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Archives for November 2020

Tigers Make Three Hires To Coaching Staff

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The Tigers have added three new coaches to A.J. Hinch’s staff, Cody Stavenhagen and Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic report (Twitter link).  George Lombard will be the new bench coach, Chip Hale becomes third base coach, and Scott Coolbaugh becomes hitting coach.

This is the second link between Lombard and the Tigers this offseason, as the club interviewed the 45-year-old for the managerial position before deciding on Hinch.  Lombard has worked as the Dodgers’ first base coach for the last five seasons, meaning he and Hinch were on opposite sides of the controversial 2017 World Series.  Lombard previously worked in the Red Sox farm system as a manager and coach, as well as a roving outfield coordinator for both the Red Sox and Braves organizations.

Hale has also faced off against Hinch in a World Series, as Hale was the Nationals’ bench coach in 2019 when Washington defeated Houston.  However, Hale previously worked as a coach under Hinch when Hinch was hired as the Diamondbacks’ manager in 2009.  Best known for his own stint managing Arizona in 2015-16, Hale has a long track record as a big league coach with the D’Backs, Mets, Athletics, and Nationals.  Hale spent three seasons as a bench coach and third base coach in D.C. before parting ways with the team in October.

Coolbaugh worked as the assistant hitting coach for the White Sox in 2020, and will now take full hitting coach duties for the third time with a big league team.  Coolbaugh previously worked in the same role with the Rangers in 2011-12 and the Orioles from 2015-18.

The Tigers have now amassed most of Hinch’s staff, as the team announced yesterday that Chris Fetter and Juan Nieves had been hired as pitching coach and assistant pitching coach, respectively.  These new faces join two holdovers from Ron Gardenhire’s staff — first base coach Ramon Santiago and quality control coach Josh Paul.

Managerial/Coaching Notes: Cora, Rowson, Fuld

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Alex Cora’s return as the Red Sox manager was widely predicted and even expected by some pundits, though the club’s managerial search “wasn’t a dog-and-pony show,” a source tells The Athletic’s Chad Jennings (subscription required).  Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom spoke to a wide range of candidates, and as Jennings writes, “the feeling within the organization was, if Bloom wanted someone else, ownership would support that choice.”  There was even some sentiment that Cora was initially only included in the search as “a courtesy interview,” though Bloom increasingly became convinced that Cora was the best choice to lead the club going forward.

More coaching-related notes from around baseball…

  • Marlins bench coach James Rowson was the third finalist for Boston’s managerial job, Jennings writes.  It was already reported that Cora and Phillies director of integrative baseball performance Sam Fuld were the other two finalists (and perhaps the top two choices) for the position, though it wasn’t known whether Rowson or Pirates bench coach Don Kelly was the other candidate to make the final cut.
  • Rowson’s future still looks bright, however, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes that Marlins “officials are intrigued” by their bench coach as a potential manager of the future.  Miami hired Rowson as their bench coach and something of an organizational hitting coordinator a year ago, following Rowson’s past stints as a hitting coach for the Twins and Cubs and multiple years working as a hitting instructor in the Yankees’ farm system.  Of course, the Marlins already have a manager in Don Mattingly, though Mattingly’s contract is only guaranteed through the 2021 season (with a club option for 2022).  It certainly doesn’t seem like Mattingly is in danger of being replaced any time soon, both due to Miami’s success last season and, as Rosenthal puts it, “it’s difficult to imagine them making a move with Mattingly and paying two managers at once.”  However, Mattingly is one of the few holdovers remaining from Jeffrey Loria’s ownership, so Derek Jeter could want a hand-picked manager in charge if he feels the Marlins have fully turned the corner on their rebuild.
  • Fuld may not have been the choice as Red Sox manager, but Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe wonders if the team’s interest in Fuld could make him a candidate to be the team’s next bench coach.  Fuld has never worked as a coach or manager at either the MLB or minor league levels, as his post-playing career has been spent in his current role with the Phillies.  If not Fuld as bench coach, the Sox could promote from within their current coaching staff, with Abraham suggesting Ramon Vazquez or Carlos Febles as potential candidates.

