Morning Rundown: Pirates part ways with a pair of minor league coaches
Pirates start to make changes to the coaching ranks.
With the regular season ending on Sunday, the Pirates didn’t take long to start to shake things up from within the organization.
Jason Mackey tweeted after the game that the Pirates have dismissed ‘at least’ two coaches - Jon Nunnally and Ruben Gotay.
Changing things up in the minors isn’t really the surprising thing, it happens all the time, but to be this quick with it and one of the names involved definitely raised some eyebrows.
Nunnally just wrapped up his third season as the hitting coach for the Altoona Curve, and fifth overall in the Pirates season.
He was linked to Ke’Bryan Hayes earlier in the season, working with him before the tear he went on to close out the season. It seems the nature of involvement may have been exaggerated a bit, but regardless, a weird move considering.
Rubén Gotay was listed as the Greensboro Grasshoppers’ hitting coach at the beginning of the season, but finished the year (or was just always there?) as one of the bench coaches for the Indianapolis Indians.
He was the hitting coach in Greensboro for the 2022 season while Calix Crabbe was the manager, at least that’s what was written here.
Pirates finish with 76 wins
With their win on the last day of the season, the Pirates ended up with a record of 76-86, good for an improvement of 14 wins compared to a year ago.
Considering the craziness of the season, that seems like a very strong step in the right direction.
It also means I was one win off in my original prediction on P2 (75).
They got the win despite going with a very much ‘Sunday lineup’ feel despite it being the last day of the season.
Ke’Bryan Hayes, Bryan Reynolds and Endy Rodriguez all sat, and it took the Pirates till the eighth inning to finally get on the scoreboard.
Lucky for them five pitchers got together for a three-hit shutout, including David Bednar getting his 39th save of the season.
Your 2023 Buccos beat expectations, outperformed their 2nd and 3rd order win estimators, excelled in one-run games, and held together strong through the dog days with a .500 record over the last two months of the season.
All direct indicators of Manager competency and confirms the decision to extend Derek Shelton.
Good season, comment section & good season to the writers! Blockbuster deadline day move from P2 to BoD & didn't miss a beat! Time to look back on some pre-season predictions (March 30 @ P2):
1. 74-88, 3rd in the division
- Better record, but worse finish. Not great getting passed up by the Cubs/Reds, but feels good to finish ahead of the Cards
2. TJ for Brubaker
- Wasn't exactly a hot take, but it was correct, he got TJ a few days later
3. 6/$104 for Reynolds announced the day of the home opener
- 8/$106 a week later than I expected
4. Hayes wins the GG and hits >15 homers
- Hayes should win the GG and hit 15 exactly. This is by far the biggest positive from this season IMO
5. Cruz goes 30/30 but strikes out 35%+ and leads the league in errors, OF transition starts this offseason
- I think I would've taken this outcome over the reality. Still may be in the cards for 2024.
6. CSN & Swaggerty stake their claim in the OF, Suwinski plays less than half the season at MLB
- Dead wrong, still think we need a Swaggerty-esque defensive CF to round out the outfield
7. 1.1 is NOT one of Crews, Skenes, Dollander, much to our dismay
- Thank god I was wrong here and the pick was not Dollander, lol
8. Solid, yet unspectacular debuts from Endy and Priester
- Unspectacular? yes. Solid? ehh.
9. Cups of coffee for Davis, Gonzo and Gorski
- Little more than a cup o joe for the 1st two. Gorski might be that defensive CF as I doubt GMBC spends on the OF in the offseason
10. Lower level breakout ala Ortiz/Endy from…. Rodolfo Nolasco?
- Not quite. There is no hitting prospect left in this system that excites me.