Back in October the Chicago Cubs dismissed several coaches from Craig Counsell’s 2024 staff and that included the team’s first base coach Mike Napoli. Now, the ex-Cubs coach and 12-year MLB veteran is back in the NL Central with his former skipper.
Earlier in the offseason the Cincinnati Reds shocked the baseball world by convincing Terry Francona to come out retirement to become their new manager in 2025. Francona, 65, last managed for the Cleveland Guardians, where Napoli played in the 2016 season. While it has not been determined what role Napoli will have, the former Cubs coach has been hired to Francona’s staff with the Reds.
Rob Bradford of WEEI, reported the news this past weekend.
Per source, Mike Napoli will be joining Terry Francona and the Reds in some capacity pic.twitter.com/cFMkMJYOwD
— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) November 23, 2024
Napoli spent five seasons with the Cubs, beginning life after his playing days as a quality assurance coach in 2020 under David Ross. Napoli was promoted to first base coach a few years later and stuck around in 2024 after the Cubs replaced Ross with Counsell in the dugout.
The Cubs have made several changes to their coaching staff already this offseason and we should get a full update on all the changes within the next few weeks.
Cubs Part with Willie Harris
According to Chicago baseball reporter Bruce Levine the Cubs are making another major coaching change as the team has parted ways with Willie Harris. Levine characterizes the move as a mutual decision and at this point it probably should not come as a big surprise given a few of the coaching changes already happening in the organization.
Harris, who was brought in by David Ross to be on his coaching staff in 2021 with the Cubs, was the team’s third base coach for the past three seasons. Although you can’t blame every single base running mistake, especially when guys were thrown out at home as frequent as the Cubs were in 2024, fans were certainly getting tired of the sometimes over aggressiveness shown by Harris throughout the season.
However, this decision probably has more to do with Craig Counsell wanting to build his own coaching staff heading into his second season as Cubs manager.
Breaking Cubs news- 3B coach Willie Harris and the Cubs front office have agreed to part ways. Both sides leave on good terms. Harris is open to other coaching positions in baseball.
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) October 11, 2024
One interesting connection between the two most prominent changes can’t be ignored, though, as Mike Napoli was let go earlier in October as well. Not only was Napoli the first base coach he also assisted with coaching base running.
In 2024, the Cubs had the second-highest total of runners thrown out at home with 24.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see more turnover in the coaching department for the Cubs this offseason. We do know of one name that will be joining the Cubs and that’s hall of fame baseball coach Jerry Weinstein. You can read more about him here.
Other Cubs Coaching Changes
A bit surprising because Mike Napoli seemed to be a popular coach in the Cubs clubhouse, but at the same time I think we all expected that Craig Counsell was going to bring in a few of his own guys now that he has more time to assemble his coaching staff.
Napoli, who was part of David Ross’ original coaching staff to begin the 2020 season, was one of a handful of Cubs personnel who were let go by the organization on Monday. According to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, Napoli, along with assistant hitting coach Jim Adduci and bullpen coach Darren Holmes have been relieved of their duties with the Cubs.
Adduci was also brought in for the 2020 season alongside Napoli. Interestingly enough, Holmes was hired last December, so he only lasted one year with the Cubs.
I know that Napoli is getting all the headlines, but maybe the most important changes are coming in the training room. The Cubs are also making a change with a few of their strength coaches.
Black Monday around the league for coaches: The Cubs are making several changes including letting go of first base coach Mike Napoli, hitting coach Jim Adduci, bullpen coach Darren Holmes and a couple of strength coaches, per sources.
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) September 30, 2024
At 83-79 to end the 2024 season the Cubs failed to improve from last year. Off the top of my head here are pitchers who went on the 15-day injured list at least once this year: Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, Jordan Wicks, Javier Assad, Kyle Hendricks, Ben Brown, Julian Merryweather, Luke Little, Adbert Alzolay, Keegan Thompson, Daniel Palencia, Drew Smyly, Caleb Kilian, Keegan Thompson, Mark Leiter Jr., Hayden Wesneski and Jorge Lopez.
Colten Brewer also went on the IL, but his injury was self-inflicted when he punched the dugout wall at Wrigley Field following a bad outing.
Oh and I’m not done yet because that list above was all pitchers. Here are the position players who missed weeks of playing time throughout the 2024 season: Patrick Wisdom, Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger, Dansby Swanson, Mike Tauchman, Nick Madrigal and Tomas Nido.
There was also that week in May, when Nico Hoerner wasn’t placed on the injured list, but he also didn’t play in any games because of a hamstring strain. Then in June, Hoerner had a fracture in his hand after getting drilled by Hunter Greene. Again, Hoerner wasn’t put on the IL and returned to the field after missing a few games.
Are the strength coaches to blame for all those injuries? Probably not, but at the same time that’s a ridiculous amount of injuries, some similar and to the same players (Seiya Suzuki) so maybe a change is justified.
As of now there aren’t more coaching changes expected, but it’s still early in the offseason to set that in stone. Same goes with the front office, where we could also see some movement from the Cubs.
