Angels Add Darryl Scott, Dom Chiti To Coaching Staff
The Angels have established their 2026 coaching staff. General manager Perry Minasian informed reporters (including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com) that they’ve added Darryl Scott (assistant pitching coach), Dom Chiti (bullpen coach), and Derek Florko (assistant hitting coach) to the group. They’re the final hires for Kurt Suzuki’s first season at the helm.
Scott heads to Orange County after four seasons as the lead pitching coach with the Rockies. He’d previously spent two years as Colorado’s bullpen coach and had been in the organization dating back to 2009. The 57-year-old’s time in professional baseball began with the Angels. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the franchise in 1990 and made 16 relief appearances for the ’93 team. That wound up being his only MLB action amidst a decade-long minor league career.
The Rockies had by far the worst pitching staff in MLB in 2025. Their 5.99 earned run average was more than half a run higher than that of the 29th-place Nationals. They were last with a 17.2% strikeout rate and a 9.8% swinging strike percentage. Their 5.44 ERA in road games was also worst in MLB, so the issues went well beyond the challenge of pitching at Coors Field.
All coaches are at the mercy of their personnel to a large extent, of course, and Scott didn’t have an especially talented group of pitchers with which to work. It nevertheless didn’t come as a huge surprise that the Rockies shook things up at the end of the season. They’re reportedly hiring Alon Leichman away from the Marlins to take over as pitching coach. Scott brings decades of experience to the Halos.
Chiti, 66, is an internal hire. He’d been working as the organization’s minor league pitching coordinator. Chiti has plenty of experience on MLB coaching staffs, including a previous two-year run as Halos bullpen coach. He has held the same position with the Rangers, Orioles, and Mets at times over the past two decades. Chiti replaces Steve Karsay, who’d held the job for the past two years on Ron Washington’s staff.
Angels relievers ranked ahead of only the Rockies and Nats with a 4.86 ERA this past season. That’s despite strong work from Kenley Jansen and Reid Detmers, neither of whom are in that mix right now. Jansen is a free agent, while Detmers is ticketed for a return to the rotation. A healthy season from Robert Stephenson would be a boost, but the Angels should acquire multiple relievers. Pursuing a reunion with Jansen would make sense.
Florko receives his first promotion onto an MLB staff. He has worked as a hitting instructor in the farm system since 2019. Florko has spent the past four years working with low minors hitters at the team’s Arizona complex. He’ll work alongside first-time hitting coach Brady Anderson (a three-time All-Star as a player) and a very experienced assistant hitting coach in John Mabry.
The rest of Suzuki’s staff is as follows: pitching coach Mike Maddux, bench coach John Gibbons, first base/outfield coach Adam Eaton, third base coach Keith Johnson, infield coach Andy Schatzley, and catching coach Max Stassi. Minasian also announced that former interim manager Ray Montgomery is returning to the organization in a front office role. Montgomery led the club for the final few months of the ’25 season after Washington stepped aside for health reasons.
Rockies To Part Ways With Pitching Coach Darryl Scott
Darryl Scott will not return as the Rockies’ pitching coach in 2026, according to Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Scott briefly played in Colorado’s minor league system in 1995 and 2000 and later rejoined the organization as a minor league coach in 2009. He has worked for the Rockies in various capacities ever since, including as a pitching coach for four of the team’s minor league affiliates.
Ahead of the 2020 season, the Rockies promoted Scott, then their minor league pitching coordinator, to the major league coaching staff. He took over the role of bullpen coach from Darren Holmes, which he would hold for two seasons. In October 2021, he was promoted to pitching coach, replacing Steve Foster.
In four seasons under Scott, Rockies pitchers rank third-last in the majors in adjusted ERA (ERA-), trailing only the Athletics and Nationals. Even accounting for park factors, their ERA has been more than 10% higher than league average in each of the past four years. They’ve ranked 30th out of 30 teams in strikeout rate every year of Scott’s tenure as pitching coach, and they haven’t limited walks or hard contact to compensate for all those batters they’ve failed to strike out.
Scott can’t take the blame for all, or even most, of his team’s pitching struggles. It’s not as if the now-ousted GM Bill Schmidt ever gave him a ton of talent to work with. Not to mention, coaching in the high altitude of Coors Field is an unenviable task for even the most ambitious of pitching gurus. Still, it’s not a good look for Scott that Colorado’s pitching only seemed to get worse in every season under his supervision. Several of the team’s pitchers have regressed in recent years, and few have lived up to their full potential.
So, the Rockies will add “pitching coach” to their list of offseason needs, although hiring a new front office leader and deciding whether interim manager Warren Schaeffer will stick around next season are significantly higher up on the task list. To that point, Scott might not even be the only coach the Rockies have to replace this winter. If their new executive wants a new manager, their new manager could very well decide to overhaul the coaching staff and hire a group of his own.
Rockies To Promote Darryl Scott To Pitching Coach
OCTOBER 26: Steve Foster is set to assume a similar role to the team’s now-vacant director of pitching position tweets Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Further coaching changes are also in the works, as the Rockies are parting ways with assistant hitting coach Jeff Salazar and Major League coach Tim Doherty.
OCTOBER 25: The Rockies are promoting bullpen coach Darryl Scott to pitching coach, reports Nick Groke of the Athletic. He’ll take the place of Steve Foster, who is stepping down to spend more time with his family. Groke adds that some in the organization hope Foster could still assume the director of pitching operations role that became available when Mark Wiley retired over the weekend.
Scott has spent the past two seasons leading the Colorado bullpen. He’d spent more than a decade prior in the organization in various capacities, serving as a minor league coach and as the club’s minor league pitching coordinator. The 53-year-old also briefly appeared in the majors as a player, pitching for the 1993 Angels.
Foster had been Colorado’s pitching coach for the past seven seasons, taking over the role during the 2014-15 offseason. Also a former big league hurler — he pitched for the Reds from 1991-93 — the 57-year-old Foster has been the pitching coach for Bud Black’s entire managerial tenure in Colorado so far.
Evaluating Rockies’ pitchers is challenging, given the high level of difficulty succeeding at Coors Field. The staff’s 4.91 ERA over Foster’s tenure is second-highest leaguewide, but park-adjusted metrics have pegged the pitching staff as closer to middle of the pack over the past few years. Players like Germán Márquez, Jon Gray and Kyle Freeland have all flashed impact potential at times, but only Márquez has settled in as a consistent top-of-the-rotation arm.
Regardless of whether Foster remains in the organization, it now seems Colorado will need to fill at least one vacancy on the coaching staff. Presumably, Black and general manager Bill Schmidt will now embark on a search for Scott’s replacement in the bullpen.
Rockies Name Darryl Scott Bullpen Coach
The Rockies announced a change in the coaching ranks Friday, promoting minor league pitching coordinator Darryl Scott to the role of bullpen coach. He’ll take the spot of now-former bullpen coach Darren Holmes.
The 51-year-old Scott has been with the Rockies organization for over a decade, serving as a pitching coach for four different minor league affiliates in addition to spending the three prior seasons as a pitching coordinator. Scott pitched in one big league season, tossing 20 innings for the 1993 Angels, and spent parts of 11 seasons as a reliever in the minor leagues (from 1990-2000). Double-A pitching coach Steve Merriman is stepping up to take on Scott’s former responsibilities.
Holmes, 53, had spent the previous five seasons as the Rockies’ bullpen coach. Five of his 13 Major League seasons as a pitcher came with the Rox from 1993-97, during which time he pitched to a 4.42 ERA and collected 46 saves as a reliever.