The Red Sox are making moves we didn't even know they had to make.
This is just the beginning folks. Buckle up for a huge and wild offseason, because the potential for that is there. The first domino fell earlier this week when the team made a bombshell move.
No. They didn't actually make a bombshell move, but they did fire assistant hitting coach Andy Barkett--a member of the staff since 2018.
Goodbye Boston...... pic.twitter.com/9l07aBETXU
— Andy Barkett (@abarkett17) October 2, 2019
Why is this significant? It is because it shows the coaching staff isn't necessarily safe. Yes, Alex Cora will keep his job managing the team, but there could be shakeups in other departments.
One would think he would be safe by virtue of the Red Sox having a good season offensively, but I guess that's not how it works. According to MassLive, they were a top-5 team in MLB in many different categories when it comes to hitting. Heck, Cora even had a nice quote about the guy back in Spring Training.
“The Tim Hyers-Andy Barkett duo in the clubhouse, they’re so different but they’re great together,” he told reporters. “It works. One (Barkett) is the DJ and one (Hyers) is the psychologist. It’s awesome.”
As for why they canned the guy, frankly, I couldn't tell ya. I wasn't back there with the boys every day trying to figure out the launch angles, exit velocity and all of that stuff.
But who knows? Perhaps more moves are going to happen. it wouldn't make sense to just fire him and then come back with the same third place coaching staff as if everything else was alright. If we are being completely honest, pitching was a problem this year. Maybe that's something different coaches could assess.
That's not to call for any specific moves. We'll sit on the fence here. But it is to say don't be shocked if more occur.