The Pittsburgh Pirates have just added three new front office members according to their front office page, naming Hadi Raad as a Pro Evaluation Team Leader, Tim Smith as a Pro Scout and John Koronka as an Area Supervisor. Pirates Prospects was able to confirm all of these hires.
Raad was the Director of Pro Scouting for the Miami Marlins for the last three years, getting that job in November of 2019. Before that, he worked six years for the New York Yankees in four different positions, including two years as their Director of Minor League Operations, and 16 months as a pro scout. He worked for the Texas Rangers for 14 months in 2013-14, after he began his career with the Yankees in 2012. Before joining the pro ranks, he attended Wheaton College.
The Pirates also have Larry Broadway and Sean McNally working as Pro Evaluation Team Leaders.
John Koronka pitched four years in the majors with the Chicago Cubs (2005), Texas Rangers (2006-07) and Florida Marlins (2009). His pro career lasted from 1998 through early 2011. He became a regional scout in Florida for the Cubs shortly after his pro career ended, holding that job from 2011 through 2020. He took a college coaching job in March of 2021 at Embry-Riddle, before joining the Pirates.
Tim Smith was with the Detroit Tigers in 2022, where he served as their coordinator of performance science.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.