Chicago Cubs latest to hire new type of coach
As the Chicago Cubs announced their coaching staff this week, the hiring of a new pitching coach was not exactly a big deal in the news media, but it signified a departure from the typical hire for the position.
This offseason, multiple teams have hired what could only be considered non-traditional coaches for openings on their staff. When the Chicago Cubs hired Tommy Hottovy as their new pitching coach, replacing Jim Hickey, he became the latest in a change in how teams approach the coaching ranks.
It wasn’t that long ago that teams had pretty limited coaching staffs. Before World War II, most teams had just two coaches assisting the manager with running day to day operations of the team. Whether it was the service of wartime or what inspired the change, by the time the 1960s arrived, it was commonplace to have as many as 5 coaches on staff, and by the time the 2000s arrived, Major League Baseball actually had to limit the coaches on the field to six uniformed staff along with the manager. In 2013, one non-uniformed coach was also allowed to be added to each staff as the “assistant hitting coach”.
These coaches have followed trends for many, many years. Early pitching coaches were almost always former catchers, leaning on the thinking that former catchers would have the most knowledge of what does and does not work with a pitcher. In the modern day, many pitching coaches are former big league pitchers.
Those taking the route to the major leagues as a pitching coach would have a fairly typical path. The potential coach would pitch for a number of years in the minor and major leagues, then he would usually take a job as a minor league pitching coach, often at a complex league. Slowly he would work his way up the minor league ladder until he reached the major leagues.
Usually that major league promotion was not directly to pitching coach, however, it was to bullpen coach (or assistant pitching coach, however the team had termed the position). The coach would then work under the current pitching coach, and after showing some skill or developing some level of reputation around the game, either he would be promoted within the organization and the current pitching coach let go, or another team would come in to hire him away to be a pitching coach.
The Chicago Cubs are just the most recent team who is bucking this traditional path in search of new ideas about pitching from different angles, and there are two different routes this offseason that have been taken. We’ll first look at the decision in Minnesota.
Twins go young
With one of the youngest front offices in the game, the commentary seemingly wrote itself as the Minnesota Twins named University of Arkansas pitching coach Wes Johnson as their next pitching coach in November.
Johnson did not have a minor nor a major league career of any note. He began his coaching career at the high school level, coaching at Abundant Life High School in his hometown Sherwood, Arkansas. He spent four years there before taking a job with Central Arkansas.
He moved from Central Arkansas to Dallas Baptist, where he developed a sterling reputation for developing big-time arms, earning him a job with Mississippi State for one season before Arkansas hired him. In all, Johnson had 30 pitchers drafted over his final 7 seasons of coaching among Dallas Baptist, Mississippi State, and Arkansas.
The Minnesota Twins were drawn heavily to Johnson’s reputation for bringing out big time velocity from his pitchers while also allowing them to remain healthy. For a team that has been derided for its lack of strikeouts and velocity over the past decade, this is a definite step in a direction that the organization needed.
The interesting part is that the Twins were not done with just their pitching coach. No, for his second in command, they brought in as Johnson’s bullpen coach former Mets pitcher Jeremy Hefner. Hefner had been working with the Twins for the past two seasons as an advance scout of sorts, taking scouting reports and putting together pitching plans for each day’s pitcher.
So, the Twins ended up hiring a college coach with no pro experience and a scout to lead their pitchers, but they’re an organization noted for limited resources. The Chicago Cubs can go out and get the very best with nearly unlimited resources, right?
Let’s take a look at that…
A scout in the big chair
While the Twins hired a scout as their bullpen coach, the Chicago Cubs decided to hire one as the main guy when they hired 37-year-old Tommy Hottovy as their pitching coach on Thursday.
Hottovy does have major league pitching experience, having pitched in 2011 and 2012 in the big leagues, but he’s never served as a pitching coach. He originally joined the Chicago Cubs baseball operations department in 2015.
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The past three seasons, Hottovy has been putting together game plans based on advanced scouting and working directly with pitchers in his role as advanced scouting coordinator to interpret the scouting data for the pitching staff, so working with the staff won’t be anything new. It’s the role that will change.
Hottovy won’t be headed out on a limb, however, as the Chicago Cubs also have longtime organizational member Lester Strode, who currently serves as the bullpen coach and has been with the organization for 30 years in various pitching roles, including the last 12 as bullpen coach. He will definitely be one Hottovy can lean on.
The Cubs also added the title of associate pitching coach to catching/strategy coach Mike Borzello, who has been with the Cubs since 2011. He may be best known as the bat boy in the infamous 1984 Padres/Braves brawl.
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The Chicago Cubs are just the latest to show that the path to a coaching job in Major League Baseball is not as linear as it once was. Whether that will be good or bad in the long run is yet to be determined.