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Enrique Hernández Undergoes Hernia Surgery

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Free agent infielder/outfielder Enrique Hernández underwent double hernia surgery on October 24, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The utility player is expected to resume baseball activities in three to four weeks, which should allow him to have a fairly normal offseason and Spring Training.

It’s unknown exactly when this issue cropped up but it’s possible it has been bothering him for a while. Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic relayed today that Hernández had surgery on a hematoma in his psoas muscle last year. He made multiple trips to the injured list in 2022 with what was called a right hip flexor strain, though McCaffrey’s reporting from September of 2022 states that the issue “turned into an abdominal strain created by a hematoma in the psoas muscle, located between the lower part of his spine and his upper thigh. Hernández had blood drained through a needle in his spine and received a PRP shot around the All-Star break to accelerate the healing.”

Hernández, now 32, hit .237/.312/.432 for the Dodgers over 463 games from 2017 to 2020. That amounted to a wRC+ of 98, indicating he was just 2% below league average in that time, as he served as a versatile player that could be plugged into many places. He played every position except catcher in that stretch, even making an appearance on the mound.

He was able to parlay those results into a two-year, $14MM deal with the Red Sox going into 2021. He first season of the deal went very well, with Hernández getting his batting line up to .250/.337/.449 and his wRC+ to 109. Unfortunately, he dipped to a line of .222/.291/.338 and a 74 wRC+ in 2022 as the aforementioned IL stints limited him to 93 games.

Nonetheless, the Sox believed in him enough to give him a one-year extension as that season was winding down, giving him $10MM to stick around for 2023. That didn’t really work out, with Hernández hitting .222/.279/.320 for a 59 wRC+ with the Red Sox. He was flipped to the Dodgers at the deadline and had a respectable finish, slashing .262/.308/.423 for a 96 wRC+, though the combined line between the two clubs resulted in a wRC+ of 72 for the year.

If the surgery puts Hernández in position to have better results going forward, that could be a noteworthy development for the free agent market. There’s a general dearth of impact position players, particularly in the middle infield. Hernández was set to be one of the most accomplished players available in that category, alongside options like Amed Rosario, Whit Merrifield and Adam Frazier. If his two most recent seasons were dragged down by health issues, that will make his status in the months to come a development worth monitoring.

Erick Fedde Drawing Interest From MLB Clubs

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Right-hander Erick Fedde is drawing interest from major league clubs after spending 2023 with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post.

Fedde, 31 in February, was once a highly-touted prospect, with the Nationals selecting him 18th overall in the 2014 draft. But he didn’t find much success in the big leagues, making 102 appearances for the Nats from 2017 to 2022 with a 5.41 earned run average.

As mentioned, he joined the Dinos for this past year and the move to Korea could hardly have gone better for him. He threw 180 1/3 innings over his 30 starts with his ERA finishing at an even 2.00. He struck out 29.5% of batters faced while walking just 4.9% and also kept the ball on the ground at an incredible 70% clip. For reference, the MLB ground ball rate was 42.5% in 2023. The overall results were strong enough for him to win the Choi Dong-won award, which is given to the best starting pitcher in the league each year, making it roughly the KBO equivalent of the Cy Young.

That figures to make Fedde an interesting wild card entry into the free agent pitching market this offseason, with MLBTR having given him an honorable mention in our recent Top 50 Free Agents post. The results for North American pitchers returning from a stint in Korea are mixed, with some recent examples ranging from Merrill Kelly to Chris Flexen to Josh Lindblom. Kelly has made 127 starts for the Diamondbacks over the past five years with a 3.80 ERA. Lindblom had great results in Korea but posted a 6.39 ERA in his 20 appearances for the Brewers. Flexen had a 3.66 ERA for the Mariners over 2021 and 2022 but was torched for an ERA of 6.86 in 2023.

Each pitcher is unique and precedent can only tell us so much about Fedde as an individual. Given his excellent 2023 campaign and status as a former top prospect, he should garner plenty of interest, particularly from the clubs priced out of the top of the market. Pitchers like Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Aaron Nola and Jordan Montgomery seem positioned for nine-figure guarantees while sizeable eight-figure deals should be attainable by guys like Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez and Shota Imanaga.

