Heading back to Los Angeles for the third time in his career, Roenicke was selected by the Dodgers in the first round of the 1977 draft and spent three of his eight major league seasons as a player with the franchise.
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Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi praised Ron Roenicke on Tuesday for everything from his existing relationships with the Dodgers’ coaches to causing Zaidi to lose his hair when Roenicke was the Angels’ third-base coach. All I care about is winning. “It’s about him in this role helping us go as far as we can in 2015”.
Leading the Brewers to the postseason in his first year at the helm in 2011, Roenicke’s tenure in Milwaukee ended at the hands of a disappointing 2015 campaign.
Also I don’t think Bundy’s at total fault because if a third base coach could basically be worth -16.2 runs below average then teams would invest a ton of money into that department.
The hardest part of making such a change, Mattingly said, is “just relationships you have with people, that’s all”.
“I never thought about it, ” Roenicke said. “When I asked Donnie about whether he wanted me there, he said, ‘Absolutely.’ It made a difference for me and the fact that he had already talked to Lo about it”. And that’s the way it should be. “So me coming here is strictly because I wanted to help out when he asked me to do it”.
Valentin is in his eighth year coaching in the Dodgers organization, and in his third on the major league coaching staff.
During Roenicke’s time with the Angels, the club was known for its aggressive baserunning and knack for forcing the action.
According to the Fangraphs baserunning metric, the Dodgers have been the worst baserunning team in baseball this season. “Some of that has to do with us not having a lot of team speed. That’s just not an area of strength for us as a roster”, Zaidi said. Some of it has to do with guys running the bases and picking up their coaches. “So the responsibility for the baserunning falls on all of us”.
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Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller tweeted out that Roenicke will replace Lorenzo Bundy in the job, who is becoming the team’s outfield coordinator. Mattingly wouldn’t address whether the move was his idea – likely not – but said he was not looking over his shoulder.
