BRADENTON, Fla. -- The Pirates are projected to open the season with a payroll of about $51 million. That is the third lowest in baseball, just above the Marlins ($46 million) and the Orioles ($45 million).
It does not appear likely they will make a transaction to change that total significantly in either direction before opening day. If it does hold, it would be their lowest opening day payroll since the 2011 season.
While Cherington does not believe the Pirates are rebuilding, they have not added much to their major-league roster for the 2020 season. Jarrod Dyson inked a one year, $2 million contract last week, and Guillermo Heredia, Luke Maile and J.T. Riddle signed major-league contracts with the team this winter. Besides them, every other addition has either been a prospect or a player on a minor-league deal.
Cherington is confident he will have a larger payroll to work with once the team starts winning, but that does lend itself to a chicken-egg conundrum, and he does not know exactly when that will be.
"I think you can look at a lot of teams and how teams have moved towards winning, it's fairly consistent," Cherington told reporters Monday at Pirate City. "There does tend to be more investment over time. Sometimes that investment precedes the wins, and sometimes it comes at the same time.
"We're not talking about a certain date or drawing a straight line to that. We just know that investing in players will be an important part of building a winning team, and we've got to identify the right time and opportunity to do that. There is no specific timeline we have for that."
More form Cherington's session with the media:
• There have been more front office and analytics people in Pirate City than normal. While that is not necessarily intentional since Cherington did not know how things ran under Neal Huntington, he did want to make sure the players and the front office know each other and increase visibility.
"I think our staff, and in time hopefully our players, will see that everyone who works for the Pirates has a role. We're just trying to build relationships, build trust with everybody."
• There are roster spots up for grabs this spring, but Cherington did not want to say which ones, specifically.
"We wanted there to be a competitive aspect to camp. Certainly as we get into it, we want Shelty [Derek Shelton] and the coaches to talk about that more."
• Between Dyson and Derek Holland, the Pirates have added some veterans into their spring mix.
"We looked at both where our needs are... [and] there were certain characteristics that we wanted. We know we've got a group of young players here who are going to keep getting better. It's important to have good voices around them. Obviously coaching is part of that, but teammates are a big part of that, too."
• Most of the improvements the Pirates made this winter revolved around defense, wether it was adding Dyson to the outfield or making Jacob Stallings the starting catcher. Cherington said the emphasis was on improving the whole team, not just defense.
"A run prevented or a run scored is basically the same value. We want to work with both. So this offseason, it just happened to be we felt like there was some opportunities that were available that might help us in the run prevention side."
• On the sizable group of Pirates fans who came out to watch the first team practice Monday:
"It's great. I hope it continues. I hope that group doubles and triples over time. If we're doing things well, hopefully that means more and more people want to be here for the first day of workouts. I really respect the people who are here. It's important for our players to see what the team means to the people who follow it."