Kelly got a two-year, $5.5MM deal from Arizona going into 2019. A year later, Lindblom got $9.125MM plus incentives over three years from the Brewers. Flexen got $4.75MM over two years from the Mariners prior to 2021, plus a vesting option for 2023. Fedde may be able to top those figures through a combination of his superb season, his former prospect pedigree and inflation, but the guarantee still figures to be lighter than the top available arms.

Zaidi: Giants Plan To Pursue Rotation Help, Defensive Upgrades In Outfield

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The Giants head into the offseason in search of ways to bolster a team that has produced just one winning record in the past seven seasons. San Francisco flirted with Wild Card contention for much of the 2023 campaign, but a 9-19 finish to the season dashed any hopes of returning to the playoffs. Not only that, but the team’s late collapse doomed manager Gabe Kapler, who was dismissed after four years on the job and replaced by future Hall of Fame skipper Bob Melvin.

The Giants’ hiring of Melvin dovetailed with an extension for president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi, both of whom are now signed through 2026. Zaidi kicked off his winter with a fair bit of transparency, candidly acknowledging in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle’s John Shea that his team is “going to be in the starting pitching market” and that he’ll also be on the lookout for ways to augment his outfield alignment. Specifically, Zaidi hopes to improve his outfield’s glovework. “We’ll look to add a little bit more speed, a little bit more range to the outfield,” Zaidi tells Shea.

At least as far as the outfield upgrades are concerned, the trade market will present more options than free agency. Cody Bellinger is the top outfielder (and top non-Shohei Ohtani) free agent of the offseason, and the former Dodgers star is quite familiar to Zaidi, who served as the general manager in Los Angeles before being hired away by the division-rival Giants. That said, Scott Boras will surely be seeking a massive contract for Bellinger on the heels of a resurgent season, and given the dearth of quality hitters on the market, competition for him could be steep.

Other outfield options with plus gloves include Kevin Kiermaier, Harrison Bader and Michael A. Taylor (to name a few). Kiermaier and Bader come with plenty of injury concern, however, and all three have inconsistent offensive track records (at best). Perhaps for those reasons, Zaidi at least alluded to the possibility of operating on the trade market — noting that younger (and thus more athletic players) tend to come via that market rather than free agency. KBO star Jung Hoo Lee, who’ll be posted by the Kiwoom Heroes this winter, could bring some of that youth and athleticism to the table, as he’s just 25 years of age. However, his season ended early with an ankle injury, and MLB evaluators are split on the extent of his defensive value in the outfield.

The Giants’ current outfield alignment figures to include some combination of Mike Yastrzemski, Mitch Haniger and Michael Conforto, who exercised an $18MM player option yesterday and will now return for a second season at Oracle Park. Alternative options on the 40-man roster include Austin Slater, Luis Matos, Heliot Ramos, Wade Meckler and Blake Sabol. That group was lackluster in the field, ranking 22nd in the Majors with -7 Defensive Runs Saved and 27th with -13 Outs Above Average.

As far as the pitching is concerned, it’s a natural and obvious need for the Giants to pursue. Ace Logan Webb will return to front the rotation, and the Giants picked up their $10MM club option on righty Alex Cobb (a net $8MM decision when factoring in the option’s $2MM buyout). Top prospect Kyle Harrison made his MLB debut in 2023 but has just seven big league starts to his name. Ross Stripling picked up a player option and will be back in the mix next year, though he’s plenty familiar working in a swingman capacity. Righty Anthony DeSclafani is signed through 2024 under a three-year, $36MM contract, but he’s pitched just 118 2/3 innings of 5.16 ERA ball during that deal due to ankle and forearm injuries — the former of which required surgery.

For much of the season’s second half, the Giants operated with only a pair of traditional starters. Bullpen games were a frequent tactic, with Stripling, Sean Manaea (who declined a player option) and Keaton Winn among the pitchers who were tasked with working long relief stints in such settings. Given the lack of established rotation talent, starting pitching is an obvious area of focus the team.

