It’s hard to say how much the hitting coach hire will help a flawed organization like the Pittsburgh Pirates, which stinks at developing players. But if Ben Cherington wants to have a productive offseason in year six (yikes) of this rebuild, they need to start thinking outside the box— and that would start with adding a hitting coach who has been in the big leagues and performed at a high level.
Picking up the scraps from another decent organization isn’t going to make a substantial impact–we don’t need another Andy Haines type of pairing with Derek Shelton. Nor should we want an internal hire because, as I mentioned, it’s hard to trust this organization with development.