The Pirates are making several changes to their coaching staff. Pitching coach Oscar Marin will not have his contract renewed, as first reported by Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Assistant pitching coach Brent Strom and third-base coach Mike Rabelo will also not be returning, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
It was earlier reported that GM Ben Cherington and manager Don Kelly would remain in their current roles. Cherington has been in charge of the front office since November 2019, while Kelly had served as interim manager since taking over for Derek Shelton in May. Kelly had noted on Monday that he and Cherington would meet to discuss the possibility of coaching changes. It appears the staff will indeed see some turnover as the Pirates look to improve in 2026 following a 71-91 season which saw them finish last in the NL Central.
Marin, 42, is perhaps the most notable of the changes. He had been serving as the Pirates’ pitching coach since December 2019, shortly after Cherington took over the front office. In that time, the team improved from a 5.08 ERA in 2021 (16% below average by ERA+) to a 3.76 ERA this year (14% above average). The starting rotation, in particular, benefited from a dominant sophomore effort by Paul Skenes, while the bullpen was anchored by Dennis Santana and David Bednar, before the latter’s trade to the Yankees.
The pitching outlook for next year is promising. As it stands, Skenes will be joined by Mitch Keller (barring an offseason trade) at the front of the rotation, while Bubba Chandler and Mike Burrows should be in the mix for season-opening spots. Jared Jones is recovering from UCL surgery but could be back within the first couple months. All three pitchers are controlled through at least 2028. Santana could return as the team’s closer in 2026, though he’s an impending free agent who could be in trade rumors himself. Braxton Ashcraft and Justin Lawrence also performed well out of the ’pen in 2025 and remain under team control for several years, although Ashcraft may be in contention for a rotation spot himself.
Strom, 76, has been the assistant pitching coach for just under a year, having been hired in November 2024. He had previously served as the pitching coach for the Astros from 2014-21, followed by a stint with the Diamondbacks for the 2022-24 seasons. He is known among players for blending an old-school mentality with an appreciation for analytics. While there were initial reports that Strom was contemplating retirement, the longtime coach tells Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic that he does not intend to retire and is open to offers from other teams. Strom told Rosenthal that he made the decision to leave the Pirates and informed the club of that call six weeks ago.
Rabelo, 45, was originally hired by the Pirates as an assistant hitting coach in 2020 before becoming their major league field coordinator in January 2021. He has served as the third-base coach since the 2022 season and has also acted as a bench coach since Kelly’s elevation to the manager post in May. This year, Pirates baserunners tied for last in the majors in extra bases taken on hits with 103.
Heading into the offseason, the club appears to be making these changes with the hope of building on their pitching core and making marginal improvements on offense. The Pirates are expected to carry a bottom-tier payroll once again, although they only have $31MM on the books in the contracts for Keller and Bryan Reynolds and might look to make marginal upgrades through one-year deals for free agents. If the team can add additional offensive pieces to complement Reynolds, Spencer Horwitz, and Oneil Cruz while the pitchers take another step forward, the club may look to finish at .500 in 2026.
Bring back Joey Cora as 3B coach😂😂
At least give the guy his choice of coaches to go down in flames with, It’s only fair. BTW I heard this wail from the southwest here in Chicago then I heard the Cards are bringing back Marmol and I understood.
Yea it’s dark times here in stl, tbh I’d rather see the cards go with chat gpt as manger than another year of marmol. Heck at this point I’d take back matheny if that means no more marmol
Matheny was the culprit who managed the team to the best total MLB three year long record to beat out the other very good team in their division each of the three years.
He must not have been too bad.
@mendoza
Kinda while the win loss was good it was more of winning in spite than his abilities and his bullpen management was bad. My biggest problem with him was he never grew as a manager kept making the same mistakes every year. one thing I will give matheny he at least knew the game where marmol just looks lost when things go by the pre planed script
I did not really know enough but for those three years the results were there.
