Pirates GM: No plans to hire another coach to replace Glenn Sherlock on Derek Shelton's staff

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost a member of Derek Shelton’s coaching staff when Glenn Sherlock left to become Buck Showalter’s bench coach with the New York Mets, but general manager Ben Cherington doesn’t expect to add another coach to replace Sherlock.

Cherington said Wednesday afternoon that between third-base coach Mike Rabelo, new assistant Radley Haddad and bullpen catcher Jordan Comadena, the Pirates have staff members with catching experience and expertise who can fulfill Sherlock’s role.

“There may be an opportunity to grow some people’s roles in that area,” Cherington said on a 30-minute video conference call. “I don’t expect we replace Sherls in a formal kind of way. … Amongst that group, we feel good about the catching group.”

Cherington also called the hiring of the first female coach in franchise history, Caitlyn Callahan, a sign of the club’s commitment to diversity. The Pirates used their Get Better At Baseball instructional camp last fall as a “trial run” to identify prospective coaches, including Callahan, who will work as a developmental coach at Pirate City in Bradenton, Fla.

“If we’re truly committed to retaining and finding the best possible people for whatever role, then we will get more diverse over time,” Cherington said. “And you can get diverse in all kinds of ways. There’s lots of different forms of diversity. The value of that for us is we get the benefit of very different perspectives, specific to baseball or just very different perspectives in terms of world view, how to communicate, how to connect with people. So that’s why you do that, because it makes us better. We definitely believe, when we think about players, surrounding players with that there’s a real value of creating diversity amongst that group.”

Speaking of diversity, Cherington said the Pirates spent the majority of their $6,262,600 international bonus pool by signing 19 prospects — 11 position players and eight pitchers from six countries.

The class is headlined by 16-year-old Dominicans in outfielder Tony Blanco Jr. and shortstop Yordany De Los Santos, who were ranked in MLB Pipeline’s top 12 prospects, and 20-year-old Taiwanese right-hander Hung-Leng Chang.

“We feel pretty confident that this group of 19 players we brought in this past weekend represents a really diverse group in a lot of ways,” Pirates assistant general manager Steve Sanders said on the call. “Diverse in being from all over the globe, I think spanning six countries. Diverse in a pretty impactful mix of position players and pitchers. Different skill sets. Different ages. Guys at different parts of their developmental progression. I think we feel really good about that.”