By Blaidd Drwg
The M’s have fired Alan Cockrell as hitting coach and replaced him with Alonzo Powell.
I have a couple of issues with Cockrell taking the blame for the terrible offense – he has done a nice job at getting the team to be more patient this season and this is a veteran team – the average age of the hitters that have appeared in a game is 30.6 – only the Yankees and Red Sox have older average ages in the AL (The M’s were actually tied with the Sox until the got Mike Saunders in a game). I really don’t think the hitting coach has too much impact on the vets, but something had to be done and firing the coach is much easier than changing the players.
Will Powell help – I seriously doubt it. He was the hitting coach in Tacoma where, despite playing in one of the best hitters parks in the league, the team is in the bottom half of the PCL in OPS and the prospects (Mike Carp, Greg Halman and Mike Saunders) have all struggled so far this year. We will see if this helps at all.
FlatbreadGarden 