The Pirates are making one other main change to their entrance workplace, shifting John Baker from the director of teaching and participant improvement to a brand new position overseeing the efficiency workforce, sources informed MLB.com. Whereas the membership has not confirmed the transfer, the seek for a brand new farm director is underway.
Baker’s new duties embody overseeing areas reminiscent of power and conditioning, diet, psychological abilities, sports activities science and extra, starting from the Majors via the Minor Leagues. Baker’s new position shall be a part of an even bigger mixture of adjustments that’s coming to the entrance workplace.
Baker joined the Pirates in November 2020 because the director of teaching and participant improvement, a tweak from the standard farm director position. Throughout his time, the Pirates adopted a extra player-centric, individualized improvement plan to attempt to maximize their gamers.
That strategy has yielded nice issues on the pitching aspect, which has seen Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Luis Ortiz develop via the farm system to turn out to be staples within the rotation, with maybe the very best assortment of Minor League arms nonetheless ready within the wings. Offensively, nevertheless, the workforce has struggled to have its prime position-player prospects hit on the Main League stage, which is a part of the explanation for different adjustments this offseason, just like the hiring of Matt Hague as hitting coach.
Baker had beforehand served because the psychological abilities coordinator and head utilized psychological abilities coach with the Cubs earlier than coming to the Pirates. His teaching profession started in 2015 when he turned a particular assistant with the Cubs’ baseball operations division.
This now makes a minimum of 4 director jobs the Pirates have both modified or will change this offseason. Max Kwan would be the workforce’s new director of worldwide scouting, changing Junior Vizcaino, and Kevin Tenenbaum is in line to turn out to be their new vice chairman of analysis and improvement. The workforce will even get a brand new professional scouting director after it was introduced that Will Lawton shall be shifting to a brand new position inside the group.
