Collage of Coaches
Dusty gets his wish, as the entire Cubs coaching staff will be back for 2006. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild apparently weighed the opportunity to be reunited with his World Series champion co-workers Dave Dombrowksi and Jim Leyland, but decided to come back to Chicago on a one-year contract.
I'm a little surprised, actually. It's not that I wanted Rothschild to go, though he would have made a convenient scapegoat for the Cubs' problems in '05. It's that the Detroit pitching coach job is actually a pretty good one. They have a nice stable of young talent in Jeremy Bonderman and Mike Maroth, and Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya aren't too far away.
Then again, the Cubs do still have Prior and Zambrano backed up by Greg Maddux (and hopefully Kerry Wood), with their own flotilla of "don't call them" prospects in AA and AAA. So Rothschild has some good stuff to work with here as well. So he's back for one more year or less, and he has to realize that the seat he's sitting on is as hot as Dusty's.
The rest of the staff -- Sarge, Gino, Porky, Dickpole, Sonny, and the Manager-in-Waiting -- are back as well, and in their same slots.
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