Quality control coach? Pitching strategist? In MLB, title inflation is the new norm

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One day last month, while killing time in the visiting dugout at Kauffman Stadium, Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was asked what he actually did in his previous role as the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen and quality control coach.

The first half of that label seemed obvious enough — bullpen coaches have been around in the majors for as long as anyone can remember. The other half? Vogt, after some explaining, broke into an impression of a television character from a show famed for sending up things like convoluted job titles.

“Quabity. Quabity assuance,” Vogt said, mimicking Creed Bratton, the eccentric and oft-forgetful quality assurance manager in “The Office.” “Why are they asking me so many questions?”

“The Office” gained prominence for its satirization of corporate culture, with its opaque job descriptions and jargon-y buzzwords. But in baseball, life is now imitating art — or at least imitating corporate America — when it comes to coaching titles.

Across the big leagues, the six-person coaching staff (bench, hitting, pitching, first base, third base, bullpen) is practically extinct. Teams have amassed legions of instructors bearing LinkedIn-friendly titles like strategist of performance and data integration (Miami Marlins), game planning and run prevention coach (Boston Red Sox), and major league field coordinator/director of defense, baserunning and strategy (Guardians). You can find just about any title in the sport, outside of assistant to the regional manager.

On Opening Day this year, the ranks of the curiously labeled included three associate managers, three offensive coordinators, five quality control or quality assurance coaches, nine directors or assistant directors of various departments, and more than a dozen coaches with a reference to strategy or game planning in their designations.

The sheer volume and variety of nontraditional titles might feel a bit excessive. Yet, those on the inside say there are legitimate reasons for this proliferation.

“Initially, I was like, ‘Really?’ But now, not as much. Now, I kind of like it,” said Padres manager Mike Shildt, another former quality control coach. “Once you step back, you go, ‘Different doesn’t mean worse.’ … Because of more people and more information, now we can easily and rightfully justify a couple different people absorbing those roles.”

This season, all 30 organizations list double-digit coaches on their team websites. Some bullpen catchers are also billed as strategists, staff assistants or catching instructors. Still, as coaches have increasingly taken up real estate in media guides, their responsibilities often remain mysterious to the public.

So, what exactly did Vogt do for the Mariners in 2023 before he landed one of the most coveted positions in baseball?

“I don’t know what other quality control coaches do, but for me, it was a title that essentially meant I was more than a bullpen coach,” said Vogt, now in his second season managing the Guardians. “I was in hitters’ meetings. I helped the catchers. My fear was that the hitting coaches would be (upset) that the bullpen coach is talking to a hitter, and vice versa.”

Amid the highly competitive environment of the big leagues, Vogt’s concern was not unfounded. In the past decade, however, the world of non-player personnel has moved not only toward greater specialization but also increased collaboration. Analytics and technology have flooded the sport. The prevalence of data necessitates more employees to help translate and communicate information.

“There’s so much work to be done in each area, so the manpower, you need to have it to keep up,” Kansas City Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.

Added Chicago Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, a former big-league utility player: “I think things used to be so siloed. The person with ‘hitting’ worked with hitting, ‘pitching’ worked with pitching, and ‘infield’ worked with infield. And I think now, people just work in a lot of areas.

“I think the hard thing is trying to figure out what to call them.”

As a quality control coach for the San Diego Padres in 2022, Flaherty assisted infield coach Bobby Dickerson with infield instruction and helped oversee offensive game planning. A year later, he was promoted to offensive coordinator, a role in which he continued to prepare San Diego’s hitters for opposing pitchers. “It wasn’t as much technique of hitting as it was understanding pitchers’ tendencies,” Flaherty said.

The bump reflected a trend within a trend — and illustrated a driving force in the modern era of coaching titles. “I think it’s a combo,” Shildt said. “People are trying to prevent people from getting poached, and people are poaching people with a title.”

That was the case in San Diego after the 2019 season. The Padres hired Dickerson away from the Philadelphia Phillies, technically elevating the veteran infield instructor to bench coach. Around the same time, they devised a new position with familiar duties. Skip Schumaker, who had long been viewed as a future manager, went from first base coach to associate manager.

“Nothing too scientific about it,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said. “Ultimately, (Schumaker) was going to be somebody that was going to be really the 1A and the right-hand man to a manager, and somebody who could be developing to go on that track as well.”

Schumaker understood the maneuvering. “In order to get, in my opinion, one of the best infield coaches in baseball, I think they had to create another title for me,” said Schumaker, who went on to manage the Marlins from 2023 to 2024. “The responsibilities were the same as the bench coach. … I think it’s just a way to get guys on staff that you want.”

Other teams have acted similarly. In late 2021, the Texas Rangers made Donnie Ecker their bench coach and the sport’s first offensive coordinator, luring him away from his hitting coach job with the San Francisco Giants. A year later, the Rangers hired then-Boston Red Sox bench coach Will Venable as associate manager. Before the 2024 season, and before he succeeded Schumaker as National League Manager of the Year, Pat Murphy appointed rookie coach Rickie Weeks Jr. as the Milwaukee Brewers’ associate manager.

Skip Schumaker went from first base coach to associate manager to, eventually, manager. (Brett Davis / USA Today)

Murphy’s staff still does not have a bench coach or, at least, anyone by that title.

When you’re fresh in the game and you want to manage someday, I think (naming Weeks associate manager) is an appropriate tack,” Murphy said.

Not all positions are crafted with future advancement or retention as a priority. The Arizona Diamondbacks might have opened a door to nontraditional labels before the 2017 season when they hired a decorated former big-league pitcher as the team’s pitching strategist. “I think we started it with Dan Haren, quite frankly,” Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen said.

