Communication -- with words and numbers alike -- key for new pitching coach Murphy

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Bill Murphy wouldn’t quite call himself bilingual, but the Pirates’ new pitching coach can communicate with players in several ways.

First, there’s Spanish, a product of when he joined the Astros’ coaching ranks. It wasn’t through classes or apps, but by asking fellow coaches how to say a phrase so he could communicate with Latin players. Over time, he built quite the vocabulary.

"I would just try to memorize presentations, basically,” Murphy said at the Winter Meetings on Tuesday. “Over time, I was able to take different words and different sentences and create different things off that.”

The other tongue is numbers. Being able to teach analytics was a prerequisite for the job, and Murphy again leaned on his fellow coaches to better understand this new world of language. In a world of expected stats, seam-shifted wake and pitch design, players crave information, but they’re not robots. Different players are going to value and need different information, and as Murphy puts it, “they’re not robots. They have hearts, they have emotions.”

"The thing I’ve really enjoyed is taking all that information and then breaking it down to the players so it actually helps them, because that’s what you want,” Murphy said. “You want to try to help people. You want to try to help people develop themselves and achieve their dreams.”

That’s the type of driving force Pirates leadership and pitchers wanted this offseason: the drive to get better. It’s what ultimately led to the Pirates hiring Murphy as the team’s new pitching coach in October.

The rotation was unquestionably the strength of the 2025 team, anchoring a pitching staff that finished seventh in baseball in ERA (3.76) and fourth in WAR, according to FanGraphs (19.1). The unit felt it could get better, though, leading to the club not renewing longtime pitching coach Oscar Marin’s contract. The move raised many eyebrows, but the hiring of Murphy was met with high marks from both the fanbase and internally.

"I think it's just continuing to challenge the guys to push them to continue to get better,” manager Don Kelly said in November. “The pitching staff is the foundation. Really believe strongly in [Murphy's] skill set, the knowledge and the communication style that he brings from Houston to accomplish that."

Murphy had risen through the ranks in the Astros’ system, starting as a Rookie-level pitching coach to pitching coordinator to Major League pitching coach. In that time, the Astros became a pitching powerhouse, boasting the best ERA in baseball since he was elevated to one of their Major League pitching coaches in 2022 (3.61).

But the opportunity in Pittsburgh was enough to lure Murphy away from the only pro organization he had known. It really came down to who he was going to work with, both on the leadership side -- including the pitching development team, Kelly and general manager Ben Cherington -- as well as the players.

"The talent we have on the pitching side, especially the young talent, both of those things drew me to this opportunity,” Murphy said. “... My goal is to try to get the most out of every single pitcher. Every single pitcher that we have on our roster.”

The Pirates have one of the best collections of young pitching in baseball, anchored by Paul Skenes, Bubba Chandler and Jared Jones. Murphy has had touchpoints with all of his new pitchers, including two calls with Skenes. The first was before Murphy was hired, the second after he joined the organization.

On the day Skenes won the Cy Young Award, he talked about how there are two types of people who pass through Pittsburgh: those just looking for a job and those who genuinely want to win in Pittsburgh. There’s been plenty of discussion this winter about wanting to win in Pittsburgh in 2026, so much so that it’s part of the Pirates’ pitch to free agents.

"In the second call, the thing that really stuck with me is that he told me that he's the second [type of] guy,” Skenes said in November. “Words are cheap, talk is cheap. But he chose to come to Pittsburgh, and he could have gone elsewhere. So that's really exciting for me.”

Needless to say, Murphy agrees with his new ace.

"I, quite frankly, cannot wait for the fans to see us playing in October,” Murphy said. “That’s why I came here, and I know that sentiment is with every single person in our organization. That’s why I came here, to play in October. And I chose to be here, I want to be here because of that blue-collar [attitude] and just the competitiveness that this pitching staff is going to have this year, and that our team is going to have this year.”