Quick Hits: Mets, Lindor, Angels, Hill, Padres, Pirates

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The Mets could go after Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor in a trade during the offseason, but the return might prove prohibitive for New York. As David Lennon of Newsday tweets, the Indians could ask for an Andres Gimenez–Jeff McNeil tandem in trade talks. That would be a lot for the Mets, who saw Gimenez perform well as a rookie in 2020 and who have gotten tremendous production from the versatile McNeil dating back to his 2018 debut. McNeil has batted an outstanding .319/.383/.501 in 1,024 major league plate appearances, so it seems highly unlikely the Mets will part with him and Gimenez for one year of control over Lindor.

  • Former Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill, whom they parted with in late October, continues to look like a serious candidate for the Angels’ general manager job. Hill will have an in-person meeting soon with Angels owner Arte Moreno, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.
  • Padres left-hander Matt Strahm recently underwent successful surgery on his partially torn right patellar tendon, Robert Murray of Fansided reports. The 28-year-old Strahm logged a 2.61 ERA/4.93 FIP with a career-worst 6.53 K/9 against 1.74 BB/9 over 20 2/3 innings in 2020.
  • John Baker looks like the front-runner to take over as the Pirates’ farm director, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette reports. The former major league catcher has been working in the Cubs’ front office since 2015.

KBO’s Eric Jokisch Considering MLB Return

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Korea Baseball Organization left-hander Eric Jokisch had a brief run with the Cubs in 2014, but he hasn’t pitched in the majors since then. It’s possible Jokisch will return to baseball’s highest level next season, though, as Robert Murray of Fansided tweets that he’s “considering” a comeback and is garnering interest from MLB teams.

An 11th-round pick of the Cubs in 2010, Jokisch spent most of his stateside time in the minors, including a 570 2/3-inning run at the Triple-A level with the affiliates of Chicago, Miami, Arizona and Oakland. The soft-tossing Jokisch combined for a 4.02 ERA with 6.8 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 in Triple-A ball with those organizations. He did, however, post a sterling 1.88 ERA (alongside a far less encouraging 5.30 FIP) with 6.28 K/9, 2.51 BB/9 and a 51 percent groundball rate in his lone taste of MLB action – a 14 1/3-inning sample size.

While Jokisch, now 31, hasn’t established himself in the majors, he has performed brilliantly since immigrating to Korea before the 2019 campaign. In his two seasons in the KBO, Jokisch has pitched to a 2.66 ERA with 6.8 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 over 335 1/3 frames. Jokisch won the ERA title in the KBO in 2020, Murray notes, and now MLB teams are taking notice.

Erik Kratz Won’t Play in 2021

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Veteran catcher Erik Kratz announced that he won’t play in 2021, Robert Murray of Fansided relays.

“My next season will not be as a player, that’s for sure” Kratz told Murray. “I am deciding not to play.”

This could bring about the end of the playing career of the 40-year-old Kratz, who made his major league debut with the Pirates in 2010. Kratz has since been part of a slew of organizations, most recently the Yankees in 2020 – with whom he slashed an impressive .321/.367/.393 (113 wRC+ across 30 plate appearances. Kratz owns a less productive line of .209/.256/.355 (63 wRC+) with 31 HRs in 951 PA for his MLB career, but he has always been regarded as a quality teammate and a leader. That’s more than can be said for most 29th-round picks, which is when the Blue Jays drafted Kratz in 2002.

Red Sox Hire Alex Cora As Manager

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4:05pm: The Red Sox have made it official.

3:43pm: Cora has agreed to a two-year deal with a pair of club options, according to Enrique Rojas of ESPN.

3:20pm: Cora will get a multiyear deal, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets. The Red Sox are likely to announce his rehiring today, per Heyman.

8:18am: The Red Sox are bringing back Alex Cora as manager, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). He’ll return to the position he occupied from 2018-19 in a move anticipated by many for quite some time.

Cora and the organization parted ways in January after commissioner Rob Manfred implicated him as an architect of the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scheme. Manfred later handed Cora a suspension through the end of the 2020 postseason for his integral role in Houston’s transgressions. (That suspension did not implicate Cora in Boston’s video room misuse during his time as Red Sox manager, which the commissioner blamed on replay coordinator J.T. Watkins). By then, the Red Sox had already replaced Cora with bench coach Ron Roenicke.

