The Pirates announced Monday that they’ve fired hitting coach Rick Eckstein. An interim replacement was not named, though assistant hitting coach Christian Marrero is remaining with the club.
“We are grateful for Rick’s dedication to the team and our players,” general manager Ben Cherington said in a press release announcing Eckstein’s dismissal. “This was a difficult decision as we have a great deal of respect for Rick. Making the decision now gives us the opportunity to use the rest of the season to focus on improvements in our hitting program while also starting the process of looking for a replacement. We wish Rick all the best moving forward.”
The older brother of former big league infielder David Eckstein, Rick Eckstein has been with the Pirates since being hired on Nov. 26, 2018. He’d previously served as a coach both at the NCAA level and in the Majors (Nationals, Angels). At the time of his hiring in Pittsburgh, he’d spent the two prior seasons serving as the Twins’ minor league hitting coordinator. Eckstein was one of two coaches on the Pirates’ Major League staff whose hiring predated that of current general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton — the other being third base coach Joey Cora.
“I appreciate Rick’s tireless work ethic and his passion for our players,” Shelton said in today’s press release. “Despite the challenging season, Rick always put in the effort to connect and help our players. He is a great person who we will all be rooting for in his next opportunity.”
While the hitting coach certainly isn’t solely responsible for a team’s offensive woes (or its successes), the Pirates’ offensive ineptitude in 2021 has nevertheless been glaring. Pittsburgh ranks last in the Majors with 470 runs scored, and they rank 27th, 25th and 30th in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, respectively. The Pirates’ team .233/.304/.362 batting line has resulted in an MLB-worst 81 wRC+, and no team has hit fewer than their combined 101 home runs.
Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic reported Eckstein was being dismissed shortly before the team made its formal announcement (Twitter link).
Pirates are gonna be just fine. You can see a good team coming a mile away with the guys they’ve drafted (and will draft next year). There are plenty of teams, including several that are good right now, that I have lower expectations for in say three years.
funny thing is no one seems to think any current rebuild wolnt work out, despite the fact that a few off each round of rebuilds do.
Darkside, rebuilds work when only two or three teams are rebuilding, now a third of the teams are rebuilding. If teams are not smart enough to not have to rebuild, chances are they are not smart enough to rebuild successfully.
@Halo the truth is that most of these teams have to go through rebuilds. The Rays have been an exception to that rule in recent years but eventually they’ll be going through a rebuild also. It’s an inevitable part of the game when there are teams out there w revenues half the size of the large market teams.
Sure, there are poorly ran small market teams. There are poorly ran large market teams. But rebuilds are inevitable for nearly every team in baseball at some point.
It all comes down to management. Have the right infrastructure and you’re going to compete more consistently for longer periods of time. Every team is going to have an off year or two, but the well managed teams are always going to be there more often than not.
Yes, the Dodgers spend oodles of money but the reason they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon is because they’re ran by arguably the best GM/POBO in baseball.
Brandons not only a great executive team but a local tv contract of 25 years at 8.35 billion. They can spend more because they make more (and have multibillionaires as owners).
Yeah, money definitely helps, but when you have money and you’re smart there’s not much stopping them other than a team peaking at the right time.
Braves fan my entire life, and firmly believe we had the Dodgers beat last year until we gave them too many chances. You give away free outs to a team like that and they’ll find a way to make you pay. So many different ways they can beat you.
Spend nutting, get nutting lol.
Delusional at the highest level.
Fire lame owner, worse than the Wilpons.
Spending money at the ML level has little to no correlation with successful records
Spending money on the minors and development has everything to do with it
For instance, see the Angels and Orioles the last decade, then compare them against division rivals such as Oakland and TB
Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, etc – they spend at the top level, but bring in so much cash they can also flood development with money too. Most teams can’t do that, they bring in little in small markets. Pirates are doing it the right way, and should not be criticized for it
Oakland and TB still rebuild. They do it better bc of what you said. But nonetheless those teams still go through cycles where rebuilding the team is necessary.
It’s inevitable for a small market club. Teams at the top can afford to keep the train running longer. So long as they have a steady minor league pipeline in play.
“Most teams can’t do that, they bring in little in small markets. Pirates are doing it the right way, and should not be criticized for it”
That’s a bunch of crap peddled by millionaire and billionaire owners, and you actually believe it
You can’t fire the owner of a business. He or she does the firing of employees not the other way around.
Teams that spend big, most of the times the free agents are flops. Build through the farm and make wise trades when ready the team is ready to blossom. Call nutting cheap, but you cant force anyone to sell.
