Pittsburgh Pirates Hire Oz Ocampo to Front Office

Ben Cherington has added another piece to the Pirates new-look front office, hiring Oz Ocampo, formally of the Houston Astros.

The Pittsburgh Pirates off-season up to this point has mainly consisted of front office and coaching staff overhauls.  That continued on Friday when Oz Ocampo announced on Twitter that he had accepted a position with the Pittsburgh Pirates front office under new GM Ben Cherington.

Per his twitter bio, Ocampo’s title in the team’s front office will be a special assistant  to player personnel.

Ocampo comes to Pittsburgh after having served in the Hosuton Astros front office for the past seven-plus years.  In his first role with Houston, he served as Director of International and Latin player development before being promoted to special assistant to the GM in 2017.  Ocampo was instrumental in the development of a number of players such as Yuli Gurriel and Yordan Alavrez.

Prior to his time in Houston, he worked in International Baseball Operations for Major League Baseball under Kim Ng.  He got his start working in a front office setting in the St. Louis Cardinals front office, specializing in scouting, player development and international operations for over four years.

Ocampo is a graduate of Georgetown University and earned his Masters from Columbia University in 2011.

After naming Steve Sanders as an assistant GM, Ben Cherington has made his second known addition to the Pirates front office in Ocampo.  More should follow as the weeks, months and years go on but it seems as though Cherington has made two very strong and welcomed additions to his front office.  The Pirates have emphasized a need to get better in the player development area, and the hirings of Sanders and Ocampo seem to have addressed that.