Gabe Kapler hired as manager in Philly; Dave Martinez hired in Washington
The Red Sox have had their manager in tow for over a week at this point, but there were still other openings around the league that needed to be filled. Some names that were speculated in Boston at the beginning of the Red Sox’ process have filled two more of those holes. Old friend Gabe Kapler will be the new man in charge in Philadelphia in what is an incredibly interesting hire. Kapler is currently in the front office with the Dodgers, and while he has very little coaching experience (he was a minor-league manager in the Red Sox system for one year), he brings a new perspective to the position. He was one of my personal favorites for the Red Sox job, but it probably makes more sense that he landed with a team that is still in the middle of a rebuild and ready to make their way back up. Meanwhile, Dave Martinez has been hired by the Nationals. Martinez is the longtime bench coach of Joe Maddon, and it’s surprising it took this long for him to get a job. Everyone who’s been around him believes that he’ll do extremely well in this position.
Jon Hart will not be implicated in Braves scandal
We’ve been waiting to hear the full extent and penalties for the Braves front office scandal for what seems like forever, but we still haven’t reached that point. It’s still unclear what exactly they did, who will be punished and whether or not any of their prospects will be declared free agents. One thing we did learn on Monday is that the league has determined President of Baseball Operations John Hart had no knowledge of the infractions. This is a pretty big deal of Atlanta, because if he had been implicated they would have had to totally overhaul their front office. There will still be changes after they lost GM John Coppolella, but now there will be some continuity. More than anything, I just want to know what exactly they did!