The Pirates will be hiring Kristopher Negron as their new bench coach and Tony Beasley as the third base coach, according to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Negron has been on the Mariners’ coaching staff for the last four seasons, while Beasley returns to the Pirates organization after spending over a decade with the Rangers.
After concluding his six-year MLB playing career, Negron took on an assistant role in Seattle’s player development department in 2020 and then was the manager at Triple-A Tacoma in 2021. He was then promoted to the big league staff as the first base coach before acting as the Mariners’ third base coach in 2025.
Negron (who turns 40 in February) now takes on his highest-profile coaching job yet, as Don Kelly’s chief lieutenant. Kelly was Pittsburgh’s bench coach himself when he was promoted to the manager’s job in May when Derek Shelton was fired, and though Gene Lamont essentially filled the bench coach role in a capacity as an advisor to Kelly, the position wasn’t officially filled until now.
Beasley is a familiar face in Pittsburgh, having spent six seasons with the Bucs as a minor league player and then several seasons as a manager, coach, and instructor at both the minor and Major League levels. Beasley’s previous stint on Pittsburgh’s MLB staff came in 2008-10, when was the club’s third base coach.
Once that stint ended, Beasley moved on to four years in the Nationals’ farm system as a manager and instructor before he joined the Rangers as their third base coach prior to the 2015 season. Beasley’s time in Texas included a World Series ring with the 2023 team and a 48-game stint as interim manager in 2022 after Chris Woodward was fired.
Negron and Beasley are the latest new faces on a revamped Pittsburgh coaching staff, as Bill Murphy was also hired as the new pitching coach a few weeks ago. The Pirates liked enough of what they saw from Kelly to give him a contract extension at season’s end, and the skipper is now apparently getting some input in reshaping his staff. In a sense there’s nowhere to go but up for a team that has endured seven straight losing seasons, and still hasn’t gotten out of rebuild mode despite the presence of Paul Skenes and an overall enviable amount of pitching depth.
Liking what I’m seeing so far with change with the Buccos. Now it’s time to change to the roster to support the excellent pitching staff⚾
At least they are changing. That is a good sign.
Our teams are similar in that if they just had the offense to go with that pitching….
Yes, but if history is any indication, it’s window dressing. They’ve wasted two seasons of Skenes. Why do I think they’ll only sign or trade for scrap that won’t change much where their hitting woes are concerned?
But yeah, if either of these guys can get into Cruz’s head alone, it’ll be a win
As I said our teams are similar. 😁
Negron was a player in the Reds organization at one time. Smart player who just couldn’t stick in the bigs. I wish him well in his coaching career.
Won’t matter if we continue to sign the same expired retreads on the cheap