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Earlier this week the Cubs announced that Jim Hickey was stepping down as the team’s pitching coach after spending only one season on the North Side. Hickey, who was previously with the Rays, left because of personal reasons. So, who’s replacing him?
ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, who first reported that Hickey wouldn’t return in 2019, quickly named Cubs run prevention coordinator as a candidate. Rogers said the Cubs will promote within the organization and Tommy Hottovy might just be the guy.
Now, there’s a second report that isn’t just bringing up Hottovy as a candidate, but naming him the favorite to become the newest pitching coach for the Cubs.
Via Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.
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According to multiple sources, a replacement for Hickey could come from within the organization, as run prevention coordinator Tommy Hottovy has emerged as a leading candidate. No final decision has been made and the Cubs front office will continue to do their due diligence, but preliminary discussions have taken place and Hottovy currently looks like a favorite.
You can read more background on Hottovy in that article by Sharma, in this 2015 profile by Fangraphs on Hottovy, or a quick recap of his career here.
REPORT: Tommy Hottovy Might Just Be The Next Cubs Pitching Coach
Anyway, one of the biggest takeaways from Sharma’s article on Hottovy is that despite the lack of coaching experience, the 37-year-old’s biggest strength is communication.
After the Cubs were eliminated from the playoffs by the Rockies in the Wild Card Game, there were reports that most of the players simply didn’t click with hitting coach Chili Davis. The now fired Davis, confirmed those rumors in an interview.
This isn’t to say that Hickey and the pitching staff didn’t mesh well, but at least Hottovy knows how important it is to communicate a certain message from the top down. He brought that up back in 2015, when Fangraphs wrote about his new position with the Cubs.
“We’re working with our R&D guys and have to be able to speak their language – we have to be able to speak sabermetrics – and he have to be able to translate that to the coaches. We also have to be able to answer questions from the players. It’s a role that combines three facets: front office, research and development, and the players and coaches. We have to speak all three languages, and build the trust of the people who are taking it to the field every night.”
Via The Athletic.
Perhaps Hottovy’s biggest strength is his communication skills. The affable former pitcher is able to translate what may seem like complicated information into a language each pitcher can understand easily. Hottovy doesn’t have just one language in which he gets his point across. He’s comfortable passing along in-depth information to the likes of Hendricks while also communicating similarly complex ideas to someone who takes in information differently, like Jon Lester. Both are done in different ways as to ensure each can fully understand the concepts properly and then go apply the lessons on the mound.
So, Tommy Hottovy is your current favorite to be the next pitching coach for the Cubs.
