Good luck, Brad. Odd choice? Way to go, Marte.

I'll credit commenter Lance at Mariner Minors for this piece of news.

Brad Holman, the pitching coach of the Timber Rattlers from 2002-2005, has landed a job with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

The Altoona club will be managed by Tim Leiper for the third straight year. Leiper, who has managed the Curve to back-to-back winning seasons, will again be joined by coach Brandon Moore, as well as new pitching coach Brad Holman. Holman, who has six seasons as a Minor League pitching coach under his belt, spent the previous two years coaching for the Mariners Double-A affiliate.

Altoona is the Double-A affiliate of the Pirates and they are in the Eastern League.

In a non-Timber Rattler related note about the Pirate's minor league hires, this one for State College of the New York-Penn League was very, very interesting:

Filling out [Brad] Fischer's staff will be former Pirate Sid Bream as the team's new hitting coach and Wilson Alvarez as the team's pitching coach for the second straight year.

Interesting because, while Bream is a former Pirate, he is best known for the video tagged 1992 over at MLB.com.

Lastly at that same story there was another ex-Rattler mentioned:

Marte aids with no-no: Pirates reliever Damaso Marte found himself in the middle of a no-hit bid on Monday when he came into the seventh inning of a Dominican Winter League playoff game. Marte relieved Ervin Santana (Los Angeles Angels) and kept Santana's no-hitter intact by inducing a groundout, a popup and three strike outs before handing the ball over to Carlos Marmol (Cubs), who finished the no-hit feat for the Licey club.

Marte was a Rattler in 1996.