 years of front-office experience in the majors, including prior tenures with the Dodgers, Rangers and Reds. And within that, best of all, his resumé's founded on scouting. That's what I appreciate most. Although his degree was in economics, he's learned baseball the hard way, out on the road, out on sandlots watching endless wannabes to seek out the one who might actually make it.
All too often, the analytics-based execs never leave their cubicles. This one, according to people with whom I've communicated, lives for it. Once elevated in Milwaukee, he spent far more time out of town -- out of the country, even -- than at Miller Park. And further, according to those people in the industry, he's really good at it. He and Stearns worked together to bring to the Brewers the likes of Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Yasmani Grandal, Mike Moustakas, Eric Thames (from South Korea!) and, oh, hey, Jordan Lyles, all at excellent value. Among many others.
These Pirates, in their present state, need that more than anything.
Know what else they need?
Someone relatable.
Huntington invariably meant well when interviewed, I've no doubt, but his condescension was uncontrollable. He and Stark knew baseball, and everyone else was stupid.
I've contacted several people this week who've known or worked with Arnold, and the next negative syllable will be the first. As they describe him, he's humble, honest, straightforward and never sees himself as above any situation.
In a 2016 interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Tom Haudricourt, Arnold spoke the following of his role with the Brewers: "It's humbling in a lot of ways. I grew up a baseball fan, so all of this is incredible. To be a part of something special like this, you want to pinch yourself sometimes. We know how much this means for the community and our fans, and ownership — all of the people that are invested in this team."
Nutting made mention at his interview sessions at PNC Park last month that he expects both Williams and his new GM to be able to "better communicate" with the Pirates' fan base. The above paragraph sure has a good ring.
Cherington, 45, has the experience edge. Obviously. He was the Red Sox's GM from 2011-15, including a World Series championship in 2013. That shouldn't be overlooked, to say the least. He's been there, done that. But he won it all with baseball's fourth-highest payroll that year at $153 million. And at the time he was forced out in mid-season of 2015, the sentiment was that he'd fallen behind the industry curve in analytics and allowed his roster to slip likewise. Once he was out, he took more than a year away from the game before joining the Blue Jays as VP of baseball operations.
Eh.
Like I said, he's been there, done that. This might be as unfair as connecting him and Huntington, but how much would it really mean to Cherington to win a World Series in Pittsburgh after his career trajectory's clearly already peaked elsewhere?
Yeah, that crossed my mind, too.
I'll take the guy riding the upward curve.
