And the GM Is...Ben Cherington

Former Red Sox general manager and current Blue Jays senior vice president of baseball operations Ben Cherington, 45, was officially confirmed as GM today. Travis Williams laid out the search process, saying the team considered 50 candidates and a dozen of them made the short list. One of them, in-house ass't GM Kevan Graves, was spoke of highly and is expected (or at least hoped) to stay with the organization. And in an old-school tie that binds, Cherington said he talked to Neal Huntington, an old Amherst teammate, for advice during the process.

Resume:

Cherington began his baseball career in 1998 as a scout with the Indians, but most of his OJT came with the Red Sox between 1999-2015. He first scouted, then became the BoSox farm director, and was named assistant GM to Theo Epstein. In 2011, Cherington succeeded Epstein as Boston’s general manager. He had a dismal rookie campaign, then in 2013, his club won 97 games, the World Series, and Cherington was honored as Sporting News’ Executive of the Year.

He couldn't duplicate the success for the big club, as he depended on augmenting the lineup with FA's, and his record with them is pretty inconsistent, though BC did build a monster farm system that the Sox are benefitting from now. But the major league fail led Beantown to hire Dave Dombrowski as their baseball operations boss in 2015, and Cherington resigned the same day after losing the job. BC was thought to have discussions regarding a front office job with the Bucs around then that didn't pan out. He signed on with the Blue Jays after a year off as their vice-president of baseball operations, serving as a minor league/draft evaluator without portfolio. Cherington rejected several FO job interviews during that time, looking for a spot where he could pave the road ahead.

Career Chart - Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh job seems to check all his boxes regarding personnel decisions, and here he be. As for the Pirates, Cherington's eye for evaluation and especially development both in Boston & Toronto carried the day as the Bucco farm system dropped from elite to mid pack in recent seasons. His hit-and-miss with FA's will be tempered by the fact that he won't have much discretionary cash to toss around to hit or miss with. He did say in his press conference that he was comfortable with the Pirates financial resources, so we'll see how that budget thing works out.

The Job Ahead:

Ben has his work cut out for him. First, he has get the 40-man roster in shape by Wednesday while also putting together a field staff and evaluating his office help; we'd expect a lot of churn as he brings his own people into the fold. The biggest challenge will be determining the direction of the club moving forward; though young and lacking a lot of impact guys, it could be competitive moving ahead piecemeal if the pitching falls into place. On the other side of the pillow, the dearth of difference-makers could trigger a wholesale teardown and rebuild. He's also tasked with filling the pipeline again; between call ups and trades, the organizational cupboard is fairly bare. We hope that with whatever moves he makes that he'll be a little more open than the old bosses; the final brick is to restore some trust between the team and its fan base.

Once the staffing is in place (we'd guess he doesn't have a good grip on the Pirate players skill sets yet, and will wait on on some new eyes before deciding on the talent base), the team-building direction will be shown by how he deals with his main veteran assets, Starling Marte and perhaps Chris Archer/Josh Bell. They are under team control, and whether they stay or go will provide a window on how Cherington plans to mold the team, although his hand may be limited by their perceived value. Another clue will be dropped by how he handles the dozen pre-arb guys on the roster. If past history is a guide, he'll reshuffle the deck - we'd guess Mitch Keller and Bryan Reynolds are untouchable and Kevin Newman is pretty close to that status - and rebuild.