From what I saw of Cardinals fans though you pretty much echo their thoughts.
@mendoza
A lot of us weren’t happy about the hire, I wasn’t either because I wanted an experienced manager not this is there first job. However I kept an open mind and gave him a chance because he was a former catcher and played under tlr but start of his 3rd year doing the same things over and over, and never gave the young guys a real shot. Matheny played favorites and if you weren’t on his list you had to play perfect or you just might sit. It was time for him to go, tbh biggest mistake was letting schlidt go tbh he was the reason the team made to the postseason because when he took over we really weren’t that good
I was hoping that the Pirates would hire Shildt several years ago but I think that you have to really toe the company line with the Pirates.
Francona would have been nice last year too.
The Pirates need a new owner who cares about winning and a new GM who can grow in the job unlike Cherington.
@mendoza
I fully agree, you get an owner that cares and least puts out the effort to build a winner that stadium will sell out.
This is definitely shuffling the chairs on the Titanic
At least the “Titanic” made sense in theory. The Pirates? Not so much.
Why would you compare the Pirates to the titanic? The titanic is known widely and is still explored today. Pirates are more like the Russian Commercial air fleet still in operation 60 years later. No upgrades, parts, and replacement planes to commute passengers. They are dropping out of the sky at rapid rates and have been obsolete. Much like the Pirates, same thing year after year and no upgrades, additions, or key replacements in key areas of management. No money to improve this team or people with intelligence to develop kids in the system. Yup, Pirates are a disaster from the sky, not the sea.
The usual Pirates adventures in nothingness. Marin might have been the only coach on staff who had a clue, so it shouldn’t be a surprise they sent him packing.
Next up, signing bottom tier free agents because the Pirates front office believes it’s close to contending. Hilarious. Replacing one of the racing pierogis or hearing the Pirates lost their fireworks vendor would be more impactful
Unless Nutting fires himself, nothing will change here
Yeah agreed seemed like if Marin had the pulse of a very promising pitching staff. Utterly unfair firing…
If Marin gets a job with another team in 5 minutes, which i believe he might, it will be perceived as an awful move by the Bucs.
He was average at best. That isn’t good enough for Pittsburgh.
Cherington encouraged players to be open with him in exit meeting so maybe they didn’t care for Oscar.
Never thought he was Leo Mazzone, Ray Miller or even Ray Searage, but the guy was likely one coach who had some success here
Average should be the benchmark here but ok
I agree.It is rare that mediocrity should be the established goal for a professional sports team but for the Pirates,Cherington,and Nutting it is becoming a lifelong obsession.
Why does everyone forget just how awful this guy has been the past few years?
He was blessed with a generational freak in Skenes and some good prospects.
Until this year the Pirates were consistently in the bottom 3rd of the league in ERA.
If he was awful how good have the hitting coaches been?
If he was awful why did it take until now to figure it out?
If he was awful why did the Pirates have one of the best pitching staffs in MLB?
Oscar Marin was not the problem.
Nutting and Cherington are the problems.
BS. Marin was given an amazing staff this season. Again look at the staff the last 3 years. Marin didn’t suddenly wake up and figure out how to coach.
He should have been last off season and no one would have blinked an eye.
Why do you think they brought in Strom? I’d argue it’s an amazing coincidence that once he was hired the staff improved. You knew he was awful the last couple years, don’t play dumb.
We can keep firing hitting coaches year after year. To me it’s a development issue. They come up and have a couple good months and get figured out and nothing is done to change their approach. But I’d agree the HC should be gone as well.
You conveniently forget Oviedo both pre and post surgery. You failed to mention Ortiz’s development. Maybe you watched Jones trying to muscle the ball by everyone early on and then begin to mix pitches before his injury. Falter became a decent starter here.
It’s not that I was a big Marin fan, but his was the one area that *didn’t* need a complete overhaul
Using your logic, the young pitchers are ready made from the jump and had success this year just by getting to the majors. That may apply to Skenes but few others.
