Pirates GM confident about financial investment

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Since he was hired as general manager, Ben Cherington has stated his belief that the Pirates will put forth the financial commitment that’s necessary to create a sustainably successful team.

That statement may seem hard to align with the Pirates’ projected Opening Day payroll, which sits around $52 million at the outset of Spring Training, but Cherington explained his thought process on Sunday evening during the Grapefruit League media day at CoolToday Park in North Port, Fla.

“I do feel really confident that the total investment in baseball operations is not just enough, but actually really competitive within the industry,” Cherington said. “As far as the investment we’re going to need to make in information and technology and people, the budget structure is already there to do that. There may be reallocation of that over time, but I’m really confident about that.”

Cherington has avoided saying the Pirates are rebuilding, but his words and actions make it clear the club is building toward something in the future.

Whenever the Pirates’ front office believes they have the core of a realistic contender in place, Cherington expects to increase the club’s Major League payroll. The GM hasn’t provided a potential timeframe as to when that might happen, saying only that they are “trying to get there as soon as we can and no faster.”

“As it relates to the player payroll, that I’m confident will increase over time as we get deeper into our team build,” Cherington said. “I’m also confident that the resources will be there to increase the payroll over time and to have the means that we need to build a winning team and add the pieces that we need. And we’re not putting any kind of date on when that could happen. There’s no sort of timeline.”

Pirates chairman Bob Nutting authorized increases in payroll as the club turned into a contender from 2013-15. Their Opening Day payroll climbed from around $51.9 million in 2012 to $66.8 million in ’13, $71.9 million in ’14, $90.1 million in ’15 and roughly $100 million in ’16, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Since then, however, Pittsburgh’s spending has shrunk to roughly where it was before its run of three consecutive postseason appearances while the club has focused on remaining competitive -- an area of concern for fans wondering why the Pirates aren’t adding if they’re not technically rebuilding, either.

“We’ve got a group of young players that are either currently on our team or close to being on our team who I truly believe -- and we truly believe -- can and will be part of a winning team in Pittsburgh,” Cherington said. “Our focus is to help that group of players continue to get better, then to look for every opportunity to add to that group -- and that’s going to come over time.

“There may be parts of that that happen this year. There may be parts of that that happen next offseason and the following year. But that’s the simplest way to say how I feel, and we really believe there is a group of young players here to build around. We know we’ll have to add to that group, but there’s players in camp right now who are going to be part of that team.”

There are other ways to invest in the organization as well, and the spending priorities could shift depending on where the Pirates view themselves in the competitive cycle. There has been more modern tracking technology on display during the first week of Spring Training, for instance, and the Pirates added personnel to their quantitative analysis staff with a focus on improving their drafting and player development processes.

“There’s a really good [analytics] group there. I think [senior director of baseball informatics] Dan Fox is really good, and his people in that group are really good. Just felt that they were stretched and needed some additional muscle,” Cherington said. “Just [made those hires] to make sure that we had enough analysis support to support the various areas. Player development is an area where generally that becomes very important. If you want to do that meaningfully with 200 players, that’s not one person.”