‘Fire lame owner’ you really are clueless how this works aren’t you ?
@cndb41a No, planting the seed into PIT fans.
They have more power than you realize
It was time for him to go. Many players came up and did well then regressed. It was either the league catching up, lack of coaching or lack of talent. I don’t know enough but a change was needed!
What a useful comment.
Better than most on here
I always figured Shelton was the hitting instructor. You know, with the instructional video and all.
First time I heard the name of the Pirates hitting coach.
& here I thought I was the only one.
Right?!!! I was like, “Who?” News to me.
They have a hitting coach?
Right now, that is a no win job. Not much longevity.
It’s like being asked to build a canoe, but not being given any wood.
Feel like we may see a bunch of turnover in coaching over the next year or so with the Pirates. I think the only one who is 100% safe is Oscar Marin. He’s done pretty well with the staff. Overall, the Pirates are in a good place. Might be a bit biased or optimistic, but I think there will be a lot of improvement over the course of 2022 and I even think they’ll be a real comeptitor for a WC at least in 2023, possibly even a divsion contender if prospects develop fast. But I don’t see many of the current coaches sticking around for that.
Agreed. Our Greensboro squad is lighting it up. That’ll be the Pirates core in 2023.
Gonzales went 4-7 with 3 home runs. Future looking bright at High-A.
Bryan Reynolds for
Mauricio
Baty
Pederson
Project prospect
Who says no
would either team make that trade? NYM loses a lot of prospect depth they dont seem keen to deal and Reynolds is a great young star that may alienate the PIT fanbase even more if dealt.
I would bc Lindor is blocking Mauricio and Vientos looks like he as good as baty. Also I like conforto but the Mets would be better defensively if they move Nimmo to RF and Reynolds at CF
The pirates easily.
Reynolds isn’t getting traded this offseason. If the Pirates can’t reach an extension with him in the next two years he will be traded when he gets close to free agency but definitely not this year or next.
Mets fan. Reynolds isnt going anywhere. Hes 26 and a budding superstar
The Marlins asked about Reynolds and the Pirates wanted their top 3 prospects (Sixto, Meyer, and Cabrera or JJ Bleday depending if you’re looking at FanGraphs or MLB Pipeline). But regardless of what system you look at, they wanted 3, near consensus, or consensus top 50 prospects. They completly shot down any offer the Astros could give. Unless the Mets offer starts with Francisco Alvarez and either Baty and/or Mauricio, Reynolds is off the table. As I told my friend, you better start by making the Chris Archer trade look fair.
Then the Pirates aren’t trading Reynolds…. That’s not a smart ask
It’s a very smart ask. They don’t want to trade him unless it’s an obvious overpay.
Top 3-5 prospects of a team dependent on the players.
I’d send him to SD for Adamas, Gore and the young OF they just called up to High A. No player is untouchable
This team has been an embarrassment for a long time now. It’s hard to understand how they find a way to screw up year after year. This team hasn’t won the division since 1992! The little window they had back around 2014-2015 they refused to go all in.. and have a couple wild card losses to show for it. I don’t see this team even field a competitive team for at least 3 years… which means they don’t have anything substantial on the horizon outside of a couple prospects..
Nah 2023 is too early.
I go like this 2022 100 percent chance of suck
2023 90 percent chance of suck. I give it 10 percent if lots of guys produce here and they make a few good moves like a Frank liriano signing. It would have to go perfect for them to be competitive.
2024 50 percent. Guess who will only have a year and 2 months of control at the deadline that year? Bryan Reynolds. I would expect him to be traded at that time if they aren’t over the hump yet.
Poor guy is fired because the orginzation sucks and most of the players suck.MLB should just fold this franchise what a disgrace and embarassment to baseball.I feel sorry whatever fans they have left.
The organization does not suck. It’s been in an upward trend since Ben Cherington has taken over. He’s given the team direction and a good future.
mlb1225 I appreciate you defending the Bucco honor. I am a lifelong fan of 60 plus years and have never turned my back on my team. I wonder how many of these big market team fans would remain loyal if they couldn’t constantly be buying a team and had to actually develop and wait for success. It’s easy to make fun of an organization when they are down and can’t buy their way out immediately! Thanks!
It’s the owner.
Give the Dodgers or Yankees the same revenue stream as Nutting and see how well they do. No owner spends from their own pocket. Until you get a salary cap and floor with revenue sharing like every other major sports league in this country MLB will remain this broken joke of one team or another buying a championship!
