{"id":72487,"date":"2024-05-07T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=72487"},"modified":"2024-05-06T20:42:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T00:42:24","slug":"easler-pirates-batting-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/07\/easler-pirates-batting-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"A Former World Series Champion Offered To be the Pirates Batting Coach. They Said No."},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2022, Mike Easler<\/a>, a member of the 1979 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates, contacted them about becoming their batting coach. He looked at their stats and saw they had nobody hitting above .275. (The Pirates would finish 2022 with Kevin Newman<\/a> as their leader at .274, excluding a pair of minor league recalls who had a handful of at-bats.) \u201cThat\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d Easler told interviewer Joe Shuta. The Pirates never returned his call. \u201cThat\u2019s their loss, not mine,\u201d said Easler disgustedly. This story was unknown and unreported in any Pittsburgh media at the time or since.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hit Man\u201d lamented the state of hitting in baseball today. He feels there is undue emphasis on analytics, launch angles, and exit velocity, and not enough contact being made. His comments in full are in the brief video below.
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