Pirates plan to keep entire coaching staff

The Pirates are planning to keep their entire big league coaching staff as long as their coaches aren't hired away by other organizations, Karen Price writes.

“We like our current staff, and, barring opportunities elsewhere, we do not foresee any changes at this point,” Huntington said.

Clearly, the Pirates' coaches should be retained, and it would be pretty hard to argue otherwise. The Bucs got either good or great offensive seasons from many of their key contributors, and they got good results from starting pitchers like Vance Worley and Edinson Volquez as well. Also, every report I've read indicates the Pirates' coaching staff is a high-functioning and cohesive group that listens to advice from elsewhere in the organization. Aside from some tactical moves with which we've sometimes disagreed, there's little to dislike about them.

The one area where the coaching staff might not have helped as much as it could have this year was in the bullpen, where Jason Grilli and Bryan Morris struggled before performing well with new organizations. The Bucs also didn't have any success with Ernesto Frieri. Overall, though, this was a terrific year for the Pirates' coaches. When you're outside an organization, it's hard not to be results-oriented in evaluating coaches, because a lot of what coaches do isn't visible to us. But I feel pretty comfortable saying Jeff Branson, Ray Searage, Jeff Banister and the rest of the Pirates' coaches have done well.