It’s funny you talk about 2024. Bednar fell apart. Chapman was a nightmare to watch in relief. Two stiffs that the GM brought in were lousy. Holderman had problems. To you, this is all on Marin but the successes were like magic. They happened by themselves.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It was a dumb firing, on a team that needs help everywhere *except* pitching
TJ-They brought in Strom because he had previous success and figured that another good coach would help.
Why would he leave and want to coach somewhere else at 76 if it did not have to do with the Pirates organization?
Will they bring him back if the problem was Oscar?
It is obvious to me that Cruz wants out and Hayes did too and got his wish in one of the few good trades that Cherington has made.
I don’t play dumb.See the OldTimer response which looks at the overall picture.
Who is the dumb one?
Can you see the forest for the trees?
What happened two years ago when Cherington fired the minor league hitting coach who helped Hayes have his best year?
How do you know that Marin did not help the young pitchers get to where they are?Do you think that it happens by magic?
Of course it is a development issue but both hitters and pitchers have to consistently adjust once they are developed.
That is where coaches come in.
I presume that HC means BC unless he has a middle name starting with H.At least we can agree on that.
Old timer he finished on average 19th in the league in ERA…he is a bum.
Who is he. Macbeth? Too many bums to go around.
Marin. The guy responsible for 6 of the last 7 years of failed pirates pitching performance.
Old-There weren’t too many when I was a young man going to the beach and your name was YoungTimer.
By the way,I checked out the Pirates pitchers since 2020 and very few are still in the majors.
Many were AAA pitchers and some were not even good ones.
It was a wonder why Oscar just did not quit then like Strom just did.
I read in the Trib yesterday that during the players’ exit interviews with Cherington, Skenes didn’t give glowing opinions about Marin and could have been reason why his contract wasn’t renewed
Thanks for posting this. I’d say this means a great deal in evaluations. Sheds a lot of light on the issue
Paul-I find it hard to believe that Skenes needs any sort of coaching.He is a self starter better left alone.
If he was speaking for others they should have said something themselves.
There may be lots not known by outsiders.
But the last two years are the only ones that Oscar had anything to work with and I find it odd that all of these young pitchers developed on their own like Skenes did.
Deck chairs on the Titanic
Wow this is the big news we were waiting for.
Pirates odds of reaching World Series have really changed.
Pitching has been their lone bright spot so of course fire the pitching coach.
Is Marin the fall guy for Cherington letting Priester go?
I think Nutting just picked Marin at random to burn at the altar of the bleacher gods who rioted when it was announced Cherington was staying. This won’t solve anything, but it’s not intended to.
Quite possibly true.
Nutting may be a paid magician who knows how to deflect people’s attention while he gets the result that he really wants.
But some of us are slow,but not stupid.
They have gotten away with their BS one too many times with me.
Why would you fire the guy in charge of the only good thing your team is doing?
Because they had to fire someone and they could not fire the hitting coach after only one year.
This is the result of keeping Cherington.Fire your best coach.
What does it tell you that Strom wanted out before the season ended?
F———
Because he isn’t good enough. Pitching is good because they have good pitchers.
Also since the pitching is good Oscar might even probably thinks it’s because of him. Wanted a raise. Big mistake.
Why did Strom want out?
I’m too old for this it
But the fact that he still wants to coach tells me that he was not aware of what he might be getting into.
As the it may be referring to the Pirates.
Strom must’ve got tired of working with the bland & dry personality of Paul Skenes!
Giddy up giddy up .409
A+ firing
any manager who has signed a contract after being named interim the season before is entitled to his own hand picked coaching staff
I don’t have a problem with cutting Marin loose. He couldn’t fix Holderman or Morietta, both whose careers were far better than the recent season. Granted, TJ surgery hampers pitchers coming back at times, there’s no excuse for at least Holderman to have lost his ability to find the plate
Those 2, plus Keller’s 2nd half struggles.
