PITTSBURGH (AP) — Brent Strom didn't want his lengthy coaching career to end on a sour note after Arizona dismissed the longtime pitching guru in October.
A chance to write a happier ending awaits in Pittsburgh.
The Pirates hired Strom as assistant pitching coach on Thursday.
The 76-year-old will work with Oscar Marin, the team's pitching coach since 2020. Strom will also get a chance to mentor National League Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes, who became a sensation the moment he made his big league debut in May.
Strom, a big league pitcher from 1972-77, previously served as the pitching coach in Houston (1996 and 2014-21), Kansas City (2000-01) and Arizona (2022-24). He reached the World Series with the 2017, ‘19 and ’21 Astros and the 2023 Diamondbacks.
Arizona narrowly missed a return to the postseason this year, thanks in part to a staff with a 4.62 ERA, 27th in the majors. Strom was fired in the aftermath.
“The dismissal was obviously very disappointing to me,” he said. “Missing the playoffs by a very narrow margin, it was very, very close to us getting in. But the excitement of the 2023 season still stuck with me and I just thought that there was more work to be done.”
There is plenty to do in Pittsburgh, which hasn't reached the playoffs since 2015 and is coming off consecutive 76-86 seasons. The team wants to take a significant step forward behind a rotation that includes Skenes, 23-year-old Jared Jones and Mitch Keller.
Strom, who has worked Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Dallas Keuchel among others, says he has no desire to “be the lead dog."
“I wanted to feel very comfortable knowing that I am not here in any other capacity other (than) to be a helper,” Strom said of Marin. “I’m perfectly fine with that at this stage in my career.”
The chance to spend time with the 22-year-old Skenes — who finished third in NL Cy Young voting — was among the reasons Strom opted to uproot what he called a comfortable life in Arizona to move to Pittsburgh, at least for the short term.
Strom and Skenes crossed paths at the All-Star Game, where Skenes was the NL starter, and Strom came away impressed with the first overall pick in the 2023 draft. Strom came up with a brief scouting report of the top six hitters in the American League — a group that included New York Yankees stars Juan Soto and Aaron Judge — and handed it to Skenes.
“He said, ‘I think I’ll be through with them before we get to the sixth hitter,’ which was pretty impressive of a young pitcher to say, and obviously very confident,” Strom said. “But the preparation that he puts in and and the year he had was exceptional, but now the hard part begins.”
Meaning, Skenes has to find a way to do it again after going 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA.
“He’s got to repeat it,” Strom said. "The league will catch up to him a little bit, they’ll start to understand him a little bit, and so this is a young man I think that will continue to make adjustments. I think he wants to be great, and I think that having that mindset will benefit not only him, but benefit this ball club in a residual way.”
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