Source: Pirates to hire former farmhand Matt Hague as new hitting coach

The Pittsburgh Pirates turned to one of their former farmhands as their new hitting coach by hiring Matt Hague, according to a source.

Hague spent seven seasons with the organization, including 33 games in the majors.

TSN Sports first reported the hire.

Hague, 39, spent four seasons as a minor-league hitting coach in the Toronto Blue Jays system before being promoted to assistant hitting coach on the major-league staff last season.

Hague replaces Andy Haines, who was fired in October after three seasons in which the Pirates finished 14th (out of 15 teams) in the National League in hits, strikeouts, batting average (.234) and on-base percentage (.301) and last in slugging (.371) and OPS (.672).

With the Pirates, Hague will be tasked with leading a hitting group that includes assistant hitting coach Christian Marrero to maximize the talents of not only All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds, a Silver Slugger finalist, and center fielder Oneil Cruz but to get underperformers like Ke’Bryan Hayes and Jack Suwinski back on track.

“Ultimately it’s about the players,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said last month. “We need to serve the players in the best possible way and listen to all of what we’ve heard and the observations we’ve made about what we think the players need more of or less of and focus there. I think we also want to build a team, a hitting team that is really working together, and so that it’s not all on one person to bear the burden of the offensive performance of the team. I don’t think that’s the best way in modern baseball.”

Hague returns to the Pirates with a reputation as a coach who has embraced baseball’s modern technology, particularly as an advocate of the Trajekt robotic pitch simulator, and was popular with both players and coaches in Toronto.

A ninth-round pick in the 2008 MLB Draft, Hague batted .298/.374/.427 in 10 seasons in the minors. He made the Pirates’ Opening Day roster in 2012 after batting .400 with seven home runs and 14 RBIs in spring training but batted .229 (16 of 70) in 30 games. He spent the 2013 season at Triple-A Indianapolis before playing three games with the Pirates in 2014, after which he was placed on waivers.

Hague was claimed by the Blue Jays, played the 2016 season in Japan before playing in the minors for Minnesota in ’17 and Seattle and Washington in ’18.

After playing 11 seasons professionally, Hague started his coaching career at High-A Dunedin in 2020. He moved up to Double-A New Hampshire the next year and to Triple-A Buffalo in ’23.

The Blue Jays fired hitting coach Guillermo Martinez after finishing 14 games below .500 (74-88) this past season. The team had a .241/.313/.389 slash line and ranked 23rd in the majors with 671 runs, a drop from 746 in 2023. They finished 26th in home runs as Vladimir Guerrero was the only player to hit more than 20.