Red Sox announce 2022 coaching staff

Due to the lockout imposed by the league on the players early in December when the last collective bargaining agreement expired, there is no player movement around the league, bringing baseball news in general to a standstill. The one bit of news we can still get is coaching staff changes, and the Boston Red Sox announced their 2022 staff on Monday. Below are all the coaches and their roles, with asterisks indicating coaches with new roles this season.

Manager: Alex Cora

Bench Coach/Outfield Instructor*: Will Venable

Hitting Coach*: Peter Fatse

Assistant Hitting Coach*: Luis Ortiz

Assistant Hitting Coach*: Ben Rosenthal

Pitching Coach: Dave Bush

First Base Coach*: Ramón Vázquez

Third Base Coach: Carlos Febles

Bullpen Coach: Kevin Walker

Game Planning Coordinator/Catching Coach: Jason Varitek

At the top of the chain of command is still, of course, Cora, who was certainly in no danger of losing that job. He still has his number two in Venable as well, which was not a given since he did interview for the Oakland Athletics managerial opening. Venable, who is seen as one of the top young future managerial candidates in the game, gets some extra responsibility on his lap as the outfield coordinator. That job had been Tom Goodwin’s in 2021, but he was not brought back for next season.

The most changes are found on the hitting side of the equation after Tim Hyers, the team’s hitting coach since 2018, decided to pursue new opportunities. He ultimately took the hitting coach job with the Texas Rangers. Replacing him is Peter Fatse, a Massachusetts native who played a few years in the minors but never made the majors. He’d been an assistant hitting coach since the start of the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, both Ortiz and Rosenthal are new to the organization entirely. The former was a Red Sox draftee in 1991 and had two short stints with the big-league team in the 90s. He’s been coaching professionally since 2008, most recently serving as the Rangers hitting coach. Rosenthal had a short professional career in Indy Ball and the minors, and had been coaching in the Astros minor-league system since 2017.

The other change is with the first base coach slot, which was also Goodwin’s the last few seasons. Vázquez moves over to that role after serving as the team’s quality control coach in 2021, and he also filled in as the first base coach at times in the regular season and for the entirety of the postseason run as Goodwin’s vaccination status left him unable to fulfill his duties.