Brent Strom has moved on to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
So, can one man—a coach no less—make such a measurable difference to a Major League Baseball pitching staff that—before the first regular season game even takes place—opposing clubs already have taken notice?
If you’re Strom, the answer is a resounding yes.
When the Pirates open their spring-training facility in Bradenton, Florida, next month—from this past season’s National League Rookie of the Year, Paul Skenes, to Jared Jones, and the rest of the prized arms on manager Derek Shelton’s 26-man roster—there should be a level of excitement and confidence not seen in recent years. Strom, as the assistant pitching coach, working in concert with pitching coach Oscar Marin, should make a quick, and obvious, impact on the pitchers’ progress, when compared with their statistics of the 2024 season.
Strom’s track record in developing young arms is the best of the best. He has been a difference-maker like no other since the 1996 MLB season, when entering his first on the big league level guiding the pitching staff of the Houston Astros. It’s not a stretch to claim, then, that having Strom advising pitchers is akin to having an extra arm on the club’s active roster.
With five weeks to go until MLB clubs turn on the lights to their spring-training facilities in Florida and Arizona, Strom is already a man in motion. It can’t be soon enough for one of the newest editions to Shelton’s staff to get to know his pupils.
“I want to be the best assistant coach that I could be,” Strom told The Epoch Times and other media members via a Zoom conference. “I want to help Oscar the best that I can. I just want to add to the mix.”
At 76 years old, an age when many people are enjoying a slower pace of life, Strom is the hamster in the wheel, the Energizer Bunny—in constant thoughts about pitching—now in an old and black Pirates uniform. Once arriving at Pirate City in Bradenton, Pittsburgh’s “Southern Home,” Strom will begin his 15th season tutoring young and veteran arms looking to take their tosses to the next level.
Strom has already reached out to members of the Pirates’ pitching squad.
“There’s a reason why they are doing what they do. I want to ask them [pitchers] a lot of questions, and then see how I can help. I want them all to know that I have their best interest in mind. Learning never takes a holiday,” he said.
His approach to pitching is old school meets analytics, and the results that have come from his work are what led the Pirates to pursue Strom. During his second tenure with the Houston Astros (2014–21) as pitching coach, the club won the 2017 World Series. Two of his starting pitchers, Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander, captured Cy Young awards as the very best American League arms in 2015 and 2019, respectively.
At the conclusion of the 2015 season, Houston’s pitching staff finished sixth overall in the American League. Three seasons later, when MLB closed its books on the 2018 season, Astros’ pitchers came in first place. Results like this, combined with decades of experience in Minor and Major League dugouts charting and studying pitching’s evolution, made Strom’s availability for Pittsburgh too enticing not to pursue.
Pittsburgh’s staff screams with potential of the highest level. The club’s future is blessed with some of the most exciting arms not only in the National League Central but also league-wide. Last season, Paul Skenes’s overall performance was nothing short of spectacular. Tossing 170 strikeouts in 133 innings of work, racking up an ERA of 1.96 in 23 games that he started, Skenes’s 11–3 win-loss record was the talk of baseball.
When you add veteran right-handed starter Mitch Keller, who won 11 games and contributed 166 strikeouts last season, plus, Jared Jones, another Pittsburgh promising arm who in his rookie season of 2024, in 22 games, accumulated 132 strikeouts in 121.2 innings of work, what’s not to be giddy about? For the duo of Strom and Marin, training camp can’t come soon enough.
“I met with Oscar in Phoenix,” said Strom, who lives in Tucson, Arizona. “I know my role, and I’m not going to overstep it.”
Joining Shelton’s staff appears to have invigorated Strom’s desire to continue to teach, and revel in the results of his students. Being released by the Arizona Diamondbacks in October 2024, after a disappointing season that saw the club miss out on postseason play when in 2023 it captured the National League pennant, Strom states that he had been following the Pirates’ pitchers.
“When an offer was made to interview for this job [with Pittsburgh], I jumped at it. Being able to teach is in my blood,” he said.
After the 2021 World Series, when the Astros lost to the Atlanta Braves in six games, Strom contemplated retirement. But then an offer coming from the Diamondbacks to school their young arms was too exciting for Strom to decline.
Now, it’s the Pirates’ turn to gain from his baseball whispering.
Wanting to make a good first impression with Pirates’ pitchers is of the utmost importance for Strom. Having been a “head pitching guy” for so long, Strom, at this stage of his celebrated career, is okay with being a number-two guy.
Thumbs up to Pirates’ ownership and club general manager Ben Cherington for making possibly the most influential non-player transaction in recent memory with the signing of Strom.
