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6 years ago

Yeesh. I don’t at all want to demean the hard work put in by the Blue Jays’ coaching staff, or the staffs of the club’s many minor league affiliates, but… uh… here are a bunch of names of people who have jobs that us fans have practically no way of evaluating and will only barely ever see work, if ever!

Some of them we’ve even heard of!

Mike Mordecai, who played for the late 90s/early 2000s Expos, and was a role player on the mid-90s Braves, winning a World Series both with them in 1995 and with the Marlins in 2003, will be on the Jays’ bench this coming season, as he’s been named the club’s new Quality Control coach! He replaces Derek Shelton, who left the club after 2017 to become Paul Molitor’s bench coach in Minnesota. Previously Mordecai had been the Jays’ minor league infield coordinator — a job he held from 2010 to 2015, when he was promoted to “coordinator of instruction.”
The rest of John Gibbons’ staff will remain the same.
Speaking of coordinators, the club’s former baserunning/outfield coordinator, Tim Raines, has become a Special Assistant. (There was some misplaced outrage earlier in the fall when it was announced that the legendary Expo had left his Blue Jays job to join the White Sox’ as a team ambassador. Poor babies.)
Dallas MacPherson, who played from 2004 to 2011 for the Angels, Marlins, and White Sox will begin his professional coaching career this season as the manager of the Vancouver Canadians.
The Jays have also added a hitting coach, Hunter Mense, for New Hampshire, after he spent last season doing that job for short season Tri-City in the Padres organization. Weird, where are all the Clevelanders? *COUGH*
Casey Candaele, who debuted with the 1986 Expos and played until 1997 (OK, OK, he ended his career in Cleveland), will be the new manager of Dunedin. Candaele’s mom, Helen Callaghan, was born in Vancouver and one of the stars of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 40s and 50s, which inspired the movie A League of Their Own. (Per Wikipedia). Candaele was the Mariners’ first base coach in 2017.
Mark Worrell, who gave up Mike Trout’s first home run!, was a submariner with the Cardinals and Mariners, and will be an assistant pitching coach for the GCL Jays.
Former big leaguer Corey Hart will be wearing his sunglasses at night on the bench for the Buffalo Bisons, as he’ll be the hitting coach, taking over for Devon White, who will slide over to become the club’s outfield coach. I expect that the herd will never surrender this year.
Guillermo Martinez might be a familiar name for Jays fans who… uh… pay attention to coaching staff changes. Formerly a minor league hitting instructor for the Jays, he moved to take a similar role with the Cubs in 2014, but now returns with a heftier title, minor league hitting coordinator. You can learn a little more about him from his site Pro Hitting Baseball.
Probably not someone you’ve heard about, but you can guess who their most important pupil will be next season: Lauren Poole has been named the New Hampshire Fisher Cats’ dietician.
The diet of minor league players is something we’ve heard Ross Atkins express concern about, and we’re seeing that concern reflected in additions to the Jays’ high performance department, with Allison Tropf being announced more broadly as “affiliate dietician.”
High Performance certainly has some interesting job titles — ones that are starting to become more common throughout the game, but that the Jays do seem to be ahead of the curve on. Those two specific dietician jobs come in addition to holdovers in that realm, head of nutrition Stephanie Wilson, and “fueling coordinator” Tony Castillo (no, not that one). The Jays also list four under the “mental performance coach” banner, and have added a bunch of strength and conditioning coaches.

Did I miss anyone? WHO CARES!

By which, I, of course, mean… here’s the full list of High Performance staff, minor league coordinators, and affiliate staffs, via a BlueJays.com press release:

HIGH PERFORMANCE — DUNEDIN
Assistant Director of High Performance: Clive Brewer
Rehab Coordinator: Pat Chasse
ATC & Transaction Coordinator: Jeff Stevenson
Assistant Rehab Coordinator: Mauricio Elizondo
S & C Coordinator: Jeremy Trach
Assistant S & C Coordinator: Chad Uihlein
Head of Nutrition: Stephanie Wilson
Fueling Coordinator: Tony Castillo
Head Mental Performance: Paddy Steinfort
Mental Performance Coach: Ben Freakley
Mental Performance Coach: Rafael Dubois
Mental Performance Coach: Tanya Bialostozky

MINOR LEAGUE COORDINATORS
Field Coordinator:Eric Wedge
Pitching Coordinator: Jeff Ware
Hitting Coordinator: Guillermo Martinez
Catching Coordinator: Ken Huckaby
Infield Coordinator: Danny Solano
Latin America Player Advisor: Omar Malave
Senior Advisor, Pitching: Rick Langford
Rehab Pitching Coordinator: Darold Knowles

AFFILIATE STAFF ASSIGNMENTS

BUFFALO
Manager: Bobby Meacham
Pitching: Bob Stanley
Hitting: Corey Hart
Pos. Player: Devon White
Trainer: Bob Tarpey
S & C: Brian Pike

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Manager: John Schneider
Pitching: Vince Horsman
Hitting: Hunter Mense
Pos. Player: Andy Fermin
Trainer: Drew MacDonald
S & C: Ryan Maedel

DUNEDIN
Manager: Casey Candaele
Pitching: Mark Riggins
Hitting: Donnie Murphy
Pos. Player: Michel Abreu
Trainer: Dan Leja
S & C: Kyle Edlhuber

LANSING
Manager: Cesar Martin
Pitching: Tony Caceres
Hitting: Matt Young
Pos. Player: Dave Pano
Trainer: Caleb Daniel
S & C: Aaron Spano

VANCOUVER
Manager: Dallas McPherson
Pitching: Jim Czajkowski
Hitting: Aaron Mathews
Trainer: Michael Rendon
S & C: Pat Rosanio

BLUEFIELD
Manager: Dennis Holmberg
Pitching: Adam Bernero
Hitting: Carlos Villalobos
Pos. Player: Chris Schaeffer
Trainer: Luke Greene
S & C: Justin Batcher

GULF COAST
Manager: Luis Hurtado
Pitching: Rafael Lazo
Asst. Pitching: Mark Worrell
Hitting: Paul Elliott
Pos. Player: George Carroll
Assistant: Jesus Figueroa
Trainer: Jon Woodworth
S & C: Casey Callison

DOMINICAN SUMMER LEAGUE
Field Coordinator: Pablo Cruz
Manager: John Tamargo
Pitching: Yoel Hernandez
Hitting: Julio Germosen
Pos. Player: Jose Mateo
Trainer: Hiroki Yoshimoto
Asst. Trainer: Ysidro Reyes
S & C: Imbewer Alvarez
Asst. S & C: Robert Murdock

Note:
ATC — Athletic Trainer, Certified
PT — Physical Therapist
S & C — Strength and Conditioning

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