On January 2, Mark Loretta was named the Chicago Cubs new bench coach, replacing Brandon Hyde who, this past December, was hired as the new manager of the Baltimore Orioles.
As mentioned in last week’s article, Loretta will be Joe Maddon‘s third bench coach in as many seasons. Dave Martinez left the team after the 2017 season to take the reins as manager of the Washington Nationals and, now, Hyde heads to Baltimore.
In the run-up to Loretta’s hiring, literally nobody seemed to consider him a candidate, let alone a front-runner.