Pirates promote Chernow to head of coaching and player development (source)

The Pirates are promoting Michael Chernow as their new director of coaching and player development, per a source, completing a major front-office shakeup of multiple development heads.

Chernow had spent the last three seasons as an assistant to John Baker, the former director of coaching and player development, which is known more colloquially as a farm director across the league. He worked as a coordinator for Pirates player development before that.

It was reported in November that Baker will become the director of the performance team. Baker joined the Pirates organization in 2020 as the director of coaching and player development and will now oversee areas such as strength and conditioning, nutrition, mental skills and sports science.

“In Bake, we started to think, 'OK, we got someone here who's got Major League playing experience,’” general manager Ben Cherington said during the Winter Meetings. “He's got training and a degree in mental skills. He's performed in a mental skills job for a winning team. He's performed in one of the roles that would be part of the performance group. And now, he's been overseeing coaching now for four years.

“So he's got his hands on all the coaching process. And your farm director, you're obviously collaborating with strength coaches and everybody in the Minor Leagues around player improvement. And he had real interest. He expressed a real desire to do this and sees it as a really good challenge for him and for the team."

Chernow is the final new department head in a major front-office shakeup this winter. In addition to Baker changing roles, the Pirates also have hired Max Kwan as the director of international scouting, Kevin Tenenbaum as the organization’s vice president of research and development and Michael Voltmer as vice president of professional evaluation and strategy. All three were external hirees, though Kwan had spent a decade with the organization in a variety of roles on the scouting side before leaving for the Boras Corporation after 2023.

None of the new director heads have been announced yet by the Pirates.