In a move they were already expected to make, the Detroit Tigers are set to sign former Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio to their staff. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times was the first to tweet that a deal was close, and Bob Nightengale of USA Today has confirmed the news with his own tweet.
Bosio served as the Cubs’ pitching coach for five seasons, including their 2016 title run, before being dismissed last week. During his time with the organization, Chicago’s staff pitched to a 3.81 ERA across 8,693 1/3 innings, good for sixth-best in all of baseball. Starters for the Cubs during that time combined for 78.1 fWAR. Bosio coached Jake Arrieta during his Cy Young-winning season, and the club also saw fantastic overall results from pitchers like Jeff Samardzija, Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks during his tenure with the organization.
Bosio will join the Tigers during a massive teardown, and will be tasked with helping to develop a lot of young players. While Tigers starters as a group have been one of the best in baseball across the past five seasons, their relievers during that span are the worst in baseball by combined fWAR (10.5) and xFIP (4.25). Detroit will hope to turn their bullpen around in a big way with Bosio’s help.
The Tigers are set to open the 2018 season with a group that includes former Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer, along with Daniel Norris, Jordan Zimmerman and Matt Boyd, along with a relief staff that hasn’t shown much promise outside of Shane Greene. The fact that the Tigers hired Bosio so quickly speaks to their confidence in him. Based on his body of work with the Cubs, it seems as though the Tigers have made a fantastic hire at the outset of a long rebuilding process.
Cubs gettin rid of him was straight finger pointing scape goat disease that is runnin rampant in league these days….true top end of their profession coaches w/history of success bein shown the door cause of a rough spell, as the great philosopher Catfish Hunter said, “the sun don’t shine on the same dogs ass all the time,” it’s baseball life, ride the ups & downs as the Baseball Gods permit……didn’t take long to find work, overreactions rule the day, hate the yanks but they screwed up gettin rid of Joe on heels of something special, good luck Chris n to all the coaches/mngrs who have to take 1 for their organization, live to fight another day.
You have a right to your opinion. You also have the right to be wrong
Theo….?
Hello Michael
Bosio was very good for the Cubs. He turned around Arrieta’s career. He developed Hendricks and Samardzjia (who mostly fell apart after leaving Bosio.) He also turned some garbage into gold with Maholm and Feldman. The list goes on, which is why he was hired so quickly.
But to call him a scapegoat isn’t telling the whole truth. While the staff did take a step back this year – some due to injury, some to fatigue, and some to natural regression to the mean – that merely provided an opportunity for the Cubs to let him go. The reason they wanted to let him go was due to other issues – the biggest being that he pi**ed off and embarrassed his bosses by going on the radio and accusing Eric Thames of steroid usage.
Tiger fan here lovin’ on Bosio hire. Also, looking like Tigers are hiring all Santa look-a-likes for 2018!
I honestly do not think the Thames thing had anything to do with Bosio getting fires. Look, as the year went along, he and Joe started having disagreements. Plus, Joe’s buddy became available. It’s as simple as that. Yes, you have to perform, but relationships also matter.
No doubt that Hickey being available was a big reason they made the move. But there’s no understating the level of frustration his bosses had when he made those comments about Thames.
It was a little of everything that you and the other poster mentioned.
It was the radio comment, the recent slight rift between him and Joe, the serious regression of all the Cubs’ pitchers this year, and I’m sure there were a few other reasons.
Bosio is obviously a great pitching coach, but for where the Cubs organization is at, it was time for a change.
He was also a victim of circumstance, because Maddon’s buddy (Jim Hickey) became available to take the job. This gives them the perfect excuse to magnify the issues and let Bosio go.
It was just a multitude of things.
Thanks Cubs! I agree that he was kind of a scapegoat for them. Your loss our gain, we are going to need some help over the next few rebuilding years in Detroit.
I’d much rather have Jim Hickey. Great hire by the Cubs. Best of luck to Bosio.
He is walking into a thankless job, taking over the worst staff in baseball.
This staff won’t look the same in 2 years. He’s been hired to develop the many young arms at AAA, AA, A.
the SP may very well “look the same” in 2 yrs, as he has plenty of work on his hands with a great upside with Fulmer, Boyd, Norris, and especially Zimmerman.
I think there are better SP in the farm system than Boyd, Norris, and Zimmermann.
Really? Two 19 yr olds in Perez and Manning, or Long, who projects to be a #4 at best?
That’s nonsense. You mean the worst BP in baseball. The SP is far from the worst.
2017 Tigers starting pitching allowed more runs per game than any other staff in MLB, and that was with Verlander for most of the year.
How many runs a staff gave up in 2017 is an over-simplification of projected performance in 2018, as is the absence of Verlander, as in 2018 it’s also without Sanchez who coughed up 81 of those runs. I guess you haven’t noticed that the NL doesn’t have the DH. Even considering that, there are seven NL teams (Reds, Mets, Marlins, SD, Braves, Phil and SF) with SP that gave up almost as many ER as Det, ranging from 472-to the Reds SP that gave up only nine ER less than Det, plus two AL teams; Balt that gave up MORE ER with 536 and the W/Sox and Texas not far behind. I doubt that any MLB organization considers Det to have the worst SP in baseball. Would you trade the Tigers SP for Baltimore’s?
So I guess the Tigers won’t be hiring an independent thinking and veteran manager.
Because only a good manager would hire his own coaches.
Gardenhire was hired last week.
greatdaysports what are you saying? You don’t think Gardenhire picked Bosio?
And he’ll hire more look-a-likes on his coaching staff. The Detroit Tigers and their Santa coaching staff.
Gardenhire’s guy is Rick Anderson.
Guessing Anderson didn’t want to come out of retirement to the pitching coach responsibility and will be involved somewhere working with the kids in the pen.
Lol. You got that right. Rick Anderson had a Major League job as a pitching coach way to long. He was terrible.
Well other than John santana what has there ever been to work with? 84-88mph control pitchers the twins front office loved to draft and aquire. Same organization that cut David Ortiz because he didn’t do well hitting the ball to the opposite field
Probably because someone better, like Bosio, wasn’t available.
Good luck Chris and thanks for your years with the Cubs.
Looks like the Tiger’s have decided to experiment with their players and not with their coaches. Hopefully the young players will respect the accomplishments of these veteran leaders. A solid hitting coach next!
Bosio got fired because he stood up to that egotistical moron Maddon
Leprechaun Look who is calling who a moron. Tell me how he “stood up” to Maddon and thus got fired?
Oh you have nothing to base it on? Ok moron
So this guy was a pitching coach for the Cubs 5 years ago? Cubs sucked 5 years ago. Not excited about this hire yet.
So they were bad when he got there, and WS champions before he left. Sounds like the perfect guy for the job in Detroit.
He was also the pitching coach in 2016 when they won the world series! Are you excited now
Great move for a young team.