Tim Benz: If Ben Cherington is feeling 'urgent' about the Pirates, let's see proof beyond keeping guys he already has

Maybe Pirates general manager Ben Cherington has a different definition of “urgent” than I do.

Or the Oxford dictionary does.

“Urgent: showing that you think that something needs to be dealt with immediately.”

On Tuesday, after the MLB trade deadline passed, Cherington described the Pirates’ action of keeping outfielder Bryan Reynolds and closer David Bednar as being an example of the team acting with “urgency” to get better.

“We feel like the word is ‘urgency.’ We just want to be urgent about getting better all the time. Those are two guys that would be really important parts to getting better quickly,” Cherington said of Bednar and Reynolds.

Maybe I’m about to get bogged down on semantics here, but is simply holding onto two players deemed to be building blocks of your organization an act of “urgency” to get better?

Or is it just common sense?

I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective. But I think the Pittsburgh baseball fan base has gotten so conditioned to this franchise spinning off players the first chance it gets—as the talent finally matures and starts to command a decent salary—that the mere act of the Pirates keeping those players when logic dictates they should probably does come off as acting with urgency.

That’s a pretty low bar.

Our standards of what to expect from that organization’s business model have been so dramatically diminished over the years that we can inflate such a routine decision and turn it into a franchise-altering course correction.

Reynolds is a 27-year-old center fielder who was an All-Star last season. To me, deciding to keep him just a few months after you signed him to a very affordable two-year deal (at $6.75 million per season) to buy out his first two arbitration seasons isn’t exactly tectonic shift-worthy stuff. Instead, it is simply not rebuilding.

Again.

The same can be said about Bednar, an All-Star closer who is making $715,000 this year and won’t even be arbitration eligible until 2024. To say nothing of how the young pitcher from Mars, Pa. is being marketed by the club as a hometown hero of sorts, much like Neil Walker was during his 11 years in the Pirates organization.

And based on how Reynolds was talking after the trade deadline passed, he wasn’t exactly certain they’d be retained.

“I’m really glad both of us got to stay where we wanted to be, so it worked out,” Reynolds said via a recent story from TribLIVE’s Kevin Gorman. “I wanted to stay. I get to stay, and Bednar gets to stay.”

So, in the interest of being transparent, did Cherington act with “urgency” by keeping these two? Or was a proper return for their talents just never offered? I think there’s a big difference.

An example of acting with urgency is what the Pirates did in 2011-13 when they became wild-card contenders. When they acquired the likes of Derrek Lee, Ryan Ludwick, Wandy Rodriguez, Justin Morneau and Marlon Byrd in an effort to make playoff pushes.

Sometimes they worked out. Sometimes they didn’t. But that’s acting with urgency. So was the ill-fated Chris Archer trade of 2018. Again, that deal ended up being a colossal bust, but at least it was made with the decisive intent of getting better quickly when the team was on the fringes of playoff contention.

We have to remember the backdrop of Cherington talking about how the Pirates were taking bold steps to get better by holding on to Bednar and Reynolds. Those words came a day after they traded away their best starting pitcher in Jose Quintana.

A team that actually had some “urgency” might have instead tried to figure out a team-friendly short-term contract to keep a guy like that instead of shipping him off for more prospects.

If Cherington wants me to believe that this franchise is acting with urgency, he’ll sign or trade for another Quintana-type (or two) this offseason that may actually make significant major league dollars and can fortify a starting rotation that will once again be in need of quality veteran influence.

Remember, Quintana was only on a one-year $2 million dollar deal.

After three decades of mostly losing baseball, our eye level of expectation for the Pirates has lowered to the point where simply avoiding trades of guys who shouldn’t be traded comes off as progress.

It isn’t. It’s simply doing what should be done — as evidenced by Reynolds’ game-winning walk-off homer to beat the Brewers Wednesday night.

Wednesday night walkoff ???? pic.twitter.com/fCl9cttXGm

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) August 4, 2022

If Cherington is feeling urgent about the state of this team, that’s great. I’m glad to hear it.

Now prove it this offseason by actually getting ownership to make an attempt at improving the Major League product while cultivating what we are constantly told is a vast pipeline of gifted young players that will all be in the big leagues in “just a few years.”

That would qualify “urgency” in my eyes.