Pirates Next Manager Should Consider Retaining Hitting Coaches
A transformative offseason for the Pittsburgh Pirates was punctuated Monday morning with the news that Neal Huntington was removed from his position during a meeting Sunday with Bob Nutting. This was preceded by Frank Coonelly meeting the same fate last week.
Consequently, the Pirates are facing many questions. Questions for which the answers will no doubt trickle down to more members within the Pirates’ organization.
Let’s go back to the end of the season when Clint Hurdle was fired as manager of the Pirates. That singular move cast question marks on every single member of the management staff. It’s commonly accepted that when a new manager is hired, that person would be allowed to make their own decisions as to how they construct the staff. The Pirates have already helped clear the path by dismissing both Ray Searage and Tom Prince.
There were many areas worthy of scrutiny and overt failure in the coaching ranks this season, but not all decisions are cut from the same cloth.
This brings me to the hitting coaches: Rick Eckstein and Jacob Cruz. Patient at bats, solid contact, rarely looking overmatched were all attributes you could freely toss around with many of the players this season and this club featured two rookies leading the charge on most nights. Consistency from Marte, power from Bell, lefty improvement for Moran, and a penchant to not strike out became narratives to the point that even Geritt Cole struck out only 4 batters when facing the Pirates in Houston.
So, should the Pirates make an exception when it comes to their hitting coaches? Should they go so far as to make their retention a condition which they would expect a newly hired manager to accept? Probably not, but a manager with no ready-made staff in mind should at least consider keeping them. Why keep anyone from a staff that lost 93 games and finished 27 out of 30 teams in homeruns? Well, maybe you don’t, but you at least consider it when that same club finished 5 in team batting average.
The offense thrived at things that could be taught. Vision, discipline, hitting to all fields and situational contact. These are things a good coaching staff instills to maximize the talent a group of players already possess. Many of the failings this club experienced in the batter’s box were shortcomings that can’t be taught - namely, speed and power. Those shortcomings are not a reflection of the hitting coaches, rather the talent presented to them.
One example of how Cruz and Eckstein maximized talent, was Kevin Newman. Newman absolutely shattered his homerun totals from any level of professional baseball he has ever participated. His previous high-water mark came in 2016 when he played for both Bradenton and Altoona where he crushed 5 whole homeruns. He improved that number in 2019 during his first year in the MLB to 12, without sacrificing the contact hitter he has shown as he progressed through the system. Eckstein and Cruz identified raw power in Newman’s swing.
Tim Williams of PiratesProspects.com reported on Eckstein and Cruz from spring training this year. Eckstein discussed the duos data-driven approach:
“We’re able to teach now off of those metrics, where before it was just about eyeballing the swing, and you could tell a player ‘I want you to do this’ and there was no reason why. Now we have reason, because of the data. We’re able to assess the body, how the body works, and then produce a swing that best fits that body type, those movements, that’s going to help the player have success.”
The Pirates may not be done making moves with the management of baseball operations yet, and they certainly are not done interviewing and searching for coaching candidates. They’d be wise to keep an open mind toward retaining these two impact coaches as they move into the next chapter with many returning pieces. They could be an X factor in the hire of the next manager.
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