Zaidi acknowledged that he expects to talk with Manaea and his agents at the Boras Corporation about a potential return, but the starting pitching market is generally considered to be a deep one this offseason. Beyond Ohtani (who won’t pitch in 2024), 25-year-old NPB ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto headlines this year’s class. Countryman Shota Imanaga is also well-regarded and available for MLB teams to sign. More known commodities include Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, Jordan Montgomery, Sonny Gray and Eduardo Rodriguez, though as shown on yesterday’s Top 50 Free Agent List here at MLBTR, the options beyond those top tiers are plentiful.

Latest On Brewers’ Managerial Vacancy

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The Brewers are suddenly looking for a manager for the first time in almost a decade, with Craig Counsell’s stunning move to the Cubs yesterday. Some of the options they are considering as a replacement, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, are current Brewers bench coach Pat Murphy, Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly, Astros Bench coach Joe Espada, Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough, Astros hitting coach Troy Snitker and former player Rickie Weeks.

Counsell departing Milwaukee wasn’t totally unforeseen. He was on an expiring contract in 2023 and extension talks didn’t come to fruition. But with David Stearns moving on from the Brewers to become president of baseball operations for the Mets and then firing manager Buck Showalter, many assumed Counsell would follow him to Queens. But Counsell joining the division-rival Cubs was not foreseen or known to be on the table.

Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio spoke on the matter yesterday, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and it seems he was surprised as well. “When he first told me, I said, ‘Are you messing with me?’” Attanasio added that “It is what it is” and that the club intends to continue putting their best foot forward without Counsell. “We have a really good thing. I give Craig credit for helping to build that, and for adding all these coaches, all of whom have stayed. So we’re going to look for a manager who can continue having a terrific clubhouse culture and that can help us keep winning and hopefully get over the hump in the playoffs.”

As for the Mets, despite the generally spendthrift behavior of Steve Cohen in recent years, they apparently never got close to the $40MM over five years that Counsell secured from the Cubs. Per Andy Martino of SNY, there was a sense that his interest in coming to the Mets wasn’t actually that high and he was merely using them to drive up the bidding. That would track with his reported interest in resetting the market for managerial salaries. Perhaps he wasn’t especially willing to do that in Queens since he grew up in the Midwest and Chicago is a better fit for him, or perhaps the Mets were content to hire a manager with lesser demands, but the end result is that the Mets landed first-time manager Carlos Mendoza instead.

As for the Brewers’ immediate concerns in relation to this, though it may sting that Counsell joined a division rival instead of the Mets, the focus now will be on filling the void. It seems they weren’t terribly proactive while Counsell was still available, with Attanasio stating that he and general manager Matt Arnold “thought it was going to muddy things if we started interviews with third parties” but that Arnold has “conducted a couple of internal interviews, for what that’s worth.” That suggests they are still in the early stages of their search, with still a wide list of potential candidates being considered, as mentioned above.

Murphy, 65 this month, has a small amount of managerial experience. He was in the Padres’ organization in June of 2015 when Bud Black was fired as manager. Murphy got the gig on an interim basis for the second half of that season but Andy Green took over for the 2016 campaign. Murphy then came to the Brewers to serve as bench coach under Counsell and has garnered plenty of interest from clubs with managerial openings since, but has stayed in Milwaukee.

Mattingly, 63 in April, has plenty of experience as a bench boss. He was at the helm for the Dodgers from 2011 to 2015 and then for the Marlins from 2016 to 2022, before joining the Blue Jays as bench coach for the 2023 season.

Espada, 48, has coaching experience with the Marlins and Yankees but has been the bench coach of the Astros since the start of the 2018 season. He has been connected to various managerial gigs in the past few years but is still with the Astros, who just saw Dusty Baker step out of the skipper’s chair. It’s been speculated that Espada could take over in Houston but nothing is official there.

McCullough, 44 next month, has been the first base coach of the Dodgers since the 2021 campaign. He recently interviewed for the managerial opening in Cleveland but that position has now been filled by Stephen Vogt.

Snitker, 35 next month, is the son of Atlanta manager Brian Snitker. He has been co-hitting coach for the Astros for the past five seasons alongside Álex Cintrón.

Weeks, 41, played in the majors from 2003 to 2017, most of that in Milwaukee. He was hired by the Brewers for a player development role going into the 2022 season.

