The Pittsburgh Pirates announced three coaching changes today, although none of them were the addition of a new bench coach. The Pirates switched Rick Sofield and Nick Leyva, moving Leyva to being the first base coach, and switching Sofield from first base to the third base coach. Leyva remains as the infield coach, and Sofield is still the outfield-baserunning coach.
The Pirates also added Brad Fischer to the Major League staff. No role was given for Fisher, other than major league coach. He was formerly the Pirates’ minor league field coordinator over the last three years. Prior to that, he was an Advisor to Player Development in 2011.
UPDATE: The Pirates won’t have a bench coach. Fischer joins Dave Jauss and Jeff Livesey as major league coaches.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
What are the responsibilities of a “minor league field coordinator?” What do they do?
It varies depending upon the organization. Basically the minor league field coordinator oversees minor league instruction and he is also often an instructor or coach. This is different from an organization’s minor league director who sits behind a desk much of the time and oversees movement of players, etc in the minor league system.
Does any fan base like it’s 3B coach?
The Cardinal fans love their third base coach
Good move, Nick Leyva is an abysmal 3B coach.
thought Leyva was better in 2014 then he was in 2013 but think this might be a good thing as Nick was a question mark as a third base coach and just a thought for the bench coach let people bid on it each game the highest bidder gets to sit on the bench and pick up the phone and give the thumbs up or down, Nutting can use the added revenue right? LOL
Subtle way of relieving Leyva of his job of holding or sending runners home. I thought he did a questionable job of it the past couple years and I’m glad that he won’t be doing it again. He held up too many runners that would have easily scored the past year in particular. The change is no surprise, especially after this past season’s work of his.
Agreed. But as hyper energetic as Sofield is he’ll probably have the opposite problem, sending too many runners into outs. Sofield seems like a really funny guy, but I just don’t see a positive impact on the speedy Pirates’ base running skills. Cutch doesn’t run enough, Marte doesn’t have the skills his speed demands, Polanco has potential, but what will Scofiled do with him? JHAy could also steal more with better leads. Base stealing just doesn’t seem to be an emphasis with the Pirates. Heck didn’t KC have two bench players on board just to steal?
Cutch doesnt run as much as he did his early years because you dont risk injury to the biggest threat on offense as well as being very intelligent as to when he wants to run. He is still stealing 20 bases most years and nearly eliminated his CS.
I almost had a heart attack when I read the headline because I missed the word “league”. All I read was “Pirates Announce Major Coaching Staff Changes”.
So when Clint gets tossed do we see the coaches drawing straws in dugout to take over??
All I care about at this point is who is going to give Clint the thumbs up or thumbs down for replay possibilities??
Do you think Ray Searage is being groomed to take over as Manager when Clint decides to retire? If so, would it not make sense to elevate him to bench coach?
You do know that Searage is two years OLDER than Hurdle, don’t you? I wouldn’t assume that Hurdle will be retiring any earlier than Searage.