Pirates keep rewriting the rules to justify Ben Cherington's job

A year ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates made the standard perfectly clear: “The goal is to make the playoffs in 2026. Period. Full stop."

That's what president Travis Williams said after the club finished 71-91 in 2025. He later reiterated at PiratesFest that it wasn't about building toward the playoffs or simply getting better at winning. The goal was making the postseason, and Williams specifically told fans to hold the organization accountable to it.

Apparently, the goalposts have moved again.

ESPN insider Buster Olney reported that it “would be a surprise” if the Pirates made a change at general manager, pointing to Pittsburgh's improvement, its time spent around the fringes of the National League Wild Card race and the talented young players who will return in 2027.

There is just one problem with that reasoning. If the goal was supposed to be the postseason, why is proximity to the postseason suddenly being treated as an acceptable outcome?

The Pirates enter the final stretch of the season at 76-77, 7.5 games out of a Wild Card spot and all but eliminated from postseason contention. They are unquestionably better than the 91-loss team Cherington constructed a year ago. There have been encouraging developments, including Konnor Griffin looking like a franchise cornerstone and the offense taking a significant step forward. Pittsburgh spent portions of the summer close enough to the Wild Card race to make the standings worth watching.

But when exactly did “better” become enough? That was precisely the standard Williams rejected last winter.

Buster Olney's Ben Cherington report should frustrate fans who took Pirates at their word

This is Cherington's seventh season running baseball operations in Pittsburgh. At some point, a rebuild has to graduate from progress reports to results. The Pirates didn't say before this season that their goal was to hang around the race for a while. They didn't promise to make September somewhat interesting. They didn't tell their fans they hoped to approach .500.

They said playoffs. Period. Full stop.

The Pirates can make a reasonable case that changing leadership now could disrupt a young roster that finally appears closer to competing. They can point to Griffin, Paul Skenes and a collection of other young players and argue that continuity has value. That's essentially the same reasoning Williams used when retaining Cherington after 2025, saying a GM change could set the organization back.

But there has to eventually be a consequence for falling short of the organization's own stated expectations. Otherwise, what does accountability actually mean?

If 91 losses warrants another year because the organization is supposedly close, and missing the playoffs the following season warrants another year because the team was closer, the standard isn't really the postseason. It's simply showing enough incremental improvement to justify keeping everything intact.

And after seven years of Ben Cherington, Pirates fans have every reason to be exhausted by being told that "almost there" is still good enough.

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