Make no mistake: the fire that Pirates general manager Ben Cherington is currently under is every bit deserved, and it should only get hotter with each passing day that the organization falters and sits well outside of relevancy in the fifth year of this rebuild.
However, he may have had a stroke of genius when he he swung a trade for Nick Yorke, an exciting prospect out of the Boston Red Sox farm system.
Cherington brought in Yorke in exchange for right-handed pitcher Quinn Preister in a trade that saw the Pirates dealing from a position of vast depth. Preister wasn’t going to be in Pittsburgh’s long-term plans (or even their short-term ones), but a guy like Yorke might end up playing a big role for this team down the line.
At the time of the trade, I was of the mind that the Pirates needed to get Yorke on the first flight to Pittsburgh.
The 22-year old had made the jump from Double-A Portland to Triple-A Worcester just two months before the trade, but was slashing .310/.408/.490 in 38 games.
However, the Pirates organization understandably played it safe and assigned Yorke to their own Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis.
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