Colorado Rockies: Two coaching changes and potential candidates to fill them

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Final Thoughts

There are about 100 (I’m not exaggerating) people that Bud Black has played with, coached, or managed that have some coaching experience in the minor leagues or major leagues that could fill these spots so, obviously, I couldn’t list all of them but these six that I just listed are the ones that have the best chance and/or the most experience in the major leagues.

Two others that would have been on this list if they weren’t just recently hired by other teams would be two of the best hitting coaches in the game.

Turner Ward, who is one of the best hitting coaches of all of baseball, was subject to Yasiel Puig’s kisses for the past three seasons. He was also a hitting coach or assistant hitting coach for the D’Backs for three seasons prior to going to LA. He was just hired by the Reds to become their hitting coach.

Both he and Bud Black spent time on the 1990 Cleveland Indians. However, Ward made his major league debut a few weeks after Black was traded to Toronto. Ward would head to Toronto in 1991 but Black already had left Toronto for the San Francisco Giants.

While in San Francisco in 1991, Black was teammates with Darnell Coles, who was the Brewers hitting coach for the last four seasons. Prior to that, he was the assistant hitting coach to the aforementioned Wally Joyner in Detroit in 2014. He also spent parts of 14 seasons in the major leagues, including his final season with the Rockies in 1997. Coles just left the Brewers a few weeks ago to become the new hitting coach of the D’Backs.

The only one of these four that I would say that it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that he will be on the staff is Glenallen Hill. I would personally put him as the first base coach. Then, I would go there and try to find an experienced hitting coach that can, perhaps, help the Rockies out of their offensive rut that they have been in for a while now.