TAMPA, Fla. -- Ben Cherington fielded plenty of questions during Spring Training Media Day for Grapefruit League teams in Tampa, Fla. Thursday afternoon.
He touched on topics including possible mapped-out plans for Paul Skenes, the team’s offseason additions and whether or not this year’s club is better than the one that took the field a year ago.
SET PLANS FOR SKENES?
As debates continue regarding when Skenes will suit up for the Pirates in a regular-season game, there are a few question marks.
Is there a mapped-out plan for baseball’s top pitching prospect? Well, Cherington said those plans are the same as they would be for any young starting pitcher.
“It’s when’s the next mound session, when are the live BPs, when are they in games, what’s the inning progression or volume progression look like in spring training and how do we help best prepare, not just Paul, but the entire group for a full professional season?” Cherington said. “Then, what’s also mapped out is specific skill development work that fits their goals. Paul has those, and every other pitcher has those. Beyond that, nothing is mapped out. We’re gonna learn from that group, we’re gonna be informed by the work they do and what we’re seeing on the field. We don’t feel like there is any particular rush.
“If you go back and look at very highly-drafted college pitchers who had gone on to exceptional careers, most of them had a good chunk of time in the minor leagues. That doesn’t mean that’s gonna happen in every case, but that’s what has happened in most cases. We’ll see. We’re not putting any ceiling on it. We want to respect Paul Skenes and let him be Paul Skenes. Whatever the path is, it should be unique to him. We want him to be in the best position to help the Pirates win as many games for as long as possible. I’m not concerned or ready to think about when that’s gonna start.”
And is Skenes a part of the competition for a spot in the starting rotation coming out of spring training?
“He’ll be in a competitive situation in spring training,” Cherington said. “We don’t need to make any decisions right now, so we’re not going to.”
WILL EXTENSIONS BE DISCUSSED?
Extension talks normally occur for players during the offseason or the current portion of the spring.
Perhaps the Pirates could resume long-term contract talks with players such as Mitch Keller and David Bednar, who have been linked to those discussions in the past.
“As I’ve shared before, we want to have an open door to that kind of conversation. It’s not a conversation we would have with every single player. I don’t think it makes sense with every single player,” Cherington said. “There’s some criteria that opens the door. But we do have some guys who check some of those boxes. I think if there’s an opportunity to share information and gain from that, that’s something we want to do. We just have to see where it goes. They’re not easy to find common ground on. They’re just not. There’s good reason for that; it has nothing to do with, ‘Is this person right? Is this person wrong?’ It’s a personal decision for a player. Really respect that. We feel like our job is to provide information so players can make a choice. In some cases we’ll look to do that. We’ll see what comes of it.”
WHAT MADE PEREZ, GONZALES INTRIGUING?
I asked Cherington what made Martin Perez and Marco Gonzales good fits during an offseason in which the club wanted to add to its pitching staff.
There were a number of factors, including the fact that both would serve a significant role as left-handed options in the rotation.
“We don’t have to have left-handed pitching, but if all things are equal, lefties are a nice thing at PNC,” Cherington said. “It’s a general desire to have left-handed pitching.”
There is also familiarity for both Perez and Gonzales, who both worked with pitching coach Oscar Marin during their tenures in Texas and Seattle, respectively. Perez has an additional connection with Derek Shelton, having played for the Twins in 2019 when Shelton was the team’s bench coach.
Perez is coming off a season in which he went 10-4 with a 4.45 ERA and 1.41 WHIP in 35 appearances and 20 starts. Late-season struggles forced him to the bullpen, but he did get a World Series ring with the Rangers.
The year prior, Perez was an All-Star in Texas, compiling a 12-8 record with a 2.89 ERA, a 1.26 WHIP and 3.26 FIP in 32 starts. He had 169 strikeouts and 69 walks in 196 1/3 innings.
“In Martin’s case, he was really attracted to our situation and we were really attracted to him based on what we know about him as a teammate and his growth the last few years,” Cherington said. “He’s one year removed from an exceptional season, and as we looked back on last season, there were small things that had changed and that we thought would be relatively easy adjustments for him to make. He recognized those as we talked to him.”
Gonzales was traded twice during the offseason, but the deal that sent him to Pittsburgh occurred shortly after he was dealt from Seattle to Atlanta.
Cherington said it was clear Atlanta was going to move him, and the Pirates were in a position to move quickly considering Gonzales’ relationship with Marin.
“We were able to get access really quickly to the most recent training that Marco was doing coming off the injury he had,” Cherington said of Gonzales, who was limited to 10 starts last season. “We got a degree of confidence in where he was physically relatively quickly. Then you look back and see a left-handed pitcher who pitches with a style that’s been effective at PNC and anticipate better health going forward in 2024. We had off the charts reports about the person and character, too, which was the last piece of it. We were able to weave that together quickly and had to decide to pounce or not pounce, and we decided to pounce.”
IS THE TEAM BETTER THAN IT WAS A YEAR AGO?
Cherington believes this year's group has improved compared to this time last year. But there's still work to be done to help players currently on the roster excel. And if external options are needed in the future, additions will be considered.
"We do [feel like we've improved]. We have to keep working at that. We can't take anything for granted," Cherington said. "We'll keep working at it both in terms of how do we help our current group take steps and put them in the position to perform, and we'll also look to see if there are ways to continue to make the roster deeper and better with external additions. We do feel like we're better. But the proof is in the pudding. We gotta go play and go do it on the field. We're excited about that."
