Pirates finalize front office staff for 2025

The Pirates announced their leadership and staff updates to the baseball operations department Wednesday, formalizing a busy offseason of changes.

The headlining moves include the hiring of Max Kwan as vice president of international scouting, Mike Voltmer as the vice president of pro evaluation and strategy and Kevin Tenenbaum as vice president of research and development. Michael Chernow has also been promoted to director of coaching and player development, while John Baker -- who previously held that title -- has been promoted to vice president of performance.

All five moves had previously been reported by MLB.com.

Additionally, the Pirates announced several new promotions in the front office, including Jeremy Bleich becoming the organization’s director of pitching development, Trey Rose to director of baseball operations, Dr. Hector Morales to senior director of international development and Minor League applied mental performance and Todd Tomczyk has been promoted to senior director of sports medicine.

Kwan is back with the organization after spending a year with the Boras Corporation. During his time as the organization’s assistant director of international scouting, Kwan helped the Pirates sign players from Asia (Ji Hwan Bae, Tsung Che-Cheng and Jun-Seok Shim), Africa (David Matoma), San Marino (Alessandro Ercolani) and Australia (Brandan Bidois).

Voltmer had spent the past eight years with the Dodgers organization, most recently serving as their director of baseball and strategy and information, a position he held for more than three years. Tenenbaum spent the previous seven seasons with the Guardians and broke into a Major League front office with the Orioles as analyst of baseball analytics in 2015.

Bleich will oversee organizational pitching skill development. That includes working closely with pitching leadership at all levels to help define the vision and primary philosophies of the organization while also refining and leading coaching and development. Bleich is entering his sixth season with the organization, spending the first four as a member of the Major League coaching staff before becoming the assistant director of pitching last season.

Rose is entering his ninth season with the Pirates, first joining as a fellow in the baseball operations department in 2017. He spent the past three seasons as the assistant director of baseball operations.

The formal announcements conclude what has been a busy offseason from the front-office standpoint, one that may have been more in-depth than previously envisioned months ago.

"It's the most I can remember in a concentrated amount of time,” general manager Ben Cherington said at the Winter Meetings in December. “There wasn't a grand plan to have this much happening in this concentrated amount of time.

“Over a 12-month time, we saw an opportunity to add or adjust personnel in all of those areas in order to keep pushing forward and innovating as fast as we can, executing as well as we can. Over a 12-month period, there's not a single part of baseball operations that hasn't been touched, including the Major League staff. I'm really excited about that. We're really excited about that. Now, obviously, the proof's in the pudding. We've got to go and continue to do the work, and show that that's going to lead to great results."