11/7 From 1980: '83 FA Exit, Syd Hired in '85 - Fired In '88 For Larry, Diaz & Cordova Sign, Paul ROTY, Jake GG; HBD Rafael & Roansy
- 1983 – Dave Parker, Jim Bibby, Kent Tekulve, Richie Hebner, Miguel Dilone and Dave Tomlin became free agents and entered the convoluted compensation draft; only Teke (three years + option/$1M per year) and Tomlin (who spent two years at AAA Hawaii) returned to the Pirates. Parker went to Cincinnati, Bibby to Texas, Hebner to the Chicago Cubs and Dilone to Montreal.
- 1985 – Leaked by the media, Syd Thrift was officially hired to replace the retiring Joe Brown as GM, signing a two-year deal. (Joe was on interim status, holding the seat after Pete Peterson was dismissed. He helped make Syd’s selection after turning down an offer to make his job full-time). Thrift’s last baseball job had been in 1976, and he was working in real estate in Virginia when he got the call, still highly regarded in baseball as a talent evaluator despite the hiatus.
- 1988 – After a month-long search, the Pirates replaced Syd Thrift with Larry Doughty as GM, three years to the day after they officially announced Syd’s hiring. Doughty had been hired from the Reds and became the Pittsburgh assistant GM in 1987, served a brief apprenticeship as the acting GM and was passed the torch. His forte was in player evaluation; with Cincinnati, he had been the head of their scouting department. The Pirates won division titles in ‘90 and ‘91, but Doughty caught flak for his handling of young talent, losing top prospects like Wes Chamberlain on a waiver snafu and Moisés Alou via trade. In 1992, the club’s new president, Mark Sauer, replaced Doughty with Ted Simmons.
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| Francisco Cordova – 1997 Topps Stadium Club |
- 1997 – The Pirates reached agreement with RHP Francisco Cordova on a three-year/$4.1M contract with an option year. Cordova went 11-8/3.63 with a nine-inning no-hitter during the season. Overall, he went 27-32 over the three guaranteed seasons of the deal, but his ERA zoomed each year, from 3.31 to 4.43 to 5.21 as arm troubles limited his effectiveness. After his MLB days, the lefty went home to toss in his native Mexico from 2002 through 2011.
- 1999 – RHP Roansy Contreras was born in Peralvillo, Monte Plata, Dominican Republic. Signed by the Yankees in 2017 as an international FA, he had a strong 2019 Class A campaign with Charleston before the minor-league 2020 season was scrubbed and then became part of the package sent to Pittsburgh for Jameson Taillon. An early season forearm injury limited him to 60 IP, mainly at Altoona, but he showed enough to get the call during the Bucs final 2021 homestand and an off season assignment to the Arizona Fall League. The Pirates were careful with his innings in 2022, when he went 5-5/3.79. He slid downhill in ‘23, going 3-7/6.59 with a loss of velocity, and was demoted from the rotation in late May. The Bucs sent him to Florida to tinker with his mechanics, then sent him to Indy (4.69 in 32-1/3 IP) before shutting him down in late September. He was ho-hum in ‘24 and sold to the Angels; they cut him and several teams later, he’s now with the Rockies.
- 2000 – C/1B Rafael Flores was born in Anaheim, California. Flores was named the Minor League Player of the Year for the New York Yankees by Baseball America in 2024 when he hit .279/21 HRs/68 RBIs in 124 games after signing with the Yankees as an undrafted free agent in 2022. He was the main piece of the 2025 David Bednar deal with NYY, had a brief but productive stint at Indy and was called up in September, playing both 1B and C as the Bucs gave him a quick peek.
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| Rafael Flores – 2025 photo/Pirates |
- 2005 – Owner Kevin McClatchy denied rumors that the Pirates had been sold to Dallas Maverick owner/Mt. Lebanon native Mark Cuban. McClatchy told Paul Meyer of the Post Gazette bluntly that “..the team was not for sale.” But the ownership deck was being shuffled: by January 2007, shareholder Bob Nutting had taken over as the principal owner of the club.
- 2008 – Scout Rene Gayo signed 18-year-old C Elias Diaz out of Venezuela. Eli developed slowly but steadily, outpunching first-round prospects Tony Sanchez and Reese McGuire. Baseball America named him the best defensive catcher in the minors in 2014. After being injury-bitten and sputtering in his early MLB calls, Diaz broke out in 2018 and became Fran Cervelli’s heir apparent, shaking his earlier backup rep, but then backtracked in the 2019 campaign. He was released in the offseason, went to Colorado and then San Diego; he’s an FA now.
- 2021 – C Jake Stallings won a Rawlings Golden Glove award, beating out Yadi Molina and JT Realmuto. He was the first Pirates catcher to win the award since 1987 when Spanky LaValliere took the gold. The only other Bucco backstop to ever earn a GG was Tony Pena, who took the prize twice, in 1983 and again in ‘85. Pittsburgh also had two other Golden Glove finalists who were in the race but fell short, CF Bryan Reynolds and SS Kevin Newman.
- 2024 – Rolls in, rolls in, how the honors roll in…Paul Skenes was selected as Baseball Digest’s Rookie of the Year. Skenes was the fifth Pirate pup to be named NL Rookie of the Year by BD, joining Johnny Ray (1982), Jason Kendall (1996), Warren Morris (1999) and Jason Bay (2004).
Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2025/11/117-from-1980-83-fa-exit-syd-hired-in.html
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