Milwaukee Brewers announce coaching staff hires

David Stearns and Craig Counsell had a lot of work to do as the offseason got underway, addressing a surprising amount of turnover on the coaching staff after such a successful season.

After hitting coach Darnell Coles left to take a job with the Arizona Diamondbacks and bullpen coach Lee Tunnell and head trainer Dan Wright weren’t retained, pitching coach Derek Johnson surprised everyone by leaving for the Cincinnati Reds.

It was reported a couple weeks ago by Jon Heyman that the Brewers would be hiring former Chicago Cubs assistant hitting coach Andy Haines to take Coles’ place on the Brewers’ coaching staff, and today the team confirmed that hire — while also announcing the rest of their new coaching staff members.

Hook is a longtime coach in the Brewers’ minor league system, serving as a pitching coach at Class-A and Double-A for 10 years before being promoted to minor league pitching coordinator this past season. That means several arms that figure to play prominent roles on next year’s pitching staff — including Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Freddy Peralta — are all familiar with him, and you could probably credit their minor league breakouts (especially Woodruff and Burnes, who turned into bonafide prospects once they started dominating at Double-A) to his coaching.

Karsay is probably a familiar name to many baseball fans following his 11-year playing career that ended in 2006. He’s most recently worked as Cleveland’s pitching coach over the past few seasons. His knowledge of how Cleveland used Andrew Miller may prove to be useful as the Brewers try to continue to figure out the best ways to deploy Josh Hader and any other multi-inning relievers they may carry next season.

Barringer previously served as Houston’s assistant athletic trainer.