How did Arizona come up with Haren’s professional moniker? “I don’t know,” Hazen said. “He works on our pitching strategy. I don’t know that we put a ton of thought into the title, honestly. We sort of built it backwards from job responsibilities.”

At times, the title has come first. Shildt recalled that when he became one of baseball’s first quality control coaches in 2015, it was a position “that the (St. Louis Cardinals) created to get me to the big leagues. And even when I got it, there was still like, ‘Now what? What do we do with this?’”

Well before the arrival of the universal designated hitter, the Cardinals tasked Shildt with overseeing bunting instruction for the team’s pitchers. “Then it just started to materialize into more big-picture work, which now is more analytically driven,” Shildt said.

Trent Blank, the Seattle Mariners’ director of pitching strategy, can attest to that shift. A former minor leaguer with an interest in biomechanics, he joined the Mariners in 2018. “At that time, baseball was getting into technology, and we wanted to start a new frontier for the organization,” Blank said.

Now, Blank helps direct the Mariners’ application of technology and analytics, working with pitching coach Pete Woodworth before and during every big-league game. (Unlike Haren, Blank wears a uniform.) In the weeks leading up to each amateur draft, he aids the scouting department with data-based evaluations.

“I think I have one of the best jobs in baseball,” Blank said of his role as a strategist. “It seems like each team’s found their own way to kind of bend that title or those roles and responsibilities to fit what they need at the time.”

Some clubs have taken the pursuit of organizational alignment to new heights. The Guardians, for instance, employ a hitting coach, two assistant hitting coaches, a major-league hitting analyst, a senior vice president of hitting, a vice president of hitting, an assistant director of hitting development, and a special assistant to player development/hitting. Last year, Jason Esposito had the title of run production coordinator. Now, he’s an assistant hitting coach. No one can explain the difference. Meanwhile, Kai Correa is the team’s major-league field coordinator and, in a newly created role, its director of defense, baserunning and game strategy.

“If you think about the old model, you’d have a major-league hitting coach that might not even ever talk to the minor-league coordinator, who might not be involved in what’s going on with the hitting coach there, so you can get very different messages,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. “We’ve worked to have organizational philosophies and programs that (reflect them).”

Like the Guardians, the Dodgers introduced a title to the coaching lexicon this season. Brandon McDaniel originally joined the organization as a minor-league strength and conditioning coach and eventually ascended to vice president of player performance. He made a more sudden leap in February when the Dodgers announced him as major-league development integration coach.

McDaniel, formerly a behind-the-scenes member of the franchise, is in uniform this season in the Dodgers’ dugout. (MLB regulations used to limit teams to a manager and eight coaches in the dugout during games, with an additional coach permitted when rosters expand in September. A league official said clubs now have more flexibility.) His presence there allows McDaniel to provide immediate input on workload management and facilitate communication between the front office and the coaching staff.

“I recognize that my path is probably extremely different than most people who are fortunate enough to put on a uniform,” said McDaniel, who described swapping ideas with manager Dave Roberts for multiple weeks before they settled on a title.

“People could (say), like, ‘Oh, we made it up.’ But I think we really put some thought into what I was going to be doing every day. At the end of the day, it’s like supporting the coaches, to help develop the players.”

Said president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman: “It’s about making sure we’re covering our bases on every front.”

The current top dog in a copycat industry, the Dodgers, could soon inspire other teams to employ their own versions of McDaniel. With so many different titles and limited public advertisement of responsibilities, perhaps some clubs already have. McDaniel suggested that the coordination aspect of his new position is not dissimilar to that of Los Angeles Angels staff assistant and unofficial “director of fun” Tim Buss.

“I think major-league coaching is one of the big frontiers of the sport,” Hazen said. “The more that you can improve your good major-league players at the major-league level, it can be a separator.”

Still, balance remains important. Hazen said it can be difficult to keep manufacturing new titles “without overrating your staff.” Schumaker, now a senior advisor for the Rangers, warned against the potential complications of having a large number of coaches. “It’s a privilege to be in a major-league clubhouse,” Schumaker said, “and I feel like, throughout the last few years, that’s gotten away from certain clubs, trying to think too outside the box and having too many cooks in the kitchen.”

Regarding the practice of assigning titles to poach coaches or protect against poaching, Murphy said: “There’s a lot of that. There’s no question. It probably needs to be looked at a little bit.”

This past offseason, after Murphy led the small-market Brewers to 92 wins and a playoff appearance, first base coach Quintin Berry left to become the Cubs’ third base coach. Run prevention coordinator Walker McKinven landed the Chicago White Sox’s bench coach job. Assistant pitching coach Jim Henderson interviewed to be the Diamondbacks’ pitching coach and “was close,” Murphy said.

“We encouraged all that and, truth be known, helped it happen,” Murphy said. “I believe in helping your guys, your staff, keep going. That’s what this game is about. If you’ve got an opportunity to move on, I think it’s awesome. If you’re keeping them from better opportunities, I don’t think that’s right.”

Henderson stayed in Milwaukee, where he was given an augmented position as the team’s assistant pitching and strategy coach. The strategy portion of the role includes pregame research of opposing lineups and in-game discussion with Murphy as different situations arise. The casual observer might assume it will make Henderson at least slightly more challenging to hire away.

That, according to Murphy, is not the goal. The Brewers did not replace McKinven, unless you count the expansion of Henderson’s duties.

“We can replace everybody,” Murphy said. “We’re all replaceable. The game’s proven that.”

—The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya contributed to this story.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo: Kenta Harada / Getty Images)

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