Rick Renteria gets his first major league manager gig with the Cubs.
Just as any manager's duty is to put his players in the best position to succeed, it is the general manager's duty to put the best coaching staff together to help the manager put the players in the best position to succeed.
The most important hire for any major league coaching staff is the pitching coach. The wear and tear of a season will affect every pitcher's mechanics. A good pitching coach will know what works and does not work for each pitcher. He will be able to quickly correct flaws. He is able to get the most out of each pitcher from game to game with proper preparation and scouting of the opponent.
Chris Bosio was been flying under the media radar. The Cubs pitching staff has had such a great turnover it is hard to tell whether he would be a good fit for a crop of young arms if the Cubs system ever develops such talent. There is no question that Chicago does have a great pitching coach: White Sox's Don Cooper. Cooper has consistently brought along several young pitchers (Sale, Quintana, Danks, Santiago, Reed). The Cubs need to hire a Cooper clone.
The next most important coach on the team is the hitting coach. However, many people debate whether the hitting coach can actually help an individual batter because there are too many variables when a hitter is at the plate. Some complain that some coaches over analyze their pupils to the point of mentally screwing them up (like in the case of Starlin Castro, who was to change his natural hitting style to be more selective and create more power). Then there are some hitting coaches who allow their players to work things out for themselves; they are merely present in case the batter is looking for advice. Then there is the hitting guru, a person who has studied and loves the art of hitting and all of its components. The last great hitting mentor was Charley Lau, whose program helped hitters like Frank Thomas have long, productive careers. However, the best hitting coaches on a team may be other players. For example, when Daryl Ward was a Cub player, he would counsel his teammates on how to hit in situations and how to work a pitcher to a proper count. In some ways, the team needs a hitting coach that players can relate to and trust with their livelihood.
And established manager would have enough clout to bring his own people with him, like Tony LaRussa did with his pitching coach Dave Duncan. But Renteria has no such track record to demand hiring his own guys. In some ways, it diminishes the manager's staff loyalty because the coaches are more tied to the front office than to the actual bench skipper.
Baseball management likes that dynamic because the new executives want to micromanage all aspects of the operation. The baseball game is like a factory assembly line. Management just wants to plug in workers along the line, then fiddle with the product during the season. Executives want loyal staff members so they can monitor what is going on in the locker room. The Cubs have already stated that some of the current staff would be retained, but there would be some new hires.
