The Pirates have been mediocre for awhile. But in 2019, they look a tad worse than that. Blame can go everywhere for sure and the team needs help in every aspect.
However, I think lost in all the talking of changing up the roster for success, we lose sight of a very important aspect where they could improve that may actually be more important. Yes, I’m talking about coaching.
The Pirates need a near clearing out of this coaching staff and it needs to happen this offseason.
And it begins at the top with manager Clint Hurdle. I appreciate what Hurdle has done to bring relevancy back to this team but they are now losing that once again as they fall into another pit of despair if things continue this way. Hurdle did a lot of good for the Pirates, but it’s time to move on. The game has passed him by. His voice was refreshing at the beginning of his tenure but now it’s just old and tired. He’s become stale after nearly a decade as Pirates manager (it’s been that long already).
There needs to be a new voice. They need to do what plenty of other teams have done and get themselves a younger manager that fully embraces all the analytics and is full of charisma that brings added excitement to the clubhouse. Clint Hurdle doesn’t do that as of present and you can tell. A manager like AJ Hinch of the Astros or Alex Cora of the Red Sox just as a few examples (last 2 World Series champion managers by the way).
But Ray Searage is another major problem. The game has passed him by as well. His philosophy to pitching inside and to contact to get quick outs with the shift took the league by surprise for awhile. But the game has changed since then. Hitters thrive off hitting what the Pirates throw now. Searage hasn’t caught up.
But another thing now plaguing Searage is that Pirates pitchers seem to refuse to listen to him now. Chris Archer has dropped a pitch recently that the Pirates were trying to get him to use more. And apparently Joe Musgrove has become pretty defiant of it too. And Searage recently said he just lets his pitchers throw what they want now. Searage literally can’t get the pitchers to listen to him because they know his recent track record is bad, but Searage doesn’t seem to care either. There’s no leadership amongst the Pirates pitching right now and it’s a mess that needs cleaned up. If Searage isn’t fired after the year, it’s just going to get worse.
The biggest scar for Searage and the turning point of when it went wrong was Gerrit Cole. Cole thrived early when the league didn’t adjust to what the Pirates pitching strategy was. But when the league caught up, Cole struggled and then was traded. He has thrived in Houston because the Astros have worked on his strengths, which is another Searage issue. He tries to fit every pitcher in a mold instead of identifying what each individual does well. That was where he’s gone wrong, mainly with Cole. But also watching his three biggest failures succeed elsewhere three consecutive years (Morton in 2017, Cole in 2018 and Glasnow in 2019) should be more than enough cause to say that this isn’t the guy I want working with my pitchers anymore.
The Pirates also need a younger pitching coach that embraces analytics and can identify strengths and weaknesses of each pitcher instead of trying to make each pitcher the same. I don’t want to throw out names but I would love AJ Burnett. However, I doubt he’d embrace analytics after his tirades over the shift. He’d be fiery though and this club needs that. Plus, who wouldn’t want to see that guy back. Everyone in this city loves him. Perhaps he can come on as an assistant or something. I can dream, right.
This team just basically needs all new coaches altogether. The only major ones worth keeping are the hitting coaches Eckstein and Cruz because they’ve shown tremendous promise for hitters.
It is clear this team just hasn’t been coached well. The players typically aren’t fundamentally sound and that leads to a lot of errors and a lot of mistakes. And those pile up and wind up costing them way too many games with such a low margin for error. If the players can come in here and learn the basics better and get that under wraps, we’d see a difference.
Another reason to bring in new coaching is because something isn’t clicking in teaching. You hear constantly about a player that leaves Pittsburgh and is coached by someone else just picking it up easier. It’s either the Pirates aren’t coaching enough or they are just bad at doing it. In any case, something doesn’t get through and communication is poor on this coaching staff. The coaching staff having plenty of older guys can’t help either. There has to be a gap there with that. Bringing in younger and fresher faces, again, would really help bridge this gap I think.
This coaching staff needs to get new faces, new voices and they need young guys who understand the current game and are going to do the job thoroughly. The Pirates coaching staff now is living in their successes of yesteryear and are kind of just overseeing things more than anything else it seems. It’s time to be done with that and move on.
There is always talk about what players a team can get to become better, but improving the coaching can make a team way more improved than maybe you’d initially think. And getting a new manager and set of coaches that can liven things up a bit as well can really make all the difference as well.
New coaches and a new manager being able to work with these players to try to get the most production out of them is what I want to see. I honestly think there’s a lot of untapped potential with a lot of these players that a new staff could be able to squeeze out (like the potential we usually see when a player leaves Pittsburgh).
You can even see this in practice a bit this year with Eckstein and Cruz, the new hitting coaches. They are younger with more charisma than what they had before with Branson. And they understand the game today more as well. It’s lead to a career year (at least first half) for Josh Bell. It also lead to breakouts from Kevin Newman and Bryan Reynolds. Colin Moran is hitting better too. Marte is doing some of his best hitting in years too. And Jose Osuna has quietly been very productive at the plate in his role, Jacob Stallings too but to a lesser extent. The point is that this has worked for the Pirates. They are getting more production out of many hitters than they had before. So it’s clear this could work in other areas too.
If the Pirates want to really contend, they have to start almost anew with the coaching staff and get a new manager. Even if the front office gets premium talent, this staff would ruin them on arrival. Even the most talented teams can’t overcome bad managing and coaching most of the time. A poor staff is going to lead to a poor team much more often than not.
It’s time to embrace a change to the coaching staff and give this young team a young coaching staff that presents unique ideas and challenges that make the players better and the team better. This team can’t take that next step until that is done.