No pitching coach is a magician. Searage was great with reclamation projects but not so good with kids. Mazzone had a generational staff in Atlanta but what happened with Avery? What happened after the era of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz ended?
You can pick out pieces of failure for any pitching coach but I thought Marin’s work with Oviedo was noteworthy. Skenes may have come ready-made but we watched Jones evolve last summer. Falter became a pitcher here. And Ortiz showed promise before they shipped him away
It’s just a dumb firing, that’s all.
It’s typical front office
what exactly wrong with a manager picking his own coaching staff?
I get what you’re saying, Tired, but this team is in dire need of new blood on the lower management staff.
I am hoping they don’t bring Vogelbach.
He was. a high strikeout and low average hitter when he played.
What exactly does he do to help this offense get better?
I’m a little confused by your reply, TheMan3
There’s an old adage that says if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
You likely read Noah Hyles’ report card in today’s PG. Even if you didn’t think the pitching was as good as he did , how do you fire this guy?
Shouldn’t the focus of Kelly be hitting, fielding, hustling and culture? Doesn’t that mean his plate his already overflowing? You’d think he’d want to have one area he can relax about but now he has to bring a new pitching coach on board? How does this make sense?
And please, you really believe Kelly has the leeway to name his own coaches?
It’s not that I thought Marin is an exceptional pitching coach but rather, his own areas warranted an extension. I don’t know that there’s any other coach here that deserved the same. And that includes Kelly himself.
Old- It seems that Paul may have posting in general and perhaps about the lower level coaching help.
If anything they have too much of many positions including analytics.
I think that once Cherington actually is fired in 12 years when Nutting sells the team that many things will come out in a book called Pirates Oddities.
And I agree with you.Why try to fix something that isn’t broke when you have so many areas that are broke.
I agree on this. The new manager should be able to choose their coaching staff. Not only is it necessary for new blood and possibly/hopefully a culture shift, but these dudes are going to be around and with each other alooooot. If they don’t have rapport and/or are not aligned from the jump, it’s horrible.
Old-I think that I have become even more negative on the Pirates than you and Paul.
Who turned Santana around?Ben Cherington?
Why would you make a major change to something that is working?
The answer- Ben Cherington.
Management and ownership is not progressive,it is regressive.
That means that the absence thereof would be progressive.
Why don’t posters understand that after six long years Derek Shelton,one of the worst managers ever,basically equaled the record of Don Kelly,and for two seasons.
The common denominator- you guessed it,Ben Cherington.
F ——- decision on Nutting’s part.
I have been listening to the daily shot of Dejan Koval—- and while I had thought that he was always negative it seems that he actually did have contacts with the Pirates.He claims that Nutting actually was smart enough to fire Shelton and Cherington would have kept him.He also said that Nutting said that Cherington would be fired at the end of the year.I could hear the pain in DK’s voice when Cherington was not fired because he had been saying all year that direct from the Pirates ownership he would be.
I think that Cherington is actually in the bottom third of GM’s and the Pirates and all small market teams need one at least in the upper third.
I am afraid of him trading anyone since he has no clue on how to make MLB trades.
I don’t do this often but I am agreeing with TheMan3 on this. A manager should have the ability to pick their own staff, then they sink or swim with that staff. In other circumstances, it may have not made sense to let Marin go, but a new manager should be able to pick their own coaching staff.
I understand your point,but Kelly will be the one to pay the price,albeit eventually five years from now,for not keeping the one coach that helped to form one of the best pitching staffs in the league.
If I was Kelly,there would have to have been some pretty bad things about Marin to fire him.
And the GM should have a veto on that also for an existing coach unless Kelly had really good reasons to let him go.
