Pittsburgh Pirates News: No 2021 Coaching Changes as of now

The Pittsburgh Pirates made a lot of moves last offseason, especially in the dugout.  This year, the expectation is for things to stay quiet on that front.

The 2020 season was a rough season for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  However, the 2019 season may have been even more challenging to watch. While things were bad in 2020, many headed into the season knowing that.  The same could be said for the 2019 team, but there were a lot of other things that went wrong in 2019 that were not supposed to.

Of course, the biggest misstep of 2019 actually came in 2018 when the team traded for Chris Archer.  Archer has been bad for the Bucs, but Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows have been really good for the Rays.  Even more specifically, Glasnow has looked every part of the pitching prospect the Pittsburgh Pirates hoped he would be.

That trade alone could summarize why the Pittsburgh Pirates had to make a lot of changes during the last offseason.  It showed that the now former General Manager had trouble identifying valuable trade chips and that his system was not developing the players to their potential.  For the coaching staff it also reflected that.  Why was a player like Austin Meadows getting such inconsistent playing time when he was recalled?  Why did he start off hot and then all of a sudden look clueless?  Why did Tyler Glasnow, like Gerrit Cole, go on to look like the top of the rotation arm?

This all had to fall on someone, the issue as that the problems compounded so much that everyone involved had to take some of the blame.  So the team made a lot of changes and fired their manager Clint Hurdle, pitching coach Ray Searage, and other bench coaches.  Neal Huntington and several members of the Front Office were also let go.

When the team came out and struggled this year, some did wonder if there would be more changes to come.  Last week, Ben Cherington mentioned on his radio show that there would be some changes coming to the Front Office, ones that they had already been planning on.  In terms of the coaching staff, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tweeted nothing is expected to change:

This is somewhat surprising actually.  While the Pittsburgh Pirates were not expected to do much in 2020, there still is usually someone who has to take the fall for a bad season.  Many thought third base coach Joey Cora would be let go.  After all, many wanted Cora gone last year when the organization let go of Hurdle.

It still should not be overly surprising.  One can look around and find examples of teams who struggle and even more so struggle to develop young players; more often than not, these are the same teams who have no consistency in the dugout.  Keeping guys like Shelton, Rick Eckstein, and Oscar Marin will allow them to continue to work with the young players.  Although, this can all change if another team/coach tries to hire away a staff member from the Pittsburgh Pirates.