Pittsburgh Pirates: Conflicting Reports on GM Finalists

With the Pittsburgh Pirates winding down their hunt for their next General Manager, there have been some conflicting reports about who is left in the race.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are currently at the General Manager meetings without their 2020 General Manager in place.  The team is currently deploying former assistant Kevan Graves as the interim General Manager as the Bucs and Korn Ferry are going through the final stages of finding the new head of the front office.

Yesterday, it was reported that the Pittsburgh Pirates were down to three finalists who would interview in Pittsburgh over the coming days.  According to Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic, the team would be interviewing Brewers assistant Matt Arnold, Blue Jays Vice President Ben Cherington, and current interim General Manager Kevan Graves.  This made sense as all three names have been the most connected.  However, this was already known news, as all three names were considered the finalists last week.

A couple of national insiders have somewhat disputed this report.  Robert Murray, formerly of The Athletic (Milwaukee), tweeted that the team would be hosting Matt Arnold for an interview later this week.  Jon Heyman then tweeted and confirmed this along with news that Ben Cherington also would be a part of the final interview, calling them “co-favorites”.

"Robert Murray: “Brewers assistant GM Matt Arnold will interview once again for Pirates GM opening, sources say. The meeting is expected to take place this week.”Jon Heyman: ” Arnold and Cherington both have followup interviews with the Pirates for the GM job this week. They are seen as the co-favorites. @ByRobertMurray1st with Arnold info”"

Neither Heyman or Murray mentioned Kevan Graves being part of the final round.  Could this be because the Bucs are already employing Graves, therefore it is assumed that he is interviewing?  Or is it because he is an internal candidate so it really has no reason to get out?  Or is it simply that Graves is not getting a final interview and its truly between Arnold and Cherington?

It remains to be seen if Graves is still going to be a part of the process going forward.  Graves also was interviewed by the San Francisco Giants for their vacant General Manager role but was passed upon.  If the Giants did not think Graves was the right person to hire, then would the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Furthermore, being he was not hired anywhere else, Graves could potentially stay with the organization.  It seems as if one of Cherington or Arnold will have this job.  They may consider keeping Graves on being he knows the organization better than anyone else at this moment.  He would be very helpful to an incoming General Manager who might be a little behind the 8-ball this late into the offseason.  If the team decides to hire both a President of Baseball Operations and a General Manager – in the past, Neal Huntington was the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations and General Manager, so a shift could happen in structure – Graves could slide into the GM role under Cherington or Arnold.

There are still a lot of questions left to be answered about the future of the Pittsburgh Pirates front office.  However, it seems like the Bucs are heading toward the finish line of their search and could have a hire by the end of the week.

UPDATE: Astros assistant GM Pete Putila reportedly is the third candidate according to Mark Feinsand.