The Minnesota Twins have finished filling out their coaching staff for 2019 with the hiring of longtime Tampa Bay Rays coach Bill Evers.
The Minnesota Twins completed the transformation of their coaching staff this past week and continued the Tampa Bay Rays connection as they did so. While many of the Twins hires for their coaching staff have been marked by youth, the hire of Bill Evers to the staff will not only buoy the average age of the staff but also bring some valuable experience as well.
Evers at 64 years of age has over 30 years of experience working in baseball. Many of those years come at the minor league level. Most recently Evers has been working as the Minor League Field Instructor for the Tampa Bay Rays. He also has a wealth of managing experience at the minor league level and was the winningest manager in the history of the Durham Bulls until newly hired Toronto Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo surpassed him in 2014.
While most of Evers coaching and managing experience is at the minor league level, he also served as the Rays bench coach under manager Joe Maddon in 2006 and 2007. Those years in the Rays organization means that Evers move to Rocco Baldelli‘s staff reunites the coach with his former pupil.
Evers will essentially take over Jeff Pickler’s place on the staff and have a focus on working with the catchers. That makes Evers top task for the 2019 season to help give Twins young catcher Mitch Garver that extra boost to becoming a quality every day major league backstop. Evers will also be a great mentor to helping Baldelli manage some of those everyday duties that he hasn’t been directly responsible to in the past.
Evers hire brings the Twins coaching staff to round out to the following:
- Manager: Rocco Baldelli
- Bench Coach: Derek Shelton
- Hitting Coach: James Rowson
- Assistant Hitting Coach: Rudy Hernandez
- Pitching Coach: Wes Johnson
- Assistant Pitching Coach (Bullpen Coach): Jeremy Hefner
- First Base Coach: Tommy Watkins
- Third Base Coach: Tony Diaz
- Major League Coach, Catchers: Bill Evers
Now that all the coaching hires have been made the Twins front office is set to turn their full attention to adding players to the roster. With the roster in its current state, we should begin hearing plenty more news from the Twins soon!