Joey Cora’s hands-on instruction with his infielders won’t wait for January minicamp. Josh Bell was scheduled to fly to Miami sometime this week and work with the Pirates new third-base and infield coach, who assumed the responsibilities of two coaches who were fired and reassigned.
Cora got the third-base job after Rick Sofield was fired. He also will replace Nick Leyva, who was reassigned, as the team’s infield coach. While new first-base coach Kimera Bartee will coach baserunning Cora, who spent the 2016 season managing Class AA Altoona, assumes responsibility for sending and holding runners.
“My guess would be that maybe the three years prior to last year, maybe they got the same amount of people being thrown out on the bases but they were winning,” Cora said this past weekend at PirateFest.