I read a piece in "The Athletic" last month about how dysfunctional the Pirates organization is and Bryan featured heavily in it. The org refused to invest in good coaches to develop players so he sought out a AA coach in the organization who was helping him but the ownership/front office were against it and fired the AA coach.Farmer1906 said:Yeah, it's a bit of a reach. More so they'd have Heyes fatigue. He was supposed to be a superstar, but has been kind of so-so on offense and failed to break out. Others could, but would they? How many teams will be hurting for a 3B like us after this year? We'd be motivated like a MFer.MaxPower said:I don't see why the Pirates would trade him and, if they did, don't see how we could beat someone else's best offer.Farmer1906 said:
Thinking outside the box on a Bregman replacement... what about Ke'Bryan Hayes. The Pirates have him locked up for years at a very reasonable price. Normally, they'd have no interest in trading him away, but they may be frustrated he hasn't put it all together yet. If we stack enough prospects then it might make sense. They get out of from under 45 M owed to him over the next 5 (2025-2029) and get some AAA prospects to bring up. We get an elite defensive 3B with offensive upside for the next 5-6 years at a price where we can afford to extend someone else.
It's behind a paywall but I'll snip the relevant parts: https://theathletic.com/5286289/2024/02/21/pirates-losing-mlb-owner/
To win with a low-budget model requires excelling in all areas of player development. But conversations with more than 20 current and former players, coaches and club officials, some of whom were granted anonymity in order to speak freely, revealed numerous issues plaguing the Pirates: Years of misses in the draft and amateur international market. Conflicts between old- and new-school philosophies in the coaching ranks. Distrust among some players in the development process, including a situation last season in which third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes secretly sought help from the Pirates' then-Double A hitting coach, who the team let go a short time later. Most of all: A front office handcuffed by a frugal owner.
The secret sessions that saved Ke'Bryan Hayes' 2023 season took place at a private hitting facility in the Pittsburgh area. The Pirates third baseman was on the injured list last July, stewing about being a below-average hitter since 2021, when he decided to take action.
"I was trying this and that," Hayes said, "and it wasn't working. I was just like, I don't feel like being frustrated anymore." So he called "Nunns." Jon Nunnally, a former big league outfielder, was the hitting coach at Double-A Altoona, the Pirates affiliate about 100 miles from Pittsburgh. When Nunnally, 52, joined the organization in 2019, Hayes' father, Charlie, an old acquaintance and 14-year major-league veteran, told Ke'Bryan: "He knows what he's talking about." Pirates hitters long had lobbied to work with Nunnally. One former player said, "Everyone in the organization had been going to him for (information) forever." "He barely knows how to turns on his computer," a former instructor added, "but that son of a gun can teach approach."
Ke'Bryan Hayes and Nunnally first worked together at the Pirates' alternate site in 2020. Hayes, 27, debuted that September and was National League Rookie of the Month. After only limited contact with Nunnally in 2021 and 2022, Hayes said he made it clear to the club that he would work again with the coach last spring. But once the season began, Nunnally returned to the minors and Hayes struggled anew.
In August, he started meeting weekly with Nunnally. In Hayes' mind, reuniting with Nunnally after he had slumped in the first half made perfect sense.
"I didn't want to ruffle any feathers," Hayes said. "But then it got to a point where it's just like, you know what? This is my career. At the end of the day, I've got to do what's best for me."
Both Hayes and Nunnally said they took pains to keep their sessions confidential. "No one really needed to know about it," Hayes said of his time with Nunnally. "He was secretly helping me help the team. So it helps everybody. That was the way I looked at it. No harm, no foul."
The sessions proved fruitful. In almost two months working with Nunnally, Hayes hit .318 with 10 home runs and a .933 OPS.
However, Nunnally said when the Pirates eventually learned of the sessions, "For sure they were upset." And when word that the star infielder sought help from a minor league coach was reported by the Post-Gazette, it looked to some like going behind the back of Pirates hitting coach Andy Haines, who already was taking heat from the fanbase for the team's offensive collapse.
"I didn't want to cause any problems for anyone," Nunnally said. But then, during the last week of the regular season, the Pirates let Nunnally go.
Hayes, who in April 2022 signed an eight-year, $70 million contract, the second largest in franchise history, said he conveyed to Cherington and manager Derek Shelton that he was upset by Nunnally's departure. His relationship with the coach will continue; Nunnally, after turning down an offer to be Double A hitting coach for the Nationals, said he plans to work privately with Hayes and others.
The move, part of a trend under Cherington of replacing some veteran instructors with less experienced, more analytically savvy replacements, reflected a divide in the Pirates' approach to player development. (A number of executives and instructors left voluntarily.)
"We had guys who lacked and when I say lacked, it's an understatement experience in leadership," a former instructor said. "I'm not saying you need 10 years in the big leagues to be qualified," a player said, "but you do need to have a certain level of teaching, understanding and communication that fit for players at the professional level."
