Elephant Rumblings: White Sox, Red Sox, Nationals shake up coaching staffs after 2020 season

Rick Renteria’s reward for making playoffs: You’re Fired! | Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images

MLB news roundup

Good morning, Athletics Nation!

The 2020 MLB postseason still has a couple weeks left to go, and we won’t see any offseason player movement until after the World Series is over. But in the meantime, the coaching carousel has already begun to turn.

Three managers are already out. In Detroit, Ron Gardenhire retired for medical reasons a few days before the season ended. Meanwhile, both Sox teams cut their skippers, with Boston saying goodbye to Ron Roenicke and Chicago parting with Rick Renteria immediately after he led them to the playoffs.

There are a couple of particularly interesting replacements available, as A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora are set to return from their suspensions for cheating. It remains to be seen whether either of them get any of the three currently open jobs, but there are rumors that Chicago in particular could go after one of them and that they’re also planning to reach out to Tony La Russa.

Among non-managers, the White Sox also let go pitching coach Don Cooper, after 18 years in the position. The Red Sox won’t bring back bench coach Jerry Narron or bullpen coach Craig Bjornson.

In Washington, the Nationals extended manager Dave Martinez but let go of three coaches. Pitching coach Paul Menhart, bench coach Chip Hale, and hitting coach Kevin Long are all out, giving Martinez the chance to make his own picks.

The Oakland A’s staff has remained intact so far, though we’ll see if that changes over the coming weeks. For now the big shakeup in the Bay Area comes in the front office, where Billy Beane might be stepping away after three decades in the organization and over two decades in charge. Perhaps the timing could be serendipitous, though, as assistant GM Billy Owens is a prime candidate for other teams’ GM positions and it’s easy to speculate that a departure by Beane could open room for Owens to stick around.

A’s Coverage

• Slusser: Investment venture could lure A’s head honcho Billy Beane away from Oakland ($)
• Kawahara: A ‘difficult’ year for baseball’s Hall of Fame continues with death of Joe Morgan ($)
• Bleav podcast: Ben Ross and Bip Roberts on Bille Beane news
• Seamheads podcast: Melissa Lockard and Steve Berman preview offseason
• AN: A’s post-2020 free agent preview
• News: Billy Beane might step away from baseball and Oakland A’s

MLB News & Interest

• Stephen: Clayton Kershaw scratched from Game 2 start with back spasms
• Cole: Johan Camargo replaces Adam Duvall on the Braves’ NLCS roster
• Bowman and Gurnick: ATL-LA NLCS Game 2 FAQ (FS1, 6 ET)
• Cassavell, McTaggart, and Toribio: TB-HOU ALCS Game 3 FAQ (TBS, 8:30 ET)
• Acee: Padres say Tommy Pham in ‘good condition’ after stabbing, surgery
• Baggarly: Giants coach Alyssa Nakken reflects on her historic season ($$$)
• Today in Baseball History

MLB Postseason update

The ALCS is going well, as the Tampa Bay Rays have won the first two games over the Houston Astros. Their latest was a 4-2 victory fueled by Manny Margot’s three-run homer in the 1st, which counted as unearned after an Astros error. Recap from DRaysBay.

The NLCS began Monday and the Atlanta Braves took the opener over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The score was 1-1 into the 9th inning, but the Braves hit two homers in the 9th to plate four runs and hang Blake Treinen with the loss, 5-1. Recap from Talking Chop.

Tuesday LCS schedule (all times PT):

• NLCS G2: Braves at Dodgers, 3:05 p.m. on Fox Sports 1
• ALCS G3: Rays at Astros, 5:40 p.m. on TBS

The AL series moves to primetime, but the Dodgers only move to 3:00 such that they’ll overlap with the AL game. Wait why did we have to play all our games at 12:35 if this later setup was an option for the “afternoon” game??

Best of Twitter

So basically ALDS Game 1, but in reverse

LOL ASTROS

Oh and Margot did this too

In other words they got hot for exactly one week all year and it was the playoffs against us COOL STORY

Can we PLEASE ban national broadcasters? Not once have they ever made the product better. Not. Once. Specifically because they don’t know the players they’re trying to talk about.

Still need higher socks

The whole list is from the Bay Area