Article: Cubs Hire Darren Holmes, Mark Strittmatter to Finalize Coaching Staff

Matthew Trueblood · December 20, 2023

In important news for the maximization of the value of new manager Craig Counsell, the Cubs completed their coaching staff Tuesday. They'll enter 2024 with, in some sense, three pitching coaches in uniform each day.

Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

Without a doubt, Craig Counsell has value all his own as a manager. He's masterful in his maneuvering within games, and has done well at cultivating clubhouse morale and weathering the brutal grind of an MLB season. To get the most out of him, though, the team needs to surround him with the right support staff, to ensure that the team gets better at player development and preparation.

Already, the team hired Ryan Flaherty as Counsell's bench coach, after Andy Green departed for the Mets. Flaherty's playing career was a less serendipity-soaked version of Counsell's, and he's shown savvy as a coach and front-office liaison in his previous stops. On Tuesday, though, the team also filled its last two vacancies, bringing in Darren Holmes as the bullpen coach and Mark Strittmatter as catching coach.

Source confirms the Cubs are set to hire Darren Holmes as bullpen coach and Mark Strittmatter as catching coach. Still some steps to finalize the deals and go through on-boarding, etc. @sahadevsharma was on it.
— Maddie Lee (@maddie_m_lee) December 19, 2023

Holmes, the former longtime MLB reliever, was with the Rockies when Counsell came up in the late 1990s, and they played another year together in Arizona in 2000. Strittmatter, meanwhile, played with Counsell all the way up the chain of the Rockies' farm system in the 1990s. To be sure, these moves are Counsell-driven. He chose people he knows, and with whom he's comfortable.

However, it's also well worth noting their core competencies. Holmes isn't one of those hyper-modern pitching gurus who can clearly and concisely communicate advanced concepts to the public, but in his recent role with the Orioles, he worked successfully with a front office obsessed with the analytical nuances and biomechanical edges that exist in the current game. He also developed a reputation as an ebullient and enthusiastic resource for the relievers under his charge.

In Baltimore, Holmes was the assistant pitching coach. The Cubs already have one of those: Daniel Moskos, who works as an assistant to Tommy Hottovy. In effect, it seems as though Holmes will take over the role previously filled by major-league pitching strategist Danny Hultzen, who moved on to the team's front office. Getting a guy with substantial experience and a relationship with Counsell for that role is perfect. While in Baltimore, Holmes talked about how much he loved working with Brandon Hyde, whom he said was brilliant at sensing when pitchers needed a day off. Part of Counsell's excellence lies in doing that very thing, and he should feel comfortable communicating about such matters with Holmes.

For his part, Strittmatter stayed in Colorado when Counsell was traded elsewhere in 1997, and he pretty much never left. He's coming aboard as the replacement for Craig Driver, who was (in turn) the replacement for Mike Borzello. That's a role the Cubs have prized and from which they need to get significant value. Counsell's Brewers teams consistently and massively outperformed the league average in terms of pitch framing from their catchers. Much of the credit rightfully went to the organization's catching coordinator, Charlie Greene, but Counsell also had Walker McKinven and Nestor Corredor on his coaching staff, working closely with Greene to ensure the developmental work they did in the minors with their backstops carried over to the majors.

Strittmatter, who was last the Rockies' minor-league coordinator, seems to be Counsell's attempt to find someone he trusts to do the same things Greene or McKinven did for him for years. Coincidentally, Greene himself got promoted to the Brewers' big-league coaching staff earlier this month. (In fact, it was no coincidence. Counsell and the Cubs were ready to poach Greene by offering him this same role, and the Brewers had to act to keep him.) If Counsell can create the same synergy with old minor-league teammate Strittmatter as he had with Greene or McKinven, it could be worth a win or two to the Cubs, by itself.

These are smart hires, not least because they figure to make a newcomer in the manager's chair more at ease with a coaching staff of which he inherited most members. The Cubs have resolved their uncertainty about who will teach and deploy their players for 2024. All that's left is to figure out which players they'll be teaching and deploying.

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