Ever since Ray Searage took over as pitching coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pirates have been known as a team that can fix struggling pitchers. A.J. Burnett, Francisco Liriano, Edison Volquez, Mark Melancon, Neftali Feliz, and Jeanmar Gomez are just some of the pitchers on this seemingly never ending list. One thing that is often overlooked though is hitting coach Jeff Branson‘s ability to do the same thing with position players.
Ever since Jeff Branson took over as the hitting coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to the start of the 2014 season, there have been multiple hitters that have bounced back from struggling seasons to post some of the best, if not the best, seasons of their careers.