The Dodgers had a bit of a surprise announcement on Wednesday, revealing the news that Danny Lehmann will be replacing Bob Geren as the team's bench coach. Geren had been the bench coach for all of manager Dave Roberts' seven-year tenure with Los Angeles.
Geren will still be a part of the coaching staff, though, transitioning into a role as "major league field coordinator." This is a new position, but LA general manager Brandon Gomes explained the thinking behind the coaching shuffle, as Fabian Ardaya reports in The Athletic.
Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, general manager Brandon Gomes outlined the realignment as a slight shift in duties, with Geren still tasked with several of his usual responsibilities such as scheduling, staying up to date on rules and more. Lehmann, whose work has included work on defensive alignments and with the pitching staff, will continue to bolster the staff in those areas.
“It’s more about splitting up duties and responsibilities to be as effective and efficient as possible,” Gomes said. “(Lehmann) was already contributing a ton. So it’s keeping what he has done and been really impactful on and adding more responsibilities.”
Bench coaches often come in one of two flavors. Sometimes, the bench coach is a former manager who serves as a mentor to an inexperienced manager. That's the role Geren served, having previously managed the A's and serving as the right-hand man to first-time manager Roberts. The other flavor of bench coach, though, is the young protégé of an experienced manager, like Don Mattingly with Joe Torre in New York or Alex Cora with AJ Hinch in Houston. That could be more of the relationship between veteran manager Roberts and 37-year-old up-and-comer Lehmann.
Lehmann, like Geren and a lot of other MLB coaches, is a former catcher. He spent seven years in the Twins farm system after being drafted out of Rice University, getting as high as Triple-A in four straight seasons but never breaking through to the big leagues. He's been with the Dodgers in a coaching capacity since 2015, a year after retiring as a player.
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