Joey Krehbiel Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Joey Krehbiel, who was designated for assignment by the Orioles last week, has declined an outright assignment and opted to become a free agent, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. The 30-year-old had been previously outrighted in his career, which grants him the result to reject a subsequent outright assignment.

Krehbiel pitched 57 innings of relief with the 2022 Orioles but logged just five MLB frames in 2023, spending the rest of the time down in Triple-A Norfolk. Krehbiel has performed reasonably well in the bigs with Baltimore, pitching to a 3.73 ERA with a 19% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate and 41.1% grounder rate in his 63 2/3 frames over the past two seasons. That said, he also walked more than 14% of his opponents in 39 1/3 Triple-A innings, to say nothing of an unsightly 1.6 HR/9 mark with Baltimore’s top affiliate in Norfolk.

Last year’s 57 MLB innings were a career-high for Krehbiel, who’s appeared in parts of four campaigns between the D-backs, Rays and O’s. He’s turned in a 3.65 ERA with sub-par strikeout and walk rates in that time, averaging 94.7 mph on his heater and generating grounders at a roughly average rate.

Krehbiel will head to the open market in search of a new opportunity, likely on a minor league deal. He has a minor league option remaining, which will add to his appeal for clubs who have interest in bringing him aboard as a depth option for their relief corps. And, since he still has fewer than two years of MLB service time, Krehbiel is controllable for another five seasons. Of course, he’d need to pitch his way onto a big league roster and carve out a permanent role for that to be a factor of any real note.

Nationals To Hire Miguel Cairo As Bench Coach

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The Nationals are set to hire Miguel Cairo as their new bench coach, as first reported by Mike Mayer of Metsmerized Online. Cairo spent the 2023 season as a minor league infield coordinator in the Mets organization.

A versatile utility man, Cairo played 17 seasons in the major leagues, fielding six different positions for nine different teams. Immediately following his retirement after the 2012 season, Cairo took a job as a special assistant in the Reds’ front office and briefly served as the team’s interim bench coach. He then moved on to the Yankees organization, working in the player development department and as a minor league infield coordinator.

Ahead of the 2021 campaign, Cairo earned his first genuine big league coaching job, joining the White Sox as Tony La Russa’s bench coach. He was promoted to acting manager for the final month of the regular season (Larussa was on medical leave), and although he interviewed for the managerial opening that winter, he was not asked to return to new skipper Pedro Grifol’s staff in 2023. Instead, he took a job as a minor league infield coordinator with the Mets, a role he had previously held during his tenure with the Yankees.

Nationals manager Dave Martinez played alongside Cairo for parts of three seasons with the Devil Rays between 1998 and 2000. According to Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports, the skipper has “always spoken highly” of his former teammate.

Cairo is the latest addition to Washington’s dugout this offseason. Last week, the team hired Gerardo Parra and Ricky Gutierrez to coach first and third base, respectively. The Nationals had several holes to fill after parting with bench coach Tim Bogar, first base coach Eric Young Jr., third base coach Gary DiSarcina, and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler at the end of the season.

Athletics Exercise Mark Kotsay’s Option For 2025

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The Athletics have exercised manager Mark Kotsay’s contract option for the 2025 season, the team announced. This gives the skipper some job security, as he now knows he won’t enter the 2024 campaign a lame duck.

Earlier this offseason, the Athletics gave Kotsay permission to interview for the Mets’ managerial opening. He was one of the last candidates they interviewed, but he was reportedly removed from consideration before the Mets made their final decision (per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic).

Kotsay played 17 MLB seasons, including four with the A’s. Following his retirement, he spent a brief stint as the Padres hitting coach, before he returned to Oakland and joined then-manager Bob Melvin’s staff in 2016. Over six seasons, he served as bench coach, quality control coach, and third base coach. When Melvin left for his own short stint with the Padres in 2022, Kotsay took over as manager, signing a three-year deal with a team option for 2025. That option has now been picked up.

Evidently, the Athletics are happy with Kotsay’s performance over the last two seasons. While the team has a .340 winning percentage under his leadership, a manager can only do so much with the roster he’s given.

“Mark’s leadership, character, and integrity have been a hallmark of his time with the A’s; first as a player and a coach, and, for the last two years, as our manager,” said general manager David Forst (per MLB.com). “Picking up his option was an obvious decision to make for our club, and I look forward to having him lead the A’s on the field through 2025 and hopefully beyond.”

