Pirates Hire New Vice President of Research and Development
The Pittsburgh Pirates have made their first addition of the offseason.
John Dreker reported that the Pirates have hired Kevin Tenenbaum to become their new vice president of research and development on Tuesday. Tenenbaum previously held the same role with the Cleveland Guardians in 2024.
Tenenbaum began his career in the big leagues with the Baltimore Orioles in 2014 as a baseball operations intern before joining the franchise as an analyst for their analytics department. Tenenbaum held that role for two-and-a-half years before he joined the Guardians.
Tenenbaum joined Cleveland as the assistant director of baseball research and development in 2017 and held that role for four seasons. Before the 2022 season, he was promoted to become the director of the same department. As the director of the research and development department, Tenenbaum's primary focus was on mentoring the staff along with recruiting.
After two seasons as the director, Tenenbaum was promoted again, becoming the vice president of the research and development department. He led the group before joining the Pirates.
If there was an organization to hire a person away from, the Guardians are one of the teams that should be on the list. In Tenenbaum's tenure in Cleveland, he got to witness the team make five playoff appearances in five of his eight seasons with the ballclub. He also oversaw the turnover from longtime manager Terry Francona to Stephen Vogt in 2024.
In Vogt's first season managing the Guardians, they went 92-69, won the American League Central and reached the championship series before getting eliminated by the New York Yankees in five games.
While it's unknown the actual impact Tenenbaum has, hiring someone from an organization that was consistently in the playoffs or the hunt for a spot in the postseason is more than likely a good thing for a Pirates team that's looking to snap a nine-year streak of missing the playoffs.
