The Pittsburgh Pirates have promoted two of their scouts to Special Assistants to the General Manager, according to a team press release. Ron Hopkins and Matt Ruebel were both given the promotion, after serving as scouts in the organization last year. The Pirates had lost two people in that role this off-season, with Marc DelPiano and Jim Benedict both going to Miami in Vice President roles.
Hopkins was a pro scout last year, and Ruebel was a National Supervisor. I don’t have much info on their scouting results, since info on pro scouts doesn’t get published much, and national supervisors kind of oversee everything on the amateur side. One interesting note that has no impact here is that Ruebel was a reliever for the Pirates in the late 90s, and got the win on Opening Day in 1997 against San Francisco.
Along with those moves, the Pirates promoted Rodney Henderson and Everett Russell to Professional Scouts. Henderson was the Southeast Region Supervisor while Russell was the Midwest Region Supervisor. Once again, with supervisors it’s hard to point to individual moves and say that’s who they signed. However, Russell has been in the system since before Huntington, and signed Brad Lincoln back in 2006 and Paul Maholm in 2003, among others.