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If you thought the Pittsburgh Pirates' 2024 season couldn't possibly get any more disappointing now that it's over, think again.
Milwaukee Brewers senior vice president and general manager Matt Arnold was named Major League Baseball's Executive of the Year Tuesday. This news should leave Pirates fans incensed – not because the Brewers are a National League Central rival, or because Arnold didn't deserve the award in an easily winnable division, but because Arnold was one of the two finalists in 2019 for the Pittsburgh GM job that ultimately went to Ben Cherington.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
Congratulations to @Brewers Senior Vice President and General Manager Matt Arnold, the 2024 MLB Executive of the Year.
— MLB (@MLB) November 5, 2024
(MLB x @SageUSAmerica) pic.twitter.com/fze4FOleg8
Brewers' Matt Arnold winning GM of the Year shows how Pirates messed up hiring Ben Cherington
Even the quickest of glances at Arnold's tenure in Milwaukee shows that he would have been the better choice for the Pirates job. Arnold has been far more successful in Milwaukee – which is two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh, so spare us the "small market" arguments in defense of the Pirates – than Cherington has in Pittsburgh.
The Brewers have made the playoffs in each of Arnold's first two years on the job. In Cherington's first five years on the job, the Pirates haven't made the playoffs – or finished above .500 – even once.
Arnold's commitment to the pursuit of excellence is admirable. For example, even after a 93-win season and an NL Central title in 2024, he still wasn't satisfied with the Brewers' offensive production (which ranked No. 6 in the league in terms of run production, mind you) and fired Milwaukee's hitting coach in October.
Sure, the Pirates fired their hitting coach in October, too, but after he had already inflicted a world of damage on a lineup that finished at the bottom of the division standings and at No. 24 in the league in run production; it doesn't take a genius to figure out that that guy needed to go.
Cherington said at the end of the season that his team needs to get better, faster. But there's no sense of urgency behind those words. While he's talking, Arnold is acting – and the results speak for themselves.
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