Isiah Kiner-Falefa Had Role In Pirates' Hiring of Hitting Coach
The Pittsburgh Pirates didn't need to look far to get feedback on Matt Hague as they went through the process of hiring a new hitting coach.
Infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa was with Hague during the first part of the 2024 season on the Toronto Blue Jays. With Kiner-Falefa's time with Hague while he was the Blue Jays' assistant hitting coach, Pirates manager Derek Shelton said they leaned on IKF to get more intel.
As a result, the feedback from IKF, along with other players in the Blue Jays organization, was important in the Pirates' decision to hire Hague as their next hitting coach.
"IKF was one of the people we talked to," Shelton said at the Winter Meetings in Dallas. "We talked to not only guys here, but we talked to guys at other places he had been in Toronto. IKF spoke very highly of him. It wasn't directly correlated, because IKF came from Toronto, but he did have a lot of positive things to say about how he was. When you get firsthand from one of your players about a guy's demeanor in the cage, that's really hard to quantify in an interview process, so I think the player portion of it was really important to us."
Hague played for the Pirates briefly in 2012 and 2014 and the Blue Jays in 2015. In 2019, Hague entered the coaching ranks and eventually worked his way up to becoming the hitting coach for the Blue Jays' Double-A and Triple-A affiliates from 2021 to 2023. In 2024, Hague reached the big leagues as Toronto's assistant hitting coach.
There was a stark contrast in IKF's performance when comparing his time in Toronto and Pittsburgh after he was acquired via trade ahead of the trade deadline. Across 83 games with the Blue Jays, he amassed 7 home runs, 33 RBIs and slashed .292/.338/.420 while posting a 3.2 WAR. IKF struggled to replicate his success upon arriving in Pittsburgh, as he hit 1 home run, drove in 10 runs and slashed .240/.265/.322 and had a 0.4 WAR through 50 games.
Shelton also credited Hague's love for hitting and his ability to connect with his players as instrumental in hiring the former Pirates first baseman.
"There were a couple of things," Shelton said. "Number one, hit his passion for hitting and when we started talking to players about him, the feedback that we got from players was so good. How he listens, how he is in the cage [and] the in-game conversations. Everybody we talked to was just effusive in terms of, like, this is a guy that you want around you."
