Oct. 18: The Nats have formally announced Coles as their new hitting coach.
“We are very excited to add Darnell Coles as our hitting coach,” manager Dave Martinez said in a statement within today’s press release. “We align on hitting philosophy, process and focusing on the here and now. He’s not only an outstanding hitting coach, but a great baseball man. Darnell has a great rapport with both veterans and young players and brings a thorough understanding of the analytics that we would like to incorporate.”
Oct. 15: The Nationals are planning to hire Darnell Coles to be their next hitting coach, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). Should the two sides eventually finalize a contract, Coles would replace Kevin Long, who departed to become the Phillies’ hitting coach earlier this week.
Coles played in the big leagues from 1983-97 before moving into coaching. He spent some time in the Washington organization early in his coaching career, working as a roving hitting instructor and minor league coach for a few seasons in the late 2000’s. Coles made it to a big league coaching staff by 2014 and was hired by the Brewers as hitting coach entering the 2015 campaign.
After four years in Milwaukee, Coles stepped down to take on the same role in Arizona. He spent the next three-plus seasons with the D-Backs before being let go in early June amidst Arizona’s nightmarish season. It seems he’s now on track for an eighth consecutive season coaching hitters at the big league level, assuming talks with Washington get across the finish line.
The Nationals slumped to a last-place finish in the NL East after orchestrating a midseason sell-off. That wasn’t really the fault of the offense, though. Washington’s .266/.346/.433 team slash line (excluding pitchers) checked in seventh league-wide by measure of wRC+, the second-highest mark among non-playoff teams.
“Darnell’s a chump”
-Creed Bratton
84 Tigers!
Coles was with Seattle in 1984, according to Baseball Reference dot com.
I saw he had 100 plate appearances in 83 with Seattle.
My favorite (and possibly only) memory of Darnell Coles was when Dickie Noles was throwing at the Tigers, to include Gibson. I remember Coles in the “ready, set, Go!” position on the top step of the Tigers dugout in old Tiger stadium, ready to charge at Noles if he threw at Gibby again.
Mine would be his three Homer game at Minnesota while with the Blue Jays in 1994. Incidentally those three Homers would represent 3 of the 4 Home Runs he hit that season
He sucked as a Tiger
He could steal a base
Boy this seems like a very questionable hire.
Why? Just because the worst team in the NL, the snakes, fired him as their batting coach? LOL. Knats must know what they are doing as Coles was a roving and minor league batting instructor for them during 2006 to 2008. Or not.
I agree. Sure doesn’t seem like an upgrade or even a lateral move from Kevin Long.
I guess that rules out Marcus Thames.
Thames fightin’ words!
What the article fails to say is that the slash line was due in large part to Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber. Neither one will be on the team next year. I would be interested to learn the dropoff in runs scored after Schwarber got hurt and after Turner was traded. I
Actually, their offensive stats went up after the trade. Soto caught fire and Lane Thomas performed a lot better than Victor Robles, whom he replaced. Alcides Escobar came in after Turner and did a lot better than expected. What truly suffered after the trades was pitching, especially because of the historically bad bullpen. All that was left to fill it was a gaggle of minor leaguers who aren’t ready, or has-beens and never-weres.
I know Lane Thomas did very well. He seemed to get on base at least twice a game. He replaced Turner in the lineup and Escobar replaced him at shortstop. I remember Soto getting walked a heck of a lot so I don’t see how they could have scored more runs per game. Josh Bell did well in August and September. Do you happen to know the runs scored per game before and after the trade deadline?
Washington through 7/31 had a 99 wRC+ and after the deadline had a 104 wRC+. So just under league average offense to above-average offense, all while jettisoning their starting catcher, 2B, and star SS.
Why they didn’t lock up Long is beyond me except that the Lerner’s do extremely stupid penny-wise things with their money at the same time that they put all their eggs in a few massive contracts.
Amen brother. They nickel and dime managers and coaches, historically. To the point of beyond being just frugal. As you also mentioned, though, they aren’t afraid of spending on players.
Nats done playing the Long game, planning to rake over the Coles.
Nice.
Soto to the Padres for the rest of the Padres farm system
Happy to see Darnell land a role with the Nats. Well deserved.
So of all the ex Cubs (Baez, Bryant, Rizzo) only Schwarber remains in the playoffs
Jesse Chavez, Jorge Soler, Joc Peterson, Brooks Raley, Martin Maldonado off the top of my head are ex-Cubs.
Don’t think that’s what he meant, look at the names again. Twice if you have to.
Typical Nats ownership refusing to pay coaches. Obvious downgrade from Long. Even worse that Long went to division team.
Coles hit 3 homers in a game twice. The first time with the Pirates in 1987 and then again with the Blue Jays in 1994.
He had 3224 plate appearances across 14 seasons totaling -1.5 WAR. I always find it fascinating to see players who had long careers in the pre-analytics days who just weren’t any good by modern metrics.
(saying nothing about his coaching abilities)
He could play the Corners and never cost very much money as a player. Played for 8 different teams. The league was littered with guys like that. Thats where the term “Journeyman” comes from. Guys that played lots of positions for little money and were willing to play for a different team every season if necessary
For curiosity’s sake I did a little searching — since 1980 among players with at least as many PA he has the 7th worst career WAR. I wouldn’t call that anywhere near journeyman level — he’s mixed in with some truly awful players like Delmon Young, Neifi Perez, and Chris Gomez.
It would interesting to know what the Nats see in this guy. On the surface it looks like a questionable move.
Sounds like Coles and Davey Martinez are good buddies from their playing days.
Nats finished tied for 4th in the NL for team OPS, and had TWO players contending for the NL batting title, but they couldn’t justify keeping KLong?
Nats also let go of Paul Menhart, after he helped them win the WS, so DM could hire his friend Jim Hickey as pitching coach. Nats pitching has been terrible ever since.
What could go wrong?
Hopefully, DM will be fired after 2022 and he can take his pals with him.
Wonder how this will be received by Nats hitters like Soto who seemed to have a close bond with Long. And I’m not just referring to them being at the Dodger game together either.
Not a fan of the Nats losing Long.
Wasn’t a fan of the Nats losing Maddux.
or letting go Paul Menhart.
I’m still on the fence on Davey Martinez.
Davey won it all, isn’t expensive, and just might be the right guy to lead what looks like a longer rebuild than Rizzo expects.
So the Nats were Long-ing (see what I did there) for a new hitting coach.
YIKES!
Wasnt he the guy that blew on a ball so it would roll foul ??