Yankees Offer Hitting Coach Position To James Rowson

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The Yankees have offered James Rowson the job of hitting coach on Aaron Boone’s staff, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. He is expected to accept the position.

Rowson spent six years as a minor league hitting coordinator in the Yankees organization before leaving for the Cubs in 2012, where he briefly took over as the major league hitting coach. After two years in Chicago, he returned to New York and resumed his previous role. Notably, he presided over the minor league system while Aaron Judge rose through the ranks from 2014-16. Rowson left for greener pastures again in 2017, spending the next year three years as hitting coach for the Twins. After that, he was the Marlins bench coach from 2020-22, and most recently, the 47-year-old spent the 2023 campaign as the assistant hitting coach for the Tigers.

Given his years of experience with the Yankees and his time as a hitting coach around the league, Rowson seems like a perfectly qualified and logical hire. Indeed, he makes particular sense considering the Yankees are looking for a hitting coach who can implement a “top-down” approach throughout the organization (per Brendan Kuty of The Athletic). In other words, the team is looking for someone who can develop certain universal practices and philosophies and spread those across all levels of the minor league system. Who better for such a task than the team’s long-time minor league hitting coordinator?

That said, Rowson represents a complete 180-degree turn from Sean Casey, the hitting coach he will be replacing. Casey took the job with no previous coaching experience but significant playing experience; across 12 MLB seasons, he hit .302 with an .814 OPS in over 5,000 career plate appearances. According to Kuty, the Yankees liked Casey for his on-field experience, and indeed, they’re looking for a similarly experienced candidate to replace newly-hired Mets manager Carlos Mendoza as bench coach. Rowson never made it to the major leagues, playing just three seasons in the low minors and one in the independent Heartland League. His experience comes from the dugout, not the batter’s box.

Should Rowson accept the job, he will become the Yankees’ fourth hitting coach in as many years. Marcus Thames, the White Sox’s new hitting coach, had the job until 2021, while Dillon Lawson took over in 2022 and held the role until he was unceremoniously fired ahead of the All-Star Break this past season. Casey replaced Lawson for the remainder of the 2023 campaign, but he stepped down this winter to spend more time with his daughters. 

In other Yankees news, the team is reportedly considering bringing back Frankie Montas for another go in 2024, per Sherman and Jon Heyman of the New York Post. While his tenure with New York was marred by injury, Montas was an effective starting pitcher during his time in Oakland, pitching to a 3.50 ERA in 89 career starts for the Athletics. Montas could represent an intriguing buy-low candidate for the Yankees, especially since the team is already familiar with his stuff and medical status.

White Sox To Hire Marcus Thames As Hitting Coach

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The White Sox are set to hire Marcus Thames away from the Angels and install him as their new hitting coach, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Thames held the same title with the Halos in 2023 — his first season with the organization. FutureSox.com’s James Fox first indicated earlier this morning that Thames was under consideration to be named the Sox’ new hitting coach. Thames becomes the second Angels staffer to jump to the White Sox this offseason; Chicago previously hired Matt Wise as their new bullpen coach.

Thames, 46, enjoyed a decade-long playing career from 2002-11, appearing in 640 big league games and popping 115 home runs while batting .246/.309/.485 between the Yankees, Rangers, Tigers and Dodgers. Upon calling it quits as a player, he began his coaching career as a minor league hitting coach with the Yankees, eventually ascending to their Major League staff as assistant hitting coach in 2016.

Since taking that initial big league job in the Bronx, Thames has been a fixture on Major League coaching staffs. The Yankees promoted him to their lead hitting coach for the 2017 season — a position he’d hold through 2021, when his contract wasn’t renewed. He’s since had one-year stints as the hitting coach with the Marlins and Angels.

Of course, a hitting coach cannot singlehandedly take credit for radically turning the tides of a lineup (for better or for worse), but it’s nevertheless notable that the Angels went from a lowly .233/.297/.390 batting line with 623 runs scored, a 25.7% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate in 2022 to far better results in 2023. Halos hitters produced at a collective .245/.317/.426 rate in 2023, scoring 739 runs and making modest strides both in terms of team strikeout rate (24.8%) and walk rate (8.4%).

