Greg Brown got one season on the job as the Cubs’ hitting coach, continuing a pattern of turnover in the position over the past decade.
Brown will not return next season, the Sun-Times confirmed. He was offered another position within the organization but decided to seek opportunities elsewhere.
The Cubs will promote Dustin Kelly from minor-league hitting coordinator to major-league hitting coach.He will be the eighth coach to hold the position since 2012. Kelly spent two seasons as the Cubs’ minor-league hitting coordinator, after three seasons as a minor-league hitting coach in the Dodgers’ farm system.
The rebuilding Cubs ranked No. 22 in MLB this season in runs scored (657), a year after trading away their offensive championship core at the deadline. They were in the bottom half of the league when it came to team batting average (.238), on base percentage (.311) and slugging (.387).
“It’s not going to work out for every player to have their career years [the same season],” Brown said in a conversation with the Sun-Times during the last series of the season. “And if they do, we’ll probably win the championship that time. But when it comes down to being able to set the expectations and the standards in which we’re trying to achieve, well, I think that’s been done in Year 1. And I think that’s a success.”
This year was Brown’s first on a major-league coaching staff, as part of a robust and eclectic career in baseball.
Brown, a former minor-league player, was an area scout with the Astros in 2009-2010 before spending nine seasons as the head coach at Nova Southeastern University. He then spent two seasons as the minor-league hitting coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays before the Cubs hired him last winter.
The lockout stifled Brown’s ability to contact his new players for much of the offseason, and he had a condensed spring training to get to know them better.
“I made mistakes of trying to help without creating that relationship first,” Brown said. “And so, that’s been a large portion of my learning curve throughout [this season.] That’s something you take away and go, ‘moving forward, how do I not make that mistake again?'”
