While the New York Yankees haven’t made any moves to their major league coaching staff, their minor league counterparts did, adding a familiar face as a new hitting coach. Yesterday, the Double-A Trenton announced their coaching staff, but I wanted to wait until Scranton released their list so it could be in one post. So, let’s look at the coaching staff for Trenton for the 2015 season:
Manager: Al Pedrique
Pitching coach: Jose Rosado
Hitting coach: P.J. Pilittere
Defensive coach: Michel Hernandez
And here’s a look at the coaching staff for the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders:
Manager: Dave Miley
Pitching Coach: Scott Aldred
Hitting Coach: Marcus Thames
Defensive Coach: Justin Tordi
So the cat is out of the bag that Marcus Thames is the new hitting coach for Scranton, after it was speculated last month and Brian Cashman shot down the rumors at the Winter Meetings. If you need a small refresher on what Marcus Thames did as a player, here’s his career in a nutshell via Yankees PR:
Thames, 37, was a 30th-round pick by the Yankees in 1996 before spending a decade in the big leagues with the Yankees (2002, 2010), Texas Rangers (2003), Detroit Tigers (2004-09) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2011). The corner outfielder belted the first of his 115 homers in his first MLB at-bat against 2015 Hall-of-Fame inductee Randy Johnson. Thames assembled a career line of .246/.309/.485/.794. He still owns Detroit’s franchise record for best at-bat/HR ratio on a career at 14.8. He spent the 2014 season as the hitting coach with Double-A Trenton and served in the same role with Advanced-A Tampa in 2013. He played 314 games in the International League including a four-game SWB stint in 2010.