That’s attributable to myriad factors, but the Sox surely feel that Thames’ work is among them. More broadly, his growing coaching experience in what’s now an eight-year MLB coaching career has added to his reputation and clearly drawn fairly broad-reaching interest. Detractors might point to short stints in both Miami and Anaheim, but both organizations ousted their manager after Thames’ first season on the job. Because managers typically are provided the opportunity to fill out their own coaching staffs, seeing Thames bounce around a bit isn’t necessarily all that surprising. The Angels are still in the process of looking for a replacement for outgoing manager Phil Nevin, whose contract expired at season’s end and who will not return for a third year on the job.

As for the Sox, while they’re sticking with skipper Pedro Grifol despite a highly disappointing 2023 campaign, the coaching staff is already undergoing ample turnover. In addition to Thames and Wise, the South Siders have hired Grady Sizemore as a baserunning/outfield coach. The Sox also reassigned a pair of coaches (assistant pitching coach Curt Hasler and assistant hitting coach Chris Johnson) in addition to moving on entirely from hitting coach Jose Castro (whom Thames will now replace) and first base coach Daryl Boston. Further changes are surely on the horizon, and Murray further reports that retired big league catcher Drew Butera, who served as the Angels’ catching coach last year, could be added to the Chicago staff in some capacity as well.

The changes in the dugout come on the heels of front office shakeup in Chicago. Longtime general manager Rick Hahn and executive vice president Kenny Williams were fired over the summer, though the Sox stayed in-house by naming assistant GM Chris Getz their successor and new baseball operations leader. The rookie GM has since hired former big league infielder Paul Janish as the Sox’ director of player development. As is the case in the dugout, additional changes in the front office and baseball operations hierarchy can be expected as the ChiSox look to move past a disastrous 2023 campaign and return to relevance in the American League Central.

The Opener: GM Meetings, Yankees, Counsell

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On the heels of a hectic day, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:

1. GM Meetings begin:

MLB’s annual General Manager Meetings are set to begin today, though many executives were already in Scottsdale, AZ yesterday. White Sox GM Chris Getz, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix all are headed to the meetings as heads of a baseball operations department for the first time in their respective careers, and MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand indicates that a review of the 2023 season’s rule changes and discussion of the postseason format are both issues that figure to be addressed over the coming days. While major free agent signings and trades are fairly rare at this point in the offseason calendar, the meetings serve as a first opportunity for agents and clubs to begin discussion of free agents and for front offices to gauge rival teams’ early interests on the trade market.

2. Yankees pressers scheduled:

Yankees leadership will be addressing the media today, with Greg Joyce of the New York Post among those to relay that club chairman Hal Steinbrenner is set to meet with the media, followed by GM Brian Cashman later in the day. The pair’s comments will mark the first public words from Yankees brass after the club failed to make the postseason for the first time since 2016. The club finished just 82-80, their worst record since 1992, despite making a splash this past offseason by not only retaining reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge on a $360MM pact but also landing left-hander Carlos Rodon on a $162MM deal. With Judge, Rodon, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gerrit Cole all under contract for at least the next four seasons and set to combine for $128MM annually, Cashman’s front office faces the difficult task of looking to improve the club for 2024 despite already having four deals in excess of $100MM on the books.

3. Counsell fallout:

The Cubs shocked the baseball world yesterday by hiring longtime Brewers manager Craig Counsell away from their division rivals yesterday, beating out the perceived frontrunners in Milwaukee, Queens, and Cleveland for Counsell’s services. The Mets and Guardians pivoted away from Counsell fairly quickly, hiring Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza and Mariners bullpen coach Stephen Vogt to take over in the dugout respectively, but plenty of questions remain in the wake of Chicago’s shocking move. Beyond the obvious question of who the Brewers will install to replace Counsell in the Milwaukee dugout, it’s fair to wonder what’s next for David Ross, who the Cubs dismissed in order to hire Counsell. Ross is already drawing interest from the Padres in their managerial search, while Houston and Anaheim are both also still looking for a manager. Will Ross, who was a finalist for the NL Manager of the Year award during his rookie season as manager in 2020, find a new seat in this offseason’s game of managerial musical chairs?

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