NOVEMBER 24: Pittsburgh is promoting field coordinator Mike Rabelo to third base coach, Mackey reports (on Twitter). Rabelo also spent the 2020 season on staff as the Bucs’ assistant hitting coach. Previous third base coach Joey Cora was let go at the end of the season.
NOVEMBER 23: The Pirates are hiring Andy Haines to be their next hitting coach, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh fired previous hitting instructor Rick Eckstein in August.
Haines, 44, has spent the past three seasons as the Brewers’ hitting coach and previously logged one year on the Cubs’ staff as assistant hitting coach. Milwaukee’s offense was a touch below average over the course of Haines’ tenure on staff. Going back to the start of 2019, Brewers’ hitters (excluding pitchers) have a .243/.328/.425 cumulative line. By measure of wRC+, that checks in two percentage points below the league average, ranking 18th of the league’s 30 teams. Milwaukee ranked 19th in that category in 2021 alone.
The Bucs’ front office and manager Derek Shelton are taking far more than the Brewers’ results into account when deciding on additions to the staff, of course. Haines will be tasked with guiding a Pirates lineup that’ll likely have its share of growing pains over the next few seasons. Pittsburgh’s .243/.317/.376 line this past season was 12 points below league average according to wRC+, the third-worst mark leaguewide. Highly-touted young players like Ke’Bryan Hayes and Oneil Cruz are expected to have key roles on the 2022 club, and their respective developments could go a long way towards determining how quickly the Bucs can return to competitiveness.
Rip Haines future prospects.
The Brewers sure produced an offensive juggernaut the past couple seasons.
Lol good luck to the Pirates and hitting .230
Not an inspiring hire.
Who are these people?!
The bottom line is, does he work cheap?
A coach or manager are only as good as the players.
When multiple hitters regress under a hitting coaches eye, it’s clear to me that he’s a bad coach, and doesn’t know how to relate to hitters. Yes, the hitters still need to hit and the coaches don’t get to do it for them. If the entire class fails an exam year after year, the university tends to look at the professor and put him into the blame mix. Same thing goes here
Watch the brewers offense the last few seasons and you will then realize this hire is such a pirates move.
The philosophy he gave to hitters is swing with you eyes closed
I’m kind of surprised there are no Chili Davis sightings.
The Brewers being below average can be attributed to Yelich getting injured by himself. Cains injury and signing JBJ didn’t help either. If every one goes back to normal, its not like it will be because of a new coach. People just got healthy.
Pirates haven’t had much offense the past 5 years or so. how ever pirates offense has over all been better than most seasons Andy has been involved with. but then again, he was also a coach on many winning teams so… +/-
regardless we need a change. eyeballing it, it doesn’t look like Andy is the person to right the ship, but I will lean to Ben has a better idea what he is doing than the previous GM. so again +/-
should’ve hired Mark McGwire, but he probably would’ve turned it down anyway since Pitt is a long way from home.
Don’t like this hire at all. Does Derek Shelton see himself as the de facto hitting coach anyways? Probably.
No, the overwhelmed peabrain Shelton has too much to do and doesn’t get involved with individual players’ hitting. That task is for the hitting coach only. I’m paraphrasing but that’s what he said last year. I can’t wait til Shelton is fired. He’s been the worst manager since John Russell
Well, we’ve got a new hitting coach, now we just need a few hitters.
RIP Bill Virdon.
Out of all the Pirates news, I wish this was noted on mlbtr.
Amen Bob.One of my favorite all time Pirates.A cerebral hitter who said aw ———— when hit that grounder to Kubek with a runner on first base.RIP Bill Virdon.
RIP, Mr. Virdon. Virdon was a class act. Great Player and a Great Person.
That chocking sound you is the Pirates Owner coming to grips the the floor for teams will be $110M in the new CBA
If there is a floor it will be because him and other owners want it. And they will only want it if it makes them more profit.