Dustin Kelly to replace Greg Brown – Reading Eagle

The Chicago Cubs are making another hitting coach change.

Less than a year after hiring Greg Brown, the Cubs are without the 42-year-old. They offered Brown a position elsewhere in the organization, but he decided to pursue other opportunities.

Dustin Kelly, the organization’s minor league hitting coordinator the past two years, will be promoted to replace Brown. The move could become official before the end of the World Series because Major League Baseball prohibits teams from making announcements during games.

Kelly is the Cubs’ eighth hitting coach in the last 12 seasons, seven assistant hitting coaches in that span. The team needs stability at the coaching position as the Cubs look to iron out their offensive inconsistencies. Their production finished below league average in most notable areas in 2022, including weighted on-base percentage (16th), isolated power (17th), weighted runs created plus (20th), K% ( 21st), swing shot% (25th), contact zone% (26th) and contact% (28th).

While some players have improved, showing the versatility of Ian Happ and the offensive development of Nick Hoerner, too often the Cubs endured stretches where they struggled to string together runs. Improving the lineup in the offseason by acquiring top hitters would certainly help.

“We’ve talked about it year after year, we never have enough offense,” team president Jed Hoyer said last month. “Despite the fact that we played very well, we did not have enough goals. We were beaten at times, but that exposed a lack of depth. So that’s going to be a clear area of ​​focus to make sure our scoring takes a step forward because towards the end of the year, when we’ve been playing better, we’ve been a little behind.”

Kelly, 39, is quickly rising through the coaching ranks. His work in the minors was part of building a hitting infrastructure in a system that has seen offensive breakthroughs and the maturation of young hitting talent over the past two seasons.

Kelly spent three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers as the hitting coach at High-A Rancho Cucamonga (2019-20) and Rookie League Ogden (2018).

Before joining the Cubs organization, Brown spent two years as the hitting coordinator for the minor league Tampa Bay Rays. By the time Brown was hired last November, the MLB lockout was in effect a month later, limiting his ability to interact with Cubs players until the March 10 deadline. The lack of contact prevented important offseason relationship building opportunities, there is not enough time to implement any changes for the attackers before the season.

“The emphasis we’ve made, and it goes from top to bottom, is that we want to have championship-style battles every night … and our guys have competed very well for long periods and they’re playing a game to watch offensively ,” Brown told the Tribune during the season finale. “Every night you work on being consistent in every at-bat, so I think we have an opportunity to continue to develop in the offseason and build on the momentum we’ve had this year in terms of what the offense can look like. When we face (Jacob) deGrom, how do we beat him? Well, we take the kill shot and then use the small game. These are really important works. But if you ask a player who is more inclined to play the short game, why should we ask them to hit the long ball?

“That’s our goal as a staff — how do we make sure everyone thrives? And if they can thrive within their skill set, then we all benefit. That’s the ultimate goal.”

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