Chicago Cubs supervisor Craig Counsell didn’t know Ryan Flaherty nicely when he started the seek for his bench coach.
Counsell truly appreciated that facet of the method, although Flaherty had a connection to common supervisor Carter Hawkins, his teammate at Vanderbilt. However, Counsell was extra all in favour of how nicely Flaherty had completed his job the final 4 years, explaining final month that he was wanting ahead “to a new and a fresh set of eyes there to help me see different things” with Flaherty.
He formally grew to become certainly one of 4 additions to the Cubs’ 2024 teaching employees Tuesday as Counsell’s right-hand man within the dugout. Flaherty’s eight-year big-league profession ended after 2019, and the 37-year-old’s transition to the teaching ranks led him to the Padres, with whom he most not too long ago served as bench coach final season.
“I’ve always had great respect for him,” Counsell mentioned on the winter conferences. “He’s done really good things quickly in his coaching career. He’s earned an excellent reputation, and he’s been very good with players. I think that relationship that he has, it’s really hard as you start coaching to kind of separate yourself as a coach and still be great with players, and I think Ryan has done an excellent job of that.”
Joining Flaherty on the employees: Darren Holmes as bullpen coach, Mark Strittmatter as major-league discipline coordinator and John Mallee as assistant hitting coach. Strittmatter may even function the purpose particular person for staff scheduling and dealing with Cubs catchers. Mallee earned rave evaluations from his work as Triple-A Iowa’s hitting coach final 12 months. It earned him a promotion to the Cubs’ big-league employees after serving as their hitting coach beneath Joe Maddon from 2015-17.
Counsell saved 10 coaches from former supervisor David Ross’ employees, most notably retaining pitching coach Tommy Hottovy, who’s getting into his sixth season on this place and tenth with the group, and hitting coach Dustin Kelly, giving some stability to a job the Cubs went by means of seven hitting coaches in an 11-year span (2012-22).
Keeping the employees largely intact stemmed, partly, from a late begin on the coaching-staff course of when the Cubs employed Counsell on Nov. 6 and the conversations he had with coaches and speaking across the business about them.
“I felt like it was largely a good staff in place, and there were some really good pieces in place, and there were some places for growth on the staff that I think I can help with and really I’m looking forward to doing that with some of these guys,” Counsell mentioned final month. “There’s some just really good tools there that I think we can use and hopefully make better. In the end it’s just to help players. That’s what our job is as coaches, and that’s what our coaching staff’s job is to help the players. Help the players be better at their jobs and I think we have some really good tool sets on the coaching staff to do so.”
The Cubs are additionally anticipated to formally announce entrance workplace hires and promotions within the coming days, which can embody naming Houston Astros assistant hitting coach Jason Kanzler as their new farm director.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com