Am I just waking up, or are MLB organizations hiring more asst coaches from the college ranks than in the past? I noticed two last week, Tucker Frawley to the Twins org and TJ Hannam to the Mets org. Plus there have several periodic announcements of others over the last few months (I can only remember one other, Casey Dykes to the Yankees).
Seems like there has always been a trickle of moves up but has it accelerated?
Replies sorted oldest to newest
MLB is hiring more college coaches. MLB is ridding itself of the remaining old school, my way or the highway coaches. College coaches are more inclined to explain the “why” to a player and be comfortable with analytics.
Yes, and to no surprise, often with a big emphasis on the analytics piece RJM mentioned. And many of these go unannounced. Son's Mid-major D1 has sent two to MiLB clubs since Fall, largely because this school has put emphasis on using the latest technology. Neither were the top AC.
We lost a hitting coach and pitching coach to the Yankees last year. And the lead student manager, who graduated last May, did internships for a couple of pro teams, teaching them to use equipment and programs for analysis that he had been using in college. it will be fun to see the impact these have moving forward.
I think it's fair to say that more and more college assistants are looking at a coaching or player development stint in the pros as a benefit to their careers, regardless of whether they end up spending the rest of their careers there or decide at some point to return to college coaching as head coaches who have significant experience coaching professional players. In my view, this cross-pollination can only be healthy for both the professional and college games.
It's amazing how quickly some of these guys advance. I young coach who was working with my son as an assistant on a travel program just four years ago was recently hired as a minor league instructor.
MLB looking for coaches in private sector and college baseball
Technology is a big factor. Professional coaches used to fight against technology. But now teams are searching for talent on the development side to do whatever you need to do, and that’s increasingly with data.
Most major conference college teams have high-speed cameras or tracking devices to measure pitch velocity, spin rate, exit velocity, horizontal and vertical break, launch angle, and other data points. That has created a generation of coaches with the skills major league organizations covet.
The data driven scientific stuff is the future and while old school coaches could learn this stuff and some of them do (like 70+ yo jerry weinstein who is still learning the state of the art stuff) many old school coaches are quite stubborn and don't like to take orders a nerd who hit .210 in JUCO.
Thus many GMs save themselves the fight against the old school guys and just go with fresh guys who do not need to be conviced.
I think this will roll back in a couple years because at that point enough pro players with tech experience will have retired and are available to coach so you can fill coaching with former pros again.
But the guys who have retired already are all brought up old school so it will take some time before enough qualified former pros are around.
Works both ways, the new coach at OSU, thirty something, was a manager for a milb team.
Both college ADs as well as ML teams are looking for young guys who can relate to young players.
And let's not forget about Rachel Balkovec, who just became one of the first female full time milb hitting coaches for the NYY! Way to go!
