Weekly Mailbag: New MiLB coaches, Endy Rodriguez, Vince Velasquez

Another weekly mailbag article.

Photo Credit: WTM

ereetz: We have added a new Assistant GM and Analytics person, what about new MiLB coaches? Also, any new approach seen?

This question certainly came with good timing, as the Pirates added a new minor-league pitching coach over the weekend.

Matt Myers was added as a new pitching coach over the weekend. He was previously the pitching coach at Lipscomb University. He began his coaching career in 2021, so he has plenty of experience.

If you want to read more about his background, you can read it here from the Lipscomb website.

Of course, they will need to fill their Double-A hitting coach vacancy after moving on from Jon Nunally at the end of the season. There's no word on that yet, at least from what I’ve seen.

As far as approach, we’ve talked about it here on this site, but pitching, they’ve seemed to favor pitchers to throw from a lower arm slot. Noticing that (and Nola) is what forced me to start looking into pitch shape and release angle metrics.

Joseph: Does Endy accrue service time this next year?

Edit: A good reminder by Ethan in the comments below. An injured player can not be optioned, so Endy will accrue service time this season, regardless. I had originally compared Endy and Mike Burrows, but since the latter was hurt during the season, the situation was different.

Robert Sabot (@SavageSabo): Has there been any talk of bringing back Vince Velasquez for another year? Is he healthy after his injury? I thought he was starting to come on before he got hurt.

The biggest question with Velasquez would be health. Based on when he had surgery, I’m not sure he’ll be ready for the start of the season. So I’m not sure what kind of impact we can expect from him in 2024, but I'd like to see him when he got hurt if he’s willing to return on a minor-league deal.

That’d make a third pitcher that could help boost the pitching staff by mid-to-late season, who are all coming off Tommy John - Velasquez, JT Brubaker, and Mike Burrows.

joesolo: Will you have a listing of Pirate international free agent signings after 1/15/24?

I will have as much info as I can put together from what is available to me. There’s one person who is the best at gathering this kind of information, John, but I will do my best to get as much info out to everybody as I can.