The Minnesota Twins had a full coaching staff ready for 2018 until Ron Gardenhire decided to bring Joe Vavra to Detroit. Who could be Vavra’s replacement?
Fans of the Minnesota Twins are excited for former Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire who was hired as the new manager of the Detroit Tigers recently. The assumption was that Gardenhire would likely look to his old staff of coaches to complete his new staff, and Gardy did just that when he called upon old friend and current Twins bench coach Joe Vavra to become his quality control coach.
Joe Vavra is joining the Tigers coaching staff as the quality control coach, I'm told. @LaVelleNeal was first to report Vavra's addition.
— anthony fenech (@anthonyfenech) October 31, 2017
Just as it seemed the Twins 2018 coaching staff was complete with the hire of Garvin Alston as pitching coach, the Twins front office now has another coaching search to to complete. Let’s take a look around the league and see who might be available to fill the Twins bench coach vacancy.
Internal Candidates
The Twins have communicated that they will be exploring both external and internal candidates. Who are some of those coaches in-house that may fit as the Twins next bench coach?
Jeff Pickler
Jeff Pickler was hired this past offseason out of the Los Angeles Dodgers system to a role that included outfield instruction as well as game preparation and strategy. LIkely the biggest influence Twins fans saw Pickler have on the 2017 Twins were the notecards that were found in the back pockets of the outfielders. That was a result of some the analytics that Pickler brought to the team’s game prep.
As an in-house candidate, Pickler may have a leg up since he is a true Falvey and Levine hire. At the same time that could mean nothing as they may have him in the exact role where they see him helping the Twins succeed most and will look elsewhere to fill the bench coach role.