No team is going to obtain players until after the World Series ends
BC will be the primary pitching coach after reading his press clippings from 2025. He has been proclaimed a genius by the national media for building a young potential top five pitching staff. He should remember what he did to Oscar when things go south in 2026. What’s Luck Got To Do With It.
I saw the Williams and Cherington end of year interviews and they are both bs artists.
Cherington is spouting what Shelton used to-we just have to be better.
We need to win more.
Doh!!!
Williams is saying that they have to make the playoffs in 2026.
But neither will say what will change.
Cherington says the same thing that he said last year- the young hitters have to get better.
The only way that that they will have a decent hitting team is if Travis Williams suddenly becomes a young Ted Williams.
Quite frankly the only way that the Pirates will improve next year is if they have the same start that they had this year and Nutting finally figures out the real culprit and fires Cherington early in the season.
Then Oscar will remember what Cherington did to him.
Why doesn’t the article mention Johann Oviedo as a piece of the starting rotation? He’s still under control, right? I don’t have high hopes for Jared Jones. He just seems like he’s going to be perpetually injured.
They did not name the starting rotation for next year and concentrated on saying the young pitchers that the system developed.
They may not have even thought of Oviedo.
I may get lit up for this, but in my personal opinion, if I were GM, Jared Jones would be my closer.
Gooch- Not a bad idea.
Jones may not have the body to pitch five or six innings every five days.He will break down again.
If they keep Keller and Oviedo they may not need him to start.
I think that could work!
The old mantra with any pitching coach = a pitching coach will positively impact 1/3 of the staff, be neutral with 1/3 of the staff and be a detriment to the other 1/3
Enjoying reading your stuff so far, AJ. Welcome!
I assume Oscar asked for a nice raise since he was the only coach that can show positive results on this ship of fools. He will get one somewhere else. Can’t have competence messing up the vibe in the ‘Burgh.
Marin was just a sacrificial lamb slaughtered at the altar. Seems like cherrington and nutting are looking for fall guys. So they can look good. We’ll you can’t make dog dung look good. But cherrington and nutting keep stepping in it.
I think that it may very well be like Cherington’s major trades and be regressive and hurt the team rather than help the team.
I never really saw Marin as a compelling coach, the pitchers have generally performed according to their abilities throughout his tenure. Perhaps he helped identify a few things in terms of pitch usage that helped guys (Dennis Santana comes to mind), perhaps someone else was responsible for that. More often than not, every coach in professional baseball finds it his duty to tinker and tweak regardless of the results a player is getting. I’m sure Marin was no different.
Coaches can’t go out on the field and execute. What I feel was lacking with Marin was coaching up the knowledge of the staff to recognize when a pitch was ineffective or to make an adjustment to the game plan in the middle of an at-bat based on something the pitcher saw from the batter.
Whoever replaces these three guys probably won’t move the needle much one way or the other, because there simply aren’t enough players on the roster who can execute consistently on the offensive side of the ball. I see a profound lack of understanding specific players personalities when it comes to coaching hitting — too many guys look like they are stepping into the box thinking about whatever advice they’ve just gotten. Not every guy is suited to in-game advice, other guys can immediately adjust. I don’t think Hague gives bad advice, I just don’t think some of the younger players (Cruz, Davis, Suwinski) can focus on much else besides concentrating on putting the bat on the ball.
I would think that batters should have different general plans depending on who they may face during the game.They would be cookie cutter and memorized in spring training not for specific pitchers but for general methods for each type of pitcher.
These would be refined before each game for the specific pitcher but would be based on the plans that they had memorized well in advance so they did not have nearly as much to think about during their at bat.
They could even be altered during the game after seeing what the pitcher has that day.
You bring up a number of points I can agree with, Pundit
I liked this comment: “ Coaches can’t go out on the field and execute. What I feel was lacking with Marin was coaching up the knowledge of the staff to recognize when a pitch was ineffective or to make an adjustment to the game plan in the middle of an at-bat based on something the pitcher saw from the batter.”
