The Houston Astros’ coaching staff has been largely consistent throughout this legendary run.
The choice to hire longstanding manager Dusty Baker helped to settle things down and ensure that this team continued to achieve the highest levels of success, despite the fact that the cheating incident led to A.J. Hinch being suspended by Major League Baseball before he was sacked.
In order to maintain continuity after Baker’s retirement, the Astros retained bench coach Joe Espada to serve as captain.
Everything inevitably changes to suit the goals of the new government, but following an oddly subpar offensive campaign last year, management has already instructed the current hitting coaches to make some adjustments before 2025.
There is a possibility that personnel changes may be made if that does not occur.
Former pitching coach Brent Strom is someone Houston probably still wishes they had.
In that capacity from 2014 to 21, the longtime coach and former Major League player had a major part in the Astros’ historic 2017 World Series victory.
His pitching staff, which joined the team on the tail end of their teardown rebuild, finished 25th in 2014 (4.11), sixth in 2015 (3.57), 11th in 2016 (4.06), 11th in 2017 (4.12), first in 2018 (3.11), third in 2019 (3.66), 13th in 2020 (4.31), and seventh in his final year in 2021 (3.78).
After indicating that he was intended to retire when he left Houston, Strom was quickly hired as the pitching coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he assisted them in winning the 2023 World Series.
But Strom was searching for his next job after the Diamondbacks fired him following a lackluster campaign.
Given that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette’s Noah Hiles reported the Pittsburgh Pirates are hiring the guru as their assistant pitching coach, he got off to a really good start.
The 76-year-old will be working from the dugout during games, but he will also have the opportunity to shape players like Paul Skenes, a 2024 NL Rookie of the Year contender, Jared Jones, a previous top prospect, Mitch Keller, an accomplished starter, and other formidable bullpen guns.
Despite being the oldest person to hold that job in Major League Baseball for the 2018 season, the former Astros pitching coach still has a lot to teach us.
