YANKEES HIRE 3 UNKNOWN COACHES WHO’VE ALREADY TAUGHT THEIR FIRST CLASS

It only took the Yankees 2 months to hire coaches for their vacated spots.  After firing last season’s hitting coach, Kevin Long and First-Base/Infield Coach, Mick Kelleher, the NYY have replaced the 2 of them with 3 coaches.  The extra coach was added because, for the first time in the Yankees’ history, they chose to staff an Assistant Hitting Coach.  Now, they and 21 other teams have one.  Perhaps the Royals, Mariners, Rays, Rockies, Marlins, Brewers, Pirates, and Nationals will eventually join the growing trend of doubling up on hitting coaches.

When the Yankees announced the coaches’ names (Jeff Pentland, Alan Cockrell, and Joe Espada) yesterday, my very first reaction was, “Who?”!  Then, I vaguely remembered reading and hearing each of their names as potential candidates, but I never thought the Yankees would hire all new unpopular guys and inexperienced former players.  In fact, the only coach who even made it to the Major Leagues was Alan Cockrell who played in only 9 games (for the Rockies), while the other 2 were only Minor League players!  I thought they’d at least hire one of the popular candidates/former successful MLB players who were supposedly considered - Luis Sojo, Hideki Matsui, Tino Martinez, Willie Randolph, Chili Davis, Dave Magidan, or Raul Ibanez as a coach - but, obviously that wasn’t the case.

As I thought about it further, I began to remember that many All-Star players failed to become successful coaches and/or managers after they retired.  In fact, one of the greatest hitters of all time (some would say “the” greatest), Ted Williams, managed his teams to a losing percentage .429 during his 4 years as a manager - including a 100-loss season for the Texas Rangers in their initial 1972 season.   As another example, Wade Boggs, when acting as Tampa Bay’s Hitting Coach in 2001, assisted that team towards scoring just 672 runs (the worst in the American League that year) and towards a meager .258 batting average (the second-worst average in the American League that year).

On the other side of the spectrum, so-so offensive player Casey Stengel excelled as a Manager (leading the Yankees to 7 World Series Championships in 10 years), becoming one of the winningest managers of all time.  Likewise, Tony La Russa was an awful player, but he found his ticket to the Hall of Fame as a 3-time World Series Manager.   Similarly, Charlie Lau was only a .255 career hitter, yet he not only helped many hitters achieve significantly improved batting averages, but was also accredited by All-Stars Hal McRae and George Brett as their greatest Hitting Coach.

Below is an outline/breakdown of the past experiences each of these new coaches have:

Jeff Pentland (Hitting Coach) – He played first base, catcher, and even pitched a little in his career, but as mentioned above, never made it to the Major Leagues.  Pentland was the Hitting Coach for the Marlins (in late 1996), Cubs (1997-2002), Royals (2003-2005), Mariners (2005-2008), and Dodgers (2008-2011).  During his time with the Cubs, he coached Joe Girardi in hitting and later worked for him when Girardi became the Cubs’ Manager.  On that team, Pentland also worked alongside the Yankees’ current Pitching Coach, Larry Rothschild.  During Pentland’s time with the Royals he worked for Tony Pena and also helped coach Carlos Beltran (.307 average/26 homers/100 RBIs) with the Royals during 2003.  Another All-Star hitter who Pentland coached was Gary Sheffield, who has publicly stated that Pentland was the best Hitting Coach he’d ever experienced adding that Pentland’s key teachings are geared towards focusing on each hitter’s strengths instead of concentrating on opposing pitchers’ arsenal.

Alan Cockrell (Assistant Hitting Coach) – After his 9 games as a MLB player, he eventually became the Hitting Coach for the Rockies (2007-2008) and the Mariners (2009 through early 2010).  He also served as a Hitting Coordinator for the Diamondbacks (2011-2013).  His proven success as a coach was during 2007 when he helped lead the offense of the Rockies into the World Series.