Roenicke’s tenure proved to be short-lived, as he was let go on the heels of a disappointing 24-36 season. That’s hardly all Roenicke’s fault, of course. Boston’s roster took plenty of hits outside the manager’s control in the months leading up to the start of the season. Mookie Betts was traded away, Chris Sale was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery, and Eduardo Rodríguez suffered through a serious battle with myocarditis after a bout with COVID-19.

The 2018-19 teams led by Cora had plenty more success. In his first season at the helm, Cora guided the 2018 Red Sox to one of the most successful seasons in recent history. Boston won 108 regular-season games, then breezed through the postseason to a World Series title. The 2019 team took a significant step back, falling to 84-78 and missing the playoffs. Nevertheless, there’s little doubt Cora would’ve been entrenched as Boston’s manager had his heavily-involved role in the Astros’ cheating scandal not come to light.

Boston interviewed a handful of other candidates during the search for Roenicke’s replacement this offseason. Cora always loomed as the favorite, given his apparent ongoing good favor with ownership and many of the team’s players. New baseball operations leader Chaim Bloom spoke with a handful of other candidates, with Phillies director of integrative performance Sam Fuld seemingly emerging as Cora’s biggest challenger for the job. Nevertheless, the Red Sox turned back to their old skipper almost as soon as he was permitted to return to the sport.

Cora’s hiring is further indication clubs are generally willing to look past individuals’ wrongdoings so long as they’re capable of helping the team win games. The Tigers hired former Houston manager A.J. Hinch as their skipper just three days after his suspension expired. Cora follows Hinch back into an MLB dugout just a week later. He’ll be tasked with again trying to lead Boston back to postseason glory, although he’ll now have to do so with a less-talented roster than the one he helped to a title two years ago.

Latest On Shohei Ohtani

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After back-to-back injury-limited seasons, the Angels expect a healthy Shohei Ohtani for spring training in 2021, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports. Ohtani has been throwing from 120 feet of late with roughly 75 to 80 percent effort, according to Fletcher.

This is welcome news at the outset of the offseason for the Angels. who probably haven’t gotten as much out of the ballyhooed Ohtani as expected since they signed the former Japanese standout before 2018. The two-way Ohtani more than lived up to the hype as a pitcher and hitter in his first year, but elbow problems limited him to 51 2/3 innings then. He subsequently underwent Tommy John surgery, which stopped him from pitching in 2019, and then threw a meager 1 2/3 frames this year because of a flexor strain.

All said, Ohtani has given the Angels 53 1/3 innings of 4.39 ERA/3.89 FIP ball with 11.14 K/9 and 5.06 BB/9 across 53 1/3 innings. As a hitter, the 26-year-old has slashed an easily above-average .269/.340/.503 (126 wRC+) with 47 home runs and 29 stolen bases in 967 plate appearances, though he did struggle in 2020. Nevertheless, Ohtani’s someone the Angels will continue to bank on, both as a starter and a designated hitter, in 2021.

Brodie Van Wagenen Leaving Mets

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Mets executive vice president and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen is leaving the organization, the club announced (via Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News). Also departing are special assistant Omar Minaya, assistant general managers Allard Baird and Adam Guttridge, and executive director of player development Jared Banner.

New owner Steve Cohen had already confirmed he’d bring in Sandy Alderson to lead baseball and business operations once his purchase of the franchise became official. That made it seem likely Van Wagenen, the outgoing Wilpon family’s choice to lead baseball operations, might find himself on the outs. His departure mere hours after Cohen officially assumed control of the organization isn’t a huge surprise.

Nevertheless, it comes as quite the shock that four other high-ranking Mets’ officials will follow him out the door immediately. It’s not uncommon for incoming ownership groups to bring in a new baseball operations leader who gradually reshapes the composition of the front office. Wholesale changes of this magnitude at the top of a baseball operations department, though, are unheard of.

Alderson will now go to work on constructing the front office in his own vision. He’ll seemingly have full support from Cohen in hand-picking a staff. As Marc Carig of the Athletic points out (via Twitter), longtime Mets executive John Ricco survived the initial round of departures. Ricco and Alderson built a strong relationship during Alderson’s previous tenure leading the Mets’ baseball ops department, Craig notes, perhaps portending that he’ll again take on a significant role with Alderson running the show.

