Pittsburgh Pirates head coach has been mentally sick as a result of losing his job.
Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates are not in a good mood in late April. They have lost their last five games as of this writing. They are 11-10, and their lack of hitting is a major factor in those ten losses. It’s too many close games lost by them. Many fans have properly called for Andy Haines to be fired, so something has to be done.
Thus, I am writing to the Pittsburgh Pirates as a fervent fan to let them know that a change is necessary and that it’s not too late to make one.
Right now, they have five batters with an OPS below.600—not one, not two. This year, the league average OPS is.701. They rank third in terms of strikeouts at the time of writing this, in baseball. The fact that they lead the league in so-called strike threes is even more worrisome. They’re not swinging at meatball pitches nearly as frequently as they ought to, despite seeing a respectable number of them. They have a below-average barrel rate as a result of having the sixth-highest chase rate. Three-run deficits feel like ten-run deficits right now. The offense has been so bad that the Pirates have thrown away several excellent beginnings.
However, this is nothing new for Andy Haines’ offenses. The Brewers had the fifth-highest strikeout rate while he was with them. Every year during Haines’ tenure, the Brew Crew was in the top ten for called strikeouts. The Brewers as a group scored.235/.312/.396 with a.314 wOBA while Haines was in charge. Between 2019 and 2021, the average triple-slash in the NL was.247/.321/.419.
Under Haines, the Brewers failed to produce a single rookie who was successful over the course of 2019–2021. Hirua Keston is the nearest. He performed admirably as a rookie in 2019, but he had severe difficulties in 2020 and 2021. His most recent season in the major leagues, 2022, saw him emerge from under Haines and record his greatest wRC+ since his rookie campaign in ’19, at 115. During Haines’ tenure as their hitting instructor, only Luis Urias emerged as a true standout.
For the Brewers from 2019 to 2021, almost every good batter was already good. In these four seasons, just one player had a wRC+ of 100 or higher over the course of these three seasons, despite never having been an above-average hitter before moving to Milwaukee. That was Jace Peterson, who had a 76 wRC+ before joining the Brewers and an exact 100 wRC+ in his two seasons with Haines.
Who will step in for Haines in the middle of the season may be a huge ask. Derek Shelton, the manager, may have more responsibilities if they fire him in the first half of the season, as they should. Christian Marrero, the assistant hitting coach, would probably take over as the main man. Shelton is a very accomplished hitting coach. In 2003, Shelton took on his first job as a hitting coach inside their minor league system, Cleveland. He was elevated to the position of Major League hitting coach in 2005 and held it until 2009. They were among the greatest offenses in baseball from 2004 to 2009, hitting.270/.343/.437 with a 106 wRC+. During this time, a number of players, including Coco Crisp, Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, and Shin-Soo Choo, to mention a few, made waves and advanced in the Major Leagues.