Well, this was especially true with Priester and perhaps others. I’ll spare you from listing pitchers Marin obviously helped to develop that I noted above. To me, a good pitching coach can refine mechanical problems and strengthen a pitcher’s mental approach. Sure. But he can’t pitch for them in game situations. I get all that. And again, it’s not that I was a huge fan but to me at least, his work here precluded being let go.
The second part of your post again speaks to the lack of solid player development within this franchise. The lack of knowledge in all phases of the game, from hitting to defense to base running, is glaring. Things that should have been learned in minor league ball, if not before.
Heard uncle ray was coming back
Anyone saying Marin is good outside of this year what were his average finish in ERA or WHIP has been for the team. The guy is an absolute BUM.
And yet his pitchers led the league in shutouts. His team led the league in one run losses.
Again, Marin could come or go for all I care.
But if you’re gonna identify “bums”you’d better start looking at every other facet of this pathetic franchise first.
All I continue to say is, firing him was a ridiculous move
Yeah you’re picking ONE season. His previous 6 were hot garbage. Let’s look at his average finish in ERA for his ENTIRE tenure with the team he averages 19th in team ERA. 19th. If you remove this year which is an outlier it is mid 20s.
He wasn’t fired either his contract expired and he was not extended. That isn’t a firing at all.
How is it ridiculous to move on from a guy who posts team ERAs and WHIPs in the mid 20s for 6 years out of 7. Very confused how 1 of 7 success is good.
Be logical here.
My logic involves the bigger picture. I’ve said this repeatedly throughout this thread and don’t want to regurgitate and then bore you
I get your point where your stats are concerned. You’re conveniently skipping over truths I’ve noted above. And that’s fine
The point remains that literally no one in a position of authority with the Pirates should be retained. If only Nutting could fire himself.
This is such a pathetic franchise that it got rid of a guy overseeing the only bright spot it has had
That’s the point.
This isn’t the Mets, where pitching caved in
It’s not a team that outslugged everyone else and won games despite pitching.
It’s like having a Corvette with a blown engine and deciding the brakes are the problem
ERA doesnt care about the hitters, whip the same way. He has not gotten the most out of people not named skenes.
I’d say he’s had a lot of scrap to work with here until Skenes, Jones, Ashcroft and Bubba got here. I’d say he taught Oviedo how to pitch. You’ll remember his first dozen starts, I’m sure. He refined Ortiz until the Pirates dumped him. Falter became pretty decent starter here. He taught Jones to mix pitches.
Take a look at some of the guys he’s had to work with from the Nutting bargain basement bin and get back to me
And we’ll never know what he was doing with the young pitchers arriving here. Failed with Priester. Mlodzinski is hot and cold.
He’s nowhere near Searage. Or Ray Miller
In reality, contract extensions or declines are part of baseball life. And as a fan, I really couldn’t care less
But to me at least, not extending a guy in charge of your lone bright spot just strikes me as typical weird Pirates moves
I think he has had some good and some bad, but he is simply not good enough for the talent that is here now and that is coming up.
Skenes is good exclusive to anything Marin brings, and the same will go for Bubba and Barco. Keller has been solid but also has dipped towards the 2nd half in recent years and that cannot continue. He has the stuff to be better and he shows it, but he isn’t maintaining it and he is the mentor/veteran at this point which is a need with the youth we have in skenes, bubba, barco, ashcraft, harrington, burrows, and others.
He has done a great job with the bullpen considering what he was given. A lot of failures but that is also due to the front office bringing in a revolving door of garbage to see what sticks. For every Santana there are four or five Yohan Ramirez types.
Marin’s successes were in turning cheap generic pitchers into useful contributors. Falter is a good example. Heaney was pitching well before he lost too much velocity to separate his fastball from his change. Santana and Mattson – 2 scrap heap generic righties- were quite good. That’s a skill that a team that is never going to pay anyone needs.