Dustin Kelly was settling into his new job because the Chicago Cubs minor-league subject coordinator when the surprising alternative arose.
Kelly couldn’t have anticipated staff President Jed Hoyer to strategy him about taking up as major-league hitting coach. Kelly’s two years within the group set him up for the possibility to tackle the problem.
“The relationships that I built and some of the things that have gone on in the minor-league levels the last couple of years — it just seemed like a really good natural fit for me,” Kelly mentioned Wednesday.
Kelly touted a collective strategy for the hitting coach employees, which options assistants Johnny Washington, Juan Cabreja and Jim Adduci. This mannequin on a major-league employees has change into extra well-liked the final couple of years. The Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers are among the many groups to have no less than three hitting coaches on their staffs.
Kelly famous that first-base coach Mike Napoli additionally will be capable of present perception on Cubs right-handed hitters from his angle on the sector — coaches are blocked from the open-side view of these hitters at Wrigley Field, the place the house dugout is alongside the third-base line — in addition to drawing on his 12-year enjoying profession.
“One of the things that we talked about early on was how do we utilize each member of our staff that’s involved with the hitters that has a presence with these hitters and identify what they’re really good at and then be able to bring that to the table to create a group that services our hitters,” Kelly mentioned. “Our purpose as hitting coaches is to get our gamers ready each single day with no matter they want.
“Every (hitting coach) has their own specialty, and we’re going to leverage each of those. … A Swiss Army knife is how I’ve described it to our guys. We’re one unit, one little knife, but within that knife, there’s a bunch of different tools that we have to use and we can pull from depending on the situation.”
The Cubs need their hitting infrastructure to reflect what they’ve developed on the pitching facet, creating continuity from the minors to the majors and subsequently making changes on the big-league degree. Messaging is a key part to that consistency.
“That’s healthy in my mind to have multiple voices within the in the batting cage that players feel comfortable with that maybe my message doesn’t get across to one particular player, but (Washington) or someone else has the ability to put it in some terms that are maybe more simple,” Kelly mentioned. “We’re all are going to check our egos at the door. That’s a big thing that we’ve talked about is there’s no ego here. We’re the hitting department. We’re here to help players and whatever needs to get done for that particular player that day, we’re going to be able to do it as a group.”
Kelly has been connecting with Cubs gamers the previous few weeks. He has requested them what final season was like for them and the way they’re approaching the offseason. Kelly needs to determine what makes the hitters tick and get to the purpose the place they’re snug with him. Some labored with the 39-year-old the earlier two years when he was the Cubs minor-league hitting coordinator.
Hitting coach is without doubt one of the hardest jobs in baseball, a part of why the Cubs have churned by means of them over the last decade. For Kelly, it’s about creating and delivering good messaging to big-leaguers concerning the group’s expectations whereas additionally having empathy for a way tough it’s to hit major-league pitchers.
“We’re going to get our players prepared, and they’re going to see that and know that when our group steps into the cage that they’re going to be prepared to play every night and be prepared for pitchers and situations and to manage at-bats and and work counts when we need to work counts and put the ball in play,” Kelly mentioned. “Setting some really clear expectations … as Cubs hitters is really going to help.”
()
Source: www.bostonherald.com