Joe Espada (Infield Coach and Third-Base Coach - Rob Thomson was restructured as the Bench Coach) - Just like Pentland, Espada never played a game in the majors.  He served as the Marlins’ Third-Base Coach during 2010-2013 and even coached for the Puerto Rican National Baseball Team during the World Baseball Classic in 2013.  He was previously hired by Brian Cashman as a Special Assistant to the General Manager.

In addition to Rob Thomson shifting from Third-Base Coach to become the new Bench Coach, the Yankees also maneuvered Tony Peña from Bench Coach to First-Base Coach.   Their other 2 coaches, Larry Rothschild and Gary Tuck remain as their Pitching Coach and Bullpen Coach respectively.  Have you been able to follow all of this?  If so, then you know the coach answer to, “Who’s on First?” is not “Who” in this case, but Tony Peña.

2015 HALL OF FAME, NO SHAME

There have been many years in which I’ve been personally disappointed in the voting selection produced by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA); but, this year’s choices were perfect in my opinion.  My congratulations go to all 4 of them:  Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio, and even Pedro Martinez.

Randy Johnson – Was there ever a more intimidating starting pitcher in baseball?  Some would say Nolan Ryan, but even Nolan didn’t have a 6’10” presence on the mound!  Additionally, Randy had more control issues than Nolan – which often added to his intimidation to the hitters as they tiptoed into the batter’s box.  While Randy contributed enormously towards preventing the Yankees from winning a championship in 2001 when he jointly won the World Series MVP with Curt Schilling, I still appreciated his exceptional ability to strikeout any hitter - 2^nd most in baseball history (4,875) behind the abovementioned Nolan Ryan (5,714).  Randy was hurt during his two years as a Yankee, so we didn’t gain too much from him, nor did those stats add substantially towards his personal Hall of Fame career, including his collection of 5 Cy Young Awards.

John Smoltz – No one in the history of the Major Leagues has ever accomplished a feat that John Smoltz did.  First, he was an awesome starter; then he became one of the league’s best closers, and then, once again, performed as a great starter.  In between all of that, he had the infamous Tommy John Surgery.  Collectively, as a starter he won over 200 games (including a Cy Young Award in 1996).  During his years as a closer, he saved over 150 games while winning a reliever’s top prize (the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award) in 2002!  His seamless and unprecedented transitional success clearly and solely qualifies Smoltz as a deserving Hall of Famer.  We may never see that type of achievement again!

Craig Biggio – There are very few players that I’ve ever seen during personal years of watching the game who clearly epitomize themselves as one of the purest hitters and classiest characters.  Without question, Biggio exhibited that to me during each of the 20 years he played - all for the Astros.  Biggio demonstrated efficient versatility as he began his MLB years as a very good catcher and then (per Yogi Berra’s suggestion), in order to help his team, he learned to play 2^nd base exceptionally enough to have won 4 Gold Gloves there.  During his late years, he even proved to be a decent outfielder.  Biggio, like me, idolized the Yankees’ Thurman Munson – also, one of the “purest hitters and classiest characters” in the history of the game.  That, along with his proven diverse skills, durability (even after being hit by a pitch 285 times), and persistent offensive numbers (5^th in all-time doubles) would have certainly earned him my vote (if I was ever lucky enough to matter for such great things) during his very first year of eligibility in 2013.

Pedro Martinez – As a Yankees’ fan, what could I possibly state about Pedro without using many profane adjectives?  Not much, except when I focus on his pure baseball skills as Pedro won 119 more games than he lost, led the American League in Earned Run Average 5 times (not easy when the league’s offense included “my” championship Yankees of the 90s), and won the Cy Young Award 3 times.  Any objective Yankees’ fan would tell you that Pedro was one of the best pitchers from 1990-2004.  As one of the shortest starting pitchers (5’11”) to ever get voted into the Hall of Fame, Pedro’s achievements are more impressive than much taller pitchers with more advantageous pitching slopes. Yes, he had a great fastball, but most of his dominance came from his demonstrated sophistication of the art of pitching.  It’s a good thing that the neither the late Don Zimmer nor Jorge Posada were involved in Pedro’s Hall of Fame selection!

