Larry Broadway, the Pirates’ former farm director, is switching over to the evaluation side of baseball operations. Sources tell DK Pittsburgh Sports that he is now the “professional evaluation team leader,” though the official designation is still a working title.
As part of this new role, Broadway will have some oversight of a small group of pro scouts and will focus on evaluating professional players. That later part includes strategizing how players are covered, improving inputs, intelligence gathering on player targets and keeping up on organizational rankings.
General manager Ben Cherington had previously hinted that Broadway would move into the professional evaluation space.
Broadway spent nine years overseeing the Pirates’ farm system, taking over as senior director of minor league operations in September 2011. He received praise throughout the industry when Baseball America ranked the Pirates as having the top farm system in baseball prior to the start of the 2014 season, but many of the prospects that came through the system under his watch either failed to live up to expectations or only broke out once they left the Pirates.
He was one of the highest-ranking members from the previous front office who was not let go when Cherington was hired in November of last year. Cherington said that he wanted to take some time to evaluate the group that was in place. While the pandemic caused the minor-league season to be cancelled, Cherington wanted to bring in someone new to run the farm system as part of the front office shakeup this offseason.
The Pirates decided to keep him on staff, though, and the two agreed for him to move to a different part of baseball operations.
Cherington said he wanted to see “where the cement dries” with their other front office hirings before committing to Broadway’s new position.
“We’re seeing where the biggest opportunity for him to make an impact is,” Cherington told me in late October when asked about Broadway’s future with the club. “Part of it is giving him the chance to think about what’s fulfilling to him and what would be exciting to him, and where it lines up with where the need is.”
Last month, John Baker was hired as the director of coaching and player development, which is a retooled version of the traditional farm director role.
Broadway’s reassignment appears to be one of, if not the final, major moves to the front office this winter. Other notable changes include the hiring of Baker, Josh Hopper being named the new coordinator of pitching development and overhauling the strength and conditioning and rehab teams.
