Blaming injuries won’t fix the mess Ben Cherington built in Pittsburgh

Ben Cherington may be an incurable optimist, or he may be maddeningly ignorant. Either way, Pittsburgh Pirates fans should be deeply concerned.

Cherington held a press conference Thursday after the team announced the firing of manager Derek Shelton, and the Pirates' GM sounded borderline delusional in his assessment of the state of the organization.

“I don’t think we have to squint too hard to see a better team on the field in 2025,” Cherington said. “I believe we can and will be better on both sides of the ball. I’m also not blind to the hole we’ve dug. We’ve had a perfect storm of stuff happening that has contributed to a much more difficult start than we wanted. No way to climb out of it but a pitch at a time.”

Okay, Ben. Let's unpack that.

First of all, if you have to "squint" in order for your team to not look like one of the worst in the league, that's ... not good. And speaking of being among the worst in the league, it's easy to say you have room for improvement on both sides of the ball when you literally have nowhere to go but up.

Blaming injuries won’t fix the mess Ben Cherington built with Pittsburgh Pirates

Cherington went on to elaborate on just how he believes the Pirates found themselves in the aforementioned "hole" they're currently in.

"It’s just been a bit of a perfect storm," Cherington said. "We’ve had some players who are not performing to their standard. We also have a number of players, at least based on our measurements, are hitting into a lot of bad luck and are hitting below where they are expected to be. We’ve had injuries, no doubt, that have made it harder to keep a full complement of players and put the deepest lineups out there and there’s still opportunity over time, and this is on me, to just make the roster better, period."

There's that "perfect storm" business again. Let's take a closer look at what Cherington means by that.

First, he mentions the injuries, of which there have admittedly been several – Nick Gonzales, Endy Rodríguez, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Spencer Horwitz, and the list goes on. Injuries are a part of the game, though, and the Pirates' National League Central rivals in Cincinnati and Milwaukee seem to be navigating their lengthy injured lists well enough to stay out of the basement of the division.

As for, "hitting into bad luck?" Please. Even on a "good luck" day, this lineup is scaring absolutely no one.

The bottom line is that Cherington blamed everything, from injuries to luck, before finally acknowledging that it is his responsibility to improve the roster – something he has failed to do at every turn over the past five-plus years.

Firing Shelton wasn't a bad decision, but it also wasn't the only one that needed to be made. Cherington needs to be held accountable for the significant role he's played in this mess, especially when he's given fans no reason to feel confident that he can turn things around in Pittsburgh.

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