There’s also no indication as of now that the job of manager Luis Rojas is in any jeopardy. Rojas was a Van Wagenen hire for that position, getting the managerial chair last offseason. But the 39-year-old has been a coach in the Mets’ minor-league system for the better part of two decades, completely overlapping with Alderson’s 2010-18 stint as GM. It’s possible that past relationship gives him a better opportunity at coming back for a second year as New York’s skipper.

As for Van Wagenen, this officially brings to an end his two-year tenure atop the front office. He orchestrated the infamous Edwin Díaz and Robinson Canó trade, parting with top prospect Jarred Kelenic and acquiring a sizable portion of Canó’s rather hefty contract. To Van Wagenen’s credit, both Díaz and Canó performed at a high level this past season after disappointing in 2019. Nevertheless, that looks like an obvious miscue that might haunt the organization for a while. His acquisition of Marcus Stroman midseason in 2019 also didn’t work out the way the club hoped, although that move was always made with a 2020 playoff push in mind. No one could’ve foreseen last summer that the 2020 season would play out the way it did.

To his credit, Van Wagenen did buy low on an everyday-caliber player when he acquired J.D. Davis from the Astros in 2018. His signing of Wilson Ramos to a two-year free agent contract also had its high points, particularly in 2019. The greatest feather in his cap, though, is probably the contract extension the Mets brokered with Jacob deGrom in May 2019, keeping arguably the best pitcher in the sport in Queens for the long-term.

A two-year span is quite a short amount of time to judge any executive’s body of work, and it stands to reason other clubs could have interest in Van Wagenen for some other front office position, assuming that’s what he desires. Van Wagenen made the atypical jump from Creative Artists Agency to the head of a team’s front office. He renounced all ties to his previous clients (deGrom among them) when he joined the Mets, but it’s possible he might now look to return to the other side of the negotiating table.

MLB Will Not Discipline Justin Turner

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Major League Baseball will not discipline Justin Turner for his actions following Game 6 of the World Series, the league announced. Turner, of course, was removed from the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ series-clinching victory after testing positive for COVID-19. He subsequently returned to the field to partake in the Dodgers’ postgame celebration in violation of league protocols.

Despite roundly criticizing Turner’s actions in the immediate aftermath of Game 6, Commissioner Rob Manfred struck a much more conciliatory tone this time around. From Manfred’s statement:

As is often the case, our investigation revealed additional relevant information that, while not exonerating Mr. Turner from responsibility for his conduct, helps put into context why he chose to leave the isolation room and return to the field.  First, Mr. Turner’s teammates actively encouraged him to leave the isolation room and return to the field for a photograph.  Many teammates felt they had already been exposed to Mr. Turner and were prepared to tolerate the additional risk.  Second, Mr. Turner believes that he received permission from at least one Dodger’s employee to return to the field to participate in a photograph.  Although Mr. Turner’s belief may have been the product of a miscommunication, at least two Dodgers employees said nothing to Mr. Turner as he made his way to the field, which they admitted may have created the impression that his conduct was acceptable. 

Third, during the somewhat chaotic situation on the field, Mr. Turner was incorrectly told by an unidentified person that other players had tested positive creating the impression in Mr. Turner’s mind that he was being singled out for isolation.  Finally, Major League Baseball could have handled the situation more effectively.   For example, in retrospect, a security person should have been assigned to monitor Mr. Turner when he was asked to isolate, and Mr. Turner should have been transported from the stadium to the hotel more promptly. 

The commissioner went on to note that Turner expressed regret over his actions (as he did in a statement of his own). Manfred also pointed to Turner’s status as a clubhouse leader and his positive work in the community as mitigating factors. Dodgers president Stan Kasten also lauded Turner’s broader work in the community and noted that events “unfolded rapidly and chaotically” over the season’s final few hours.

Potential mitigating factors notwithstanding, it registers as a surprise Turner escaped without any form of punishment. As the commissioner noted, other Dodger players, staff and MLB do bear some amount of responsibility for the way things transpired. That said, Turner’s actions flew in the face of the overwhelming level of precautions the league, players and staff took over the course of the season to help get to that point. The situation also made for terrible optics for the league at a time when COVID-19 cases are on the upswing in various parts of the country.

Regardless, Turner will enter free agency without a potential suspension hanging over his head. Potential discipline seemed unlikely to affect his market much either way, but he’ll now move forward without any lingering uncertainty.

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