The Pittsburgh Pirates have a lot of work to do in order to compete for a playoff spot. The Pirates finished the 2025 season with a 71-91 record, and have now posted seven consecutive losing seasons and have just one winning season since 2015. Despite dominant seasons from Paul Skenes, the Pirates continue to waste his generational talent with a lack of support around him.
Just says after thier 2025 season ended, Pittsburgh is making some changes to its coaching staff. In a bizarre move, the Pirates have decided to not renew the contract of pitching coach Oscar Marin. The move is questionable for many reasons.
Pirates parting ways with pitching coach Oscar Marin makes little sense
Pitching wasn't the problem for the Pirates in 2025. The Pirates as a staff ranked 7th in the big leagues and third in the National League with a collective ERA of 3.76. It was their best team ERA in over a decade. Additionally, the Pirates were 4th in WHIP (1.22), 8th in BAA (.236), and 5th in total runs allowed (645) among all 30 MLB teams in 2025. Those are pretty solid numbers. Clearly, whatever Marin was doing was working. But apparently it wasn't enough to keep his job.
Marin has been the Pirates' pitching coach since 2019, and the PIttsburgh pitching staff had seen increased success under his tutelage. Pittsburgh's staff ERA went from 5.08 in 2021 to 4.66 in 2022. The steady increase continued with an ERA of 4.60 in 2023 and to 4.15 in 2024. Marin and the Pirates have developed several talented pitchers in that stretch, including Skenes, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft, and Mike Burrows.
The problem for Pittsburgh this season was the offense. The Pirates ranked 28th in batting average (.231), 30th in OPS (.655), 30th in runs (583), and 30th in home runs (117) this season. Skenes himself received very little run support, and got a win in just 10 of his 32 starts despite posting a 1.97 ERA and 0.95 WHIP over 187.2 innings.
There have been reports that Pirates players were not satisfied with Marin as the pitching coach which prompted the Pirates' decision to move on. Chemistry between coaches and players is obviously an important dynamic to keep in mind, but from the outside looking in, Pittsburgh's pitching success was the one thing they did right this season. The move is still peculiar, and it will be interesting to see what Pittsburgh's pitching numbers look like next season without Marin.