Cubs’ Focus on Speed, Baserunning Continues with Hiring of 1B Coach Jose Javier

I wasn’t able to get to this when it dropped last night and I’m rushed this morning, so apologies for the brevity. The Cubs have Jose Javier to be their new first base coach, replacing Mike Napoli. The 32-year-old Javier previously served as a defensive coach for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Triple-A affiliate for the Yankees. In that role, he was primarily responsible for outfield defense and baserunning.

Those are similar areas of expertise to former Cub Quintin Berry, who Craig Counsell poached from the Brewers to replace Willie Harris as third base coach. That overlap isn’t just coincidental, as the Cubs also pulled Matt Talarico away from the Yankees to work in player development as an offensive coordinator with a focus on speed and baserunning.

When Jed Hoyer talks about finding areas for improvement around the margins, this is what he means. The Cubs were actually tied for fourth in MLB in baserunning runs (10.7), but they were nearly 50% lower than the NL Central winners. And though the Cubs went first-to-third on singles 107 times (third in MLB) they were tied for 16th in scoring from first base on a double and were 21st in scoring from second on a single. It’s clear these hires are aimed at leaving fewer runs on the table.

It would probably help if they added some players to help drive those runs home, and I suspect we’ll see Hoyer make moves on that front soon.