The voice of the Pirates Greg Brown says what he likes best about Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington is that he doesn’t care.
Care about public opinion that is.
“This sounds harsh but he just doesn’t care about public opinion, he will not get caught up in it,” Brown told the PM Team.
Brown says Cherington doesn’t wavier or feel pressure from the public to make a move, something that he believes hurt former GM Neal Huntington.
The trade that sticks out most is the deal for Chris Archer that sent pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz along with outfielder Austin Meadows to Tampa Bay.
The trade is considered to be one of the worst in franchise history with The Fan’s Joe Starkey believing it has to be at least in MLB’s top 20.
Brown says there is No doubt in my mind,” Huntington felt pressure to make a big move at the 2018 trade deadline.
With the Pirates, Archer went 6-12 with a .333 ERA and spent a lot of his time in Pittsburgh hurt. He re-signed with Tampa this past offseason.
“I think the Pirates felt a lot of pressure to quote ‘go for it and they rolled the dice on that trade,” said Brown.
When it comes to Cherington, pressure was likely on from fans to go after highly regarded pitcher Jack Leiter with the 1st overall draft pick, but instead took the best position player available while being able to save money for players in other round.
Many consider the Pirates had the best draft in 2021.
But Brown says he doesn’t think Cherington listens to outside voices.
“I don’t think Ben did anything like this in Boston, where again he felt any need, or even listens to the chatter, I don’t think he listens to ‘us’ as we talk about this kind of thing,” said Brown.