The search for a new general manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates is heating up. They have been without anyone in this important role since Neal Huntington was fired at the end of October.
So, who will be the next person to take on this role? At the time of writing, the search appears to have been narrowed down to just two of the candidates. Will the job eventually go to Ben Cherington or Matt Arnold?
Who Is Ben Cherington?
Cherington was a pitcher in his varsity baseball team at Lebanon High School. He then earned a master’s degree in Sports Management and worked with the Boston Red Sox from 1999 to 2015.
In this time, he carried out roles such as area scout, coordinator of international scouting, baseball operations assistant, and director of player development. After the 2011 season, he was promoted to the general manager role.
Cherington endured a mixed time with the Red Sox and left in 2015, having removed a lot of older players on expensive contracts and built a core of younger players. He then taught leadership in sports for a year before joining the Toronto Blue Jays as their vice president of baseball operations in 2016.
Who Is Matt Arnold?
Arnold has worked as the vice president and assistant general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2015. Before that, he was employed by the Tampa Bay Rays, where he was director of pro scouting and director of player personnel after joining initially as a professional scout.
His baseball career started in 2000. Among his strengths are financial planning, human movement, and arbitration. With other positions in the league all filled now, if he doesn’t join the Pirates then we can expect him to stay with the Brewers for next season.
Arnold currently assists the president of baseball operations and general manager David Stearns. His main areas of operation are listed as including roster construction, contract decisions, financial planning, and player personnel decisions.
His earliest years in the industry were spent carrying out relatively short spells as the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and Cincinnati Reds. He is from California and got his degree in economics from the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Who Will Get the Job and When?
If you just love watching MLB games or you just like betting online on baseball or other sports, then you might not know a lot about the general managers of the teams involved. Yet, just like in the top teams of the NFL or the NBA odds among experts’ predictions, this is a vital role that has a huge amount of influence on how the team progresses. So, it is only fair that the Pirates take their time over filling it.
It seems as though the decision will see one of the two men mentioned earlier getting the job. Earlier reports had mentioned a mystery third candidate whose name wasn’t revealed. However, more recent reports suggest that it is now down to Arnold or Cherington.
Interestingly, it was suggested by some sources the interim general manager Kevan Graves might be one of the front-runners for the job. However, his name seems to have disappeared in the latest updates.
It is worth remembering that the Pirates hired search firm Korn Ferry to help them to unearth the best candidates. This is the same company that helped the San Francisco Giants to find a new president of baseball operations last year.
With interviews scheduled for both in the next few days, it shouldn’t take too long before the name of the new general manager is revealed. There is certainly no reason why the new man shouldn’t be well settled in by the time the new season starts.
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