Von Joshua Takes Over – as Hitting Coach
Posted by Rob McQuown on Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 10:59 pm
As today’s game thread at bleedcubbieblue.com noted, changing hitting coaches is usually like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The differences here are a) the Cubs appear to be in a division without icebergs, and b) The new hitting coach is Von Joshua.
This isn’t to say that Gerald Perry did a *bad* job. In fact, he’s been with Lou Piniella for 6 years, including some extremely high-scoring teams.
“It’s really a shame that he’s taking the blame for something that’s our fault,” Derrek Lee said. “Whoever gets him as a hitting coach is lucky, because he’s a great hitting coach.”
But, if you’re going to send a message to the team, firing the hitting coach is often a tactic teams use. In this case, it’s a good thing the Cubs have Von Joshua around to help out. Back on April 29, an article by yours truly showed some of the amazing hitter growth which has followed Joshua around (see: Rattling The SABR – Baseball In Iowa).
In a strange twist of fate, Joshua was fired in late May, 2001 from the *other* Chicago team, after it had piled up nearly 1000 runs the season before. The batting lines by month for the 2001 White Sox?
2000 White Sox: .286/.356/.470
2001 White Sox by Month:
April: .256/.311/.419
May: .240/.300/.407
(May 20, Joshua fired)
June: .270/.327/.457
July: .268/.346/.444
August: .288/.356/.513
Sep/Oct: .280/.356/.455
Will the 2009 Cubs allow Von Joshua to be the beneficiary of a similar “luck” reversal? Will his knowledge of the young Cubs hitters help him get more out of them, as he’s been doing in Iowa? Only time will tell, but here are the comparable Cubs stats:
2008 Cubs: .278/.354/.443
2009 Cubs by Month:
April: .246/.331/.396
May: .254/.330/.420
June (through June 13): .223/.300/.351