Lmfao
It has NOTHING to do with money
It has everything to do with an inability to develop your own cheap talent. Pitt picks top 5 seemingly every year. If a team picks top 5 and their rebuild takes more than 3 years to show progress in the minors and 5 years at the mlb level, it’s incompetence
Let’s see…top pitching prospect, Quinn Priester, just threw 6 IP, allowing 1 hit, while striking out 13 in his last outing. And yesterday, 2020 #1 pick, Nick Gonzales went 4 for 7 with 3 HR & 7 RBI’s.
This Pirate fan is pretty damn pumped for the future, BOOBY!
What’s equally as exciting to me as the A ball prospects is that the front office is finally starting to cut the dead weight at the MLB level. Moves like releasing Polanco and DFA’ing Erik Gonzalez though he remains in the organization show that they’re getting a head start on the offseason business of clearing 40 man roster spots to protect guys from the Rule 5 draft and open spots on the big league club for some of the guys they acquired at the trade deadline or hopefully a couple free agents that are credible MLB players and not just placeholders.
What have they done that’s so exciting? Gonzalez was a backup and they got 5 guys who can do the same thing at the deadline. Of course he was DFA. Polanco was going to be gone at the end of the season anyways. Look who his replacement was; Cole Tucker. With this strategy, they can only claim wins over and over since they admit they aren’t trying to win at the major league level. Guys dominating A isn’t going to matter. If they can produce at AA and are young, then maybe we have something. At any rate none of this will matter if they can’t do something at MLB
They should equate the results with the AAAA lineup they gave him to guide.
*Pours out drink*
Relation to David?
Read the article?
Fair enough, I posted before that update
Next up should be Cora?
Maybe. I’ve always heard good things about his ability to connect with players but maybe they need some new voices.
Maybe sign/draft some hitters? You can’t trade everyone of value then blame the hitting coach. Well, the Pirates can.
Hoping to make Chicken Salad out of Chicken Shyt…
Your comment reminds me of the old cartoon showing a New Yorker view of the US where the map of the US basically ends at the Poconos and they are oblivious to the rest of the country. Your map seems to end at Bakersfield and you are unaware of anything farther east. If you were aware, you would know that the Pirates have drafted, signed and traded for hitters, e.g. McCutchen, Reynolds, Frazier, Alvarez (didn’t pan out), Bell (panned out for one great month, Gonzalez, Davis, to name just a few. Yes, they often get traded near the end of their control , but that often works out, e.g trading a fading McCutchen for Reynolds and other prospects. (Sorry, Giants fans, but your team made a really bad trade.)
Unlike the Dodgers, signing big contract free agents is not what the Pirates do. While some fans critique that approach, I don’t. Too many of those signings around the league are just a waste of money.
So they tread water, pulling in the revenue sharing, biding time to sell the franchise at a humongous profit and then repeating the cycle. No hope of getting to the playoffs or ever winning a World Series. And #1 reason why mlb needs a salary cap to include the salary floor.
Seager, Bellinger, Beuhler, Kershaw, Smith, Urias, all homegrown Dodgers. They have had more Rookie of the Year winners than anyone. They sign the free agents to enhance the team.
Doesn’t change the fact that teams like Pittsburgh have to shop in the scratch and dent section looking for a reclamation project while teams like the Dodgers can write whatever check they want to fill in 5heir holes. There’s no reason why one team can spend $250 mil while peers chasing the same prize can spend $50mil. Not even close to being a level playing field.
Do you pay attention?
La is probably the **best** at signing players from the scrap heap and getting value
Do you not understand English? Sure, the Dodgers only groom their own which is why their top 4 paid players are Betts, Price, Scherzer and Bauer, all groomed in the system…somebody’s system, just not theirs. Or were they all plucked from the scrap heap? And those 4 alone are signed for just under $900 mil and more than twice what the Pirates whole lineup is pulling this year alone. So yeah, it’s all about their draft picks and an otherwise level playing field.
Look at Tampa Bay and quit whining about a level playing field. Somehow they keep on winning.
Because they’re smarter and more capable of competing with their budget does change the fact it’s ridiculousLA can spend $267mil and others barely $50mil.
The dodgers spend the vast majority of their money signing their own players to extensions
They hardly ever sign the top free agent, Bauer aside.
Notice how none of those hitters are still there, except the one Pitt didn’t really develop? You just said the problem, you’re just too defensive to acknowledge it. It’s not only money.. it’s just not
Yeah, that’s the Pirates’ problem. The hitting coach.
I think they are going need to overhaul more than just the hitting coach.
