Assistant Hitting Coach (Mark Quinn)

[Frobby]

We have limited information to go on, in this case and most coaching/managerial hires almost nothing. So the natural tendency is to extrapolate based on other information and feelings and guesses, no matter how remotely connected.

Charlie Lau was a hitting guru, an almost mystical presence in the 70s and 80s, and his playing career consisted of a .683 OPS as a backup catcher. Walt Hriniak was another top hitting coach of my younger days whose playing career was a 25-for-99 run with zero extra base hits in 47 games.

"Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym." -- Woody Allen, Annie Hall.

[QBsILLEST1]

Every single professional baseball player in the world KNOWS how to be a superstar. Execution is the variable.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

[Frobby]

Roch has a good interview up: http://m.masn.mobi/school-of-roch/2016/01/mark-quinn-talks-about-his-new-position-with-orioles.html

Sounds like this is Brady's guy. Very cerebral and analytical.

[LA2]

A couple of things:

1. The O's organization forgave Miggy pretty quickly. He was re-signed here for the 2010 season, long after Raffygate (2005), the Mitchell report (2007), and pleading guilty to lying to Congress and admitting to having purchased HGH (2009). And that move was very popular with the fans at the time.

2. You can choose to believe Raffy's story that his positive drug test came from taking a tainted B-12 shot from Tejada, but I view that story with a lot of skepticism. Ask yourself this: if Miggy was taking the same B-12 shots, why did he never test positive (see below)? Why did Jose Canseco accuse Raffy of using steroids when he played for Texas?

3. Miggy never tested positive. He was caught having purchased some HGH in an incident unrelated to the Orioles or Palmeiro. http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3899481

Anyway, it is clear Miggy is no saint, but if that didn't deter the Orioles from re-signing him as a player, it certainly would not deter them from hiring him as an assistant hitting coach.

With all that said, I seriously doubt the O's would think Miggy would be the right guy for this particular job, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing a guy who was a very undisciplined hitter as the assistant hitting coach.

Cool post!

[OsEatAlEast]

Roch has a good interview up: http://m.masn.mobi/school-of-roch/2016/01/mark-quinn-talks-about-his-new-position-with-orioles.html

Sounds like this is Brady's guy. Very cerebral and analytical.

Thanks for posting this. It was a good read.

[Diehard_O's_Fan]

I love it how Brady has his hands all over the Orioles organization. It is really cool how Buck and Dan value Brady and are willing to take his advice. Brady is a true Oriole. I have so much respect for the guy. I was to young to remember him much as a player.

[Frobby]

I love it how Brady has his hands all over the Orioles organization. It is really cool how Buck and Dan value Brady and are willing to take his advice. Brady is a true Oriole. I have so much respect for the guy. I was to young to remember him much as a player.

Put it this way: if you could clone Brady, he'd be the perfect LF and leadoff hitter for this team. Great patience at the plate, great speed, and a bit of pop.

[Frobby]

More on Quinn from Brady and Coolbaugh in Roch's blog this morning.

Brady:

"I hadn't spoken with Mark in about a decade," Anderson said last night. "The guy's a real baseball fan, which might sound normal, but it's not normal. A lot of guys when they get out of the game, they don't want to see the game for a while. There's always that dissatisfaction, I think, that they didn't achieve what they wanted to.

"He was a huge Astros fan before we hired him and he knew everything there was to know about every guy on the Astros. He's a really good addition. It's hard to find a player who had as much success as he had his first few years in the league and didn't really play a third year. It's almost unprecedented. But when he played, he always hit. Always. And he wasn't a big, strong, physical guy at all. He did it all with skill.

"It was interesting to listen to him talk introspectively about his lack of plate discipline and how he can kind of laugh at it now. 'I wanted to hit and they didn't want me to hit. And I didn't want to walk,' (Quinn) said. 'I was up there to hit. I didn't get it. They didn't want me to hit.' That's a big admission, you know? That's why I believe I'm a good hitting coach because my failures are always in the back of my head, even greater than my successes, and I think that's critical to being a teacher."

* * *

"We're in an enviable position because Scott Coolbaugh is very confident in his job and he's very low-key," Anderson said. "He doesn't need the power, he doesn't want the fame. He just wants to do his job and he's great at it. He's underrated at how good he is at it. Anybody who can't get along with Scott Coolbaugh has a problem."

Coolbaugh:

"The way Mark talks, you can see that passion for hitting," Coolbaugh said. "I don't think there's going to be a tough transition due to the fact that I feel like I can get along with a lot of different types of personalities. It's just a matter of making it all work for the best for the players, and that's the bottom line. You want the players to feel comfortable, feel like they have somebody to go to. Just like somebody's always there working with them and has their best interest at heart."

http://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2016/01/notes-on-denard-span-miguel-gonzalez-and-the-assistant-hitting-coach-candidates.html

[DrungoHazewood]

More on Quinn from Brady and Coolbaugh in Roch's blog this morning.

Brady:

Coolbaugh:

That's awesome, really. No kidding awesome. He seems to be a thoughtful guy who has learned from his career. I joked previously about maybe he'd Costanza his playing career like Billy Beane, but it seems to be case.