The Pirates are chugging along and just trying to get to the finish line of what has been a miserable 2020 season. The Pirates entered Monday 14-30, which is a winning percentage of .318 and over a 162-game season, that would translate into about 52 wins. That's awful by any standard, and while the Pirates should be graded on a curve, that doesn't mean they get a total pass.
One of the biggest scapegoats by the end of the Neal Huntington/Clint Hurdle era last season was pitching coach Ray Searage. The Pirates pitchers were not developing enough, his philosophy was not deemed rooted enough in analytics and modern-day pitching methods and his "pitch to contact" mantra is blamed for the failures (relative to their subsequent success) of Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton and Tyler Glasnow, among others.
Searage is proof that everyone can fall from grace, because he was largely viewed as a miracle worker early on when he was able to turn around the careers of pitchers like Francisco Liriano and Edison Volquez. Searage was excellent at helping those once successful pitchers find their touch again and was given a lot of credit for the success of the Pirates during that wild card era of 2013-15.
That all changed in recent years, though, as too many pitchers were not seen as living up to their potential. And when Cole, Glasnow and Morton went on to big success on contending teams, Searage became the easy punching bag for their lack of success here.
That isn't necessarily fair, but it isn't ever going to be fair in that business. Coaches take the brunt of the blame when players don't perform, and ion each of those three cases, there was probably more going on than just not taking to Searage's methods. Sometimes a change of scenery is the best thing that can happen.
Nevertheless, the Pirates hired a fresh young face in Oscar Marin to be their pitching coach in December. He had very little experience as a major league pitching coach and was most recently a bullpen coach, but his rapid ascent through the ranks seemed to indicate he was a star in the making. He talked of newer methods of training pitchers, a different philosophy, use of analytics and all the stuff that decision makers in modern-day baseball seem to look for and value.
There was a lot of excitement around the team and a thought that his fresh approach would take a young pitching staff to the next level. The Pirates have some young starters who are viewed as perhaps the backbone of the staff over the next few seasons. Their talent would be maximized by Marin _ or so we were told _ and this would be a year they began to establish themselves in a way they wouldn't have under Searage and his old-school methods.
I am here to tell you this: either the pitching "talent" on the Pirates is way overstated or Marin is in way over his head. It probably is a little bit of both, but if I had to pick, I always go with talent. Coaches and instructors are important, but did you ever notice the best coaches and instructors seem to be the ones who have the best players to work with? It is incredible how much more of a genius coaches can be when they have superior talent.
But it is hard to make a case that Marin has done a good job this year. Yes, injuries have made it somewhat difficult to give a fair assessment of his work, but that doesn't mean he gets a complete free pass for this season. This is a performance-based business, and so far the group he is in charge of hasn't performed.
Trevor Williams, for example, once had promise as a solid middle-of-the-rotation pitcher, but he has really struggled. He is 1-7 with an ERA of 6.25 and WHIP of 1.6. Joe Musgrove has made only five starts due to injury but his era is 5.40 and his WHIP is 1.57. Chad Kuhl has electric stuff. He also has a 5.5 ERA and WHIP approaching 1.5 and he looked awful Sunday against the Royals as he got lit up for nine runs in 2 1/3 innings.
I could go on, but the numbers are what they are and they aren't good up and down the staff. The team ERA is 5.08 and the team WHIP is 1.46, and the Pirates have given up 66 home runs in 44 games. It has been an ugly season for Pirates pitchers to say the least, and the disturbing thing is they have gotten worse as the season has progressed, not better.
Marin may or may not be an excellent pitching coach. Time will tell and it is too early to give him a grade. But he has a lot of work to prove that his "new methods" are going to be more effective than the "outdated" philosophies of Searage.
