The Dodgers World Series winner The coaching staff will not remain entirely intact next season.
On Sunday, the Miami Marlins hired Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough will be their new manager, as ESPN first reported, creating the first opening on the Dodgers’ coaching staff in two seasons.
A 44 year old minor league catcherMcCullough had spent the last 10 years in the Dodgers organization. He has been the first base coach since 2021. Before that, he was a minor league field coordinator.
The target of several job offers around MLB over the past few offseasons, McCullough finally landed his first managerial job with the Marlins, who replace 2023 National League Manager of the Year Skip Schumaker after the his contract expires at the end of a 100-loss season in 2024.
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In addition to his duties as first base coach, McCullough was the Dodgers’ primary outfield coach and responsible for much of their base-stealing strategy. He and Mookie Betts had a good relationship, with Betts calling McCullough “the best coach I ever had” after choosing McCullough to pitch the home run derby for him in 2023. This year, McCullough played a key role in Shohei Ohtani’s career-high 59 steals, looking at scouting reports for opposing pitchers’ picking tendencies with the $700 million star throughout the season.
Before becoming the Dodgers’ first base coach in 2021, McCullough played a key role in the club’s player development system during Gabe Kapler’s tenure as farm manager. Kapler is now an assistant general manager at Miami, which has made sweeping changes to the front office, coaching staff and roster this year under new general manager Peter Bendix, who is a former front office lieutenant at Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman in Tampa Bay.
The Dodgers are unlikely to make any further changes to their coaching staff this offseason. At MLB general managers’ meetings last week in San Antonio, Brandon Gomes said the staff — with McCullough’s bid for the Marlins job aside — would “probably” be back.
Manager Dave Roberts will also return for his 10th season and is expected to negotiate an extension with the club this offseason, with his current contract set to expire at the end of 2025.
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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