Of the remaining candidates that did not get enough votes, here are the ones that had decent vote results and have potential for being voted into the Hall of Fame in the future:

Tim Raines – Tim was one of baseball’s best leadoff hitters with the 4^th most stolen bases (808), a .294 career batting average, and a whopping 1,571 runs scored.  Many of his statistics are somewhat similar to the immortal Ricky Henderson and any player that can be compared to Ricky Henderson certainly qualifies as a Hall of Famer.  One key thing that Raines achieved, beyond Ricky or anyone in baseball, was accomplishing the highest successful stolen base percentage (84.7%)!  Hence, he undoubtedly deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.  Hopefully, by next year, the BBWAA will recognize that before it’s too late.

Mike Piazza – Of course, as “TheNYY” writer, I have to slight the Mets whenever I get a chance!  Okay, so I don’t “have to” slight them; but, I also don’t have to overly support them!  Starting with the negative, Mike Piazza had defensive issues (having never won a Gold Glove) with his main defensive flaw coming from his pitiful ability to throw out runners - he only threw out 23% of the base-stealers compared to his own peers’ success of 64.5% with the same pitching staffs (according to billjamesonline.com).  Now, back to my ability to being objective with Piazza’s positives:  There’s no question that Piazza was a superb hitter!  Besides his power, he was not an easy out for any pitcher, as he had many clutch hits against them.  Piazza produced some of the best offensive numbers as a catcher with an impressive .308 batting average and owns the record of the most homers of any MLB catcher (427).  That being said, his greatest achievement (offense) is disputed; that’s because many sports analysts, fans, and, most importantly the BBWAA feel that there’s strong enough suspicion that Piazza cheated with steroid usage - although, there are currently no factual documentations to back up such claims.  Even without hard evidence, many of the writers are skeptical because, if it is later found that Piazza did indeed cheat, they don’t want their personal writing careers tarnished, especially when their gut feeling was telling not to vote initially.  Most of the BBWAA don’t want any player in the Hall of Fame who is definitively or speculatively tied to steroid usage.  I think another year of waiting to possibly vote Piazza into the Hall of Fame gives some extra time for any potential, further evidence to be divulged, and it gives the skeptical writers another year to weigh their decisions.  In his 3 past years of Hall of Fame eligibility, Piazza’s votes have incremented mathematically enough to potentially achieve the necessary 75% by next year - if no concrete evidence is found on him in the interim.

Mike Mussina - Only 24.6% of the baseball writers voted for Mussina (from 20.3% the prior year).  I loved Mussina on the Yankees and even as one of Baltimore’s pitchers.  He, like Pedro, had a decent pitching repertoire, but used a lot of ingenuity with it.  I feel that he is better than a lot of pitchers already in the Hall of Fame, so I lean towards his eventual election.  Some feel that Mussina has a chance in the future mainly because there aren’t many comparable starting pitchers to compete against him, at least over the next few years.  He has collectively won 220 games, won 7 Gold Glove Awards, and earned many Cy Young votes for 6 different seasons (even though he had never won any).  Nowadays, winning 220 games is impressive enough because pitchers don’t get the chance to attain wins in the later innings anymore, due to pitch counts.  In the past, the BBWAA would automatically qualify starters who achieved 300 wins to qualify for the Hall of Fame.  Hopefully, they’ll factor in such key changes to today’s games.

As "TheNYY Writer", how can I not mention Don Mattingly when it comes to the Hall of Fame voting during his (now) last year of eligibility?  Yes, it’s true that Donnie Baseball will now not officially make it into the Hall of Fame by the standard procedure of being voted by the BBWAA; but, there’s still hope because he can achieve votes in the next process which goes to MLB’s Veteran’s Committee (the Expansion Era Committee division) from their 2017 voting process (they only vote every 3 years).  Additionally, if Mattingly continues to manage successfully for many more years, he may also have a chance to get voted as a manager, like Joe Torre did.  Only the future will tell.