I think they’ve been ‘rebuilding’ since Barry Bonds left.
Not everybody has access to a checkbook like the Dodgers. One bad move for a franchise like them and they’re doomed for years and unable to get out of from a bad contract which teams like LA or the Red Sox can flip bad deals elsewhere and write a check without missing a beat.
Man you are super stuck on this Co line, aren’t ya? Wow
La drafts back 20 yet have countless more mlb players they developed competing+ producing on the mlb level. The fact they get cheap production allows them to spend lavishly to fill holes. But that strategy doesn’t work if you try to fill every hole with money
Think about the last time Pitt spent money. They had a young core, right? It goes hand in hand.
Really, you should be saying San Diego more than LA. That’s the franchise trying to buy their success at every position. Half of la’s championship team developed in their minor league system. That’s… not standard
Classic scapegoat.
This should turn things around.
Oh it could turn around if the organization does not trade everyone off when it comes time to pay.What shows anybody this won’t happen when it has been going that way for the past
20yrs.This team does not have a prayer unless sold.KEEP DREAMIN
I always knew it was the hitting coach.
In addition to the sacrificial lamb theory, with the Pirates desire to free up roster space and call up ML players, I would expect them to eventually promote Jon Nunnally to MLB hitting instructor. Not only does he have a long history with Ben Cherington, he has a history with the players developing and progressing through the system. I think it makes the most sense at a number of angles.
Most hilarious thing I’ve heard in a very long time. As bad as the Pirates are, who cares
Need to fire Pirate Parrot. That’ll turn things around.
Actually, I think the Bucs are a fun team to watch. They lack talent; no doubt about that. But like Hinch in Detroit, I think Shelton has them playing a decent brand of baseball. I mean, you look at some teams (sorry, Orioles fans) and the players look like they’re standing around trying to figure out how they’re going to lose.
If it wasn’t for their broadcasters, all of whom died 5 years ago and don’t have enough sense to lie down, I really enjoy watching them. And i think they DO have some serious talent coming. They lack a Rutchman or a Witt, but there’s a LOT of depth in their minor league system.
Thanks Bob for that assessment, I agree with all of it. And other than Bob Walk, who to me is insightful, balanced and fair in his criticism, and has a nice dry humor, the rest of their announcers should be run out of town.
Bob walk is great
I wonder how Tommy Gregg would do as the batting coach? It’s currently what he’s doing for hs and college kids.
There a blast from the Pirates past right there. He could be a good candidate, although the poster above who suggested Jon Nunnally might be spot on.
I don’t have a problem with this move but it seems like an odd timing. Even if they hire a new hitting coach tomorrow what impact can one month of work with a roster that’s guaranteed to change a decent bit in the offseason make?
Yeah this one could have waited until after the year for sure.
You’d think there is something under the surface– you fire a guy with a month to go on a team that’s 30+ games out? That is odd timing, indeed.
If they fire him in the off-season, no one will notice. Firing him now, they can pretend like they are a MLB franchise I guess. At least now people see it. That seems like a flimsy reason at best. Also they fire him the day after a walk off home run so this must have been decided a few days ago, to can him after the home stand and before the Chicago trip. I don’t see any point to doing it now since they are far out of contention anyways. Assistant coaches should be fired in season only if there’s some kind of scandal or if a teams in a race like Rothschild in San Diego.
Too bad but he was great fit the angels in the 2002 WS. He will be missed.
Wrong Eckstein
Feels like a Shelton ego fire. Like he is a hitting coach and they can’t hit and a head needed to roll.
Just read an NY Times article about the Pirates fielding an all black line up 50 years ago- the first in MLB history. Here’s the line up- who needs a hitting coach??:
The first six hitters in Murtaugh’s lineup were all batting over .300 — Stennett, Clines, Clemente, Stargell, Sanguillen and Cash. Oliver, who had a .303 career average, batted seventh. Hernandez, the light-hitting shortstop, was next, followed by Ellis, who had started the All-Star Game that summer.
the first world series i remember was 1979. i remember the pirates as the “cool black team” and the orioles as the “boring white team.” but later i went back and realized the oriole line-up included murray, singleton, bumbry, and lee may. that was a different era
The problem for the Pirates isn’t necessarily the hitting coach but the talent level or lack there of. The Pirates have given almost 1200 Plate Appearances to backup/AAAA/career minor leaguers. Players with no real upside that contributed the expected results: nothing.
Refused to use the Speed Hitter, evidently.
has there ever been a hitting coach who made a significant impact in either direction?
Talent or lack of has a lot to do with the offensive woes.