News Pirates Team Notes

[Pittsburgh Pirates]

Staff Notes: Rockies, Baker, Kiekhefer, Tigers

The Rockies’ search for a front office leader will drag into the offseason. Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post reports that the Rox don’t intend to announce their baseball operations hire until next week. The World Series will end on Saturday at the latest, but the Rockies are apparently content to go at least a few days into their offseason activity without a GM in place.

Colorado doesn’t have any free agents who’d receive consideration for a qualifying offer. Their option decisions are easy calls to buy out Kyle Farmer and Thairo Estrada. It’s not a big deal not to have a GM for either of those moves. However, the first five days of the offseason see plenty of waiver activity as teams are required to get their rosters down to 40 without the injured list. Colorado has top waiver priority as the worst team in the league. It would be ideal to have a permanent baseball operations leader for those opportunities, but it doesn’t appear they’ll be in place for that rush. The GM will also need to oversee a managerial search process that could take weeks. Guardians assistant general manager Matt Forman and Diamondbacks AGM Amiel Sawdaye are among the finalists to replace Bill Schmidt in the GM chair.

While we await Colorado’s decision, let’s turn to a few teams that have made minor front office or coaching moves.

• The Pirates parted ways with vice president of player performance John Baker, reports Jason Mackey of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A former big league catcher, Baker had been with the Bucs for the past five seasons. He spent his first four years as the organization’s farm director before moving to the more nebulous player performance role last winter. Michael Chernow replaced Baker as the player development director in January.
• There are a couple changes coming to Oli Marmol’s coaching group with the Cardinals. Katie Woo of The Athletic reports that assistant pitching coach Dean Kiekhefer and game-planning coach Packy Elkins will be reassigned to strategist roles. Woo notes that the Cards intend to hire an assistant pitching coach and an assistant hitting coach later in the offseason. She also writes that the club will add new hires in international scouting and player development. Cardinals fans will want to read the full column, which includes quotes from new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom on building their front office infrastructure without replacing most of the key staffers from the John Mozeliak era.
• The Tigers are hiring Alex Smith away from the Cubs to work as their vice president of baseball strategy, report Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. Smith had been on Craig Counsell’s staff with the somewhat vague title of strategy coach. Smith had spent three seasons on Chicago’s MLB staff — one under David Ross and two with Counsell. Sharma and Mooney write that he was largely tasked with helping the coaches integrate data into their preparation. The Cornell product returns to a front office after working in the Cubs’ analytics department between 2015-22, overlapping with Detroit president of baseball operations Scott Harris for two years. Harris had worked as Chicago’s assistant general manager in 2018-19.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/10/staff-notes-rockies-baker-kiekhefer-tigers.html

 

[Pittsburgh Pirates]

Pirates Claim Dugan Darnell

The Pirates announced that they have claimed right-hander Dugan Darnell off waivers from the Rockies. He was immediately transferred to the 60-day injured list, so the Bucs didn’t need to open up a 40-man roster spot. In late August, it was reported that Darnell would be undergoing surgery to address a torn labrum in his hip, a procedure with a recovery timeline of about eight months.

There was no previous indication that the Rockies had removed Darnell from their roster. It’s common at this time of year for teams to place players on waivers, as many clubs are facing roster crunches. The 60-day IL goes away five days after the World Series, so players need to retake 40-man roster spots. Some breathing room is created by others reaching free agency but teams often need to clear space. Even if a team doesn’t need space now, having it is valuable throughout the winter for other moves, including protecting guys from the Rule 5 draft.

RosterResource projected the Rockies to have 41 guys for 40 roster spots at the beginning of the offseason, including Darnell. It seems Colorado tried to open a spot by passing Darnell through waivers but the Pirates intervened. The Pirates will face a crunch of their own, as RosterResource projects them to have 42 guys for 40 spots, not including Darnell. The Bucs will therefore have to do some clearing in the coming days.

For now, they are bringing a fresh relief arm into the system. Darnell, 28, was signed by the Rockies as an undrafted free agent in 2021. He got a very limited big league debut this year. He was called up August 1 but then left hip inflammation put him on the IL three weeks later. In that debut, he tossed 11 2/3 innings over nine appearances. He allowed five earned runs on ten hits and seven walks while striking out five.

That’s a small sample of work, so presumably the Bucs are also putting some stock in his minor league track record. He has thrown 255 1/3 innings on the farm with a 3.74 earned run average, 30.6% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate. That includes 53 2/3 Triple-A innings in 2025, pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, with a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 43.5% ground ball rate.

Given Darnell’s surgery timeline, he likely won’t be available until the middle of next year. Perhaps the Bucs will keep him on the 40-man through the winter and then put him on the 60-day IL again once it returns in spring training. It’s also possible the Bucs try to pass him through waivers unclaimed during the offseason, therefore keeping him as non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/10/pirates-claim-dugan-darnell.html