4 key Pirates coaching additions that should justify their staff overhaul

Brent Strom, Assistant Pitching Coach

The Pirates went out of their way to create a position for a coach whom they were probably surprised became available. Strom has a reputation as one of the best pitching coaches of this century. He's been in the dugout for four of the last eight World Series (three with Houston, one with Arizona) but was made the scapegoat after the Diamondbacks, who won 89 games and led MLB in runs scored, missed last year's postseason on a tiebreak.

Since 2015, seven pitchers under Strom's tutelage have received Cy Young votes, including Dallas Keuchel's stunning victory in 2015, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole getting the top two AL spots in 2019, and Zac Gallen, who found himself on the ballot twice, including a 2023 campaign where he was a finalist and received a first-place vote.

Strom seemed to have transformed the trajectory of starters like Verlander, Cole, Keuchel, Gallen, Zack Greinke, Charlie Morton, and Merrill Kelly. There may be no better candidate to enable Mitch Keller to take another step while setting the course for young pitchers like Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, and Bubba Chandler, who have some of the highest ceilings of any arms in the sport.

While Strom isn't specifically overseeing the bullpen (we'll get there in a minute), that was a strong unit on both of his previous teams as well. Four previously unheralded pitchers (Will Harris, Chris Devenski, Ryan Pressly, Joe Mantiply) all received All-Star nods while pitching out of Strom's bullpens. That bodes well for a Pirates team that needs a bounce-back from David Bednar and is looking for other arms like Colin Holderman, Dennis Santana, Carmen Mlodzinski, Kyle Nicolas, and Justin Lawrence to step up in leverage roles.