The Brewers are retaining pitching coach Chris Hook on a multi-year extension, the group introduced this afternoon. He would in any other case have been out of contract on Thursday.
That’ll preserve Hook round for a seventh season and past. The 56-year-old has been a member of the Milwaukee group for almost 20 years. He labored by way of the minor league ranks to pitching coordinator earlier than getting the nod on Craig Counsell’s employees in the course of the 2018-19 offseason. Pat Murphy stored Hook in that position when he took the reins final offseason.
It’s straightforward to see why the Brewers are retaining him. Milwaukee’s success has typically been constructed round sturdy run prevention teams. During the last six seasons, the Brewers are fifth in earned run common and path solely the Astros in strikeout charge. As is the case with any coach, it’s not possible to know from the surface how a lot of the credit score Hook deserves for these outcomes. Nonetheless, the Brewers have had probably the greatest pitching staffs in MLB for an prolonged stretch regardless of hardly ever making important free agent strikes.
That continued this previous season beneath tough circumstances. The Brewers traded Corbin Burnes and operated with out Brandon Woodruff for your entire yr. It was a patchwork rotation past Freddy Peralta, particularly as soon as Wade Miley and Jakob Junis went down with early accidents, however the Brewers managed a 3.65 ERA that ranked fifth in MLB. Journeyman righty Colin Rea had a profession yr, whereas 26-year-old Tobias Myers turned in 138 innings of three.00 ERA ball after struggling within the higher minors. Milwaukee received serviceable outcomes out of deadline acquisitions Aaron Civale and Frankie Montas (coinciding with a slight velocity bump in Montas’ case).
Milwaukee has made a pair modifications to Murphy’s employees on the heels of one other NL Central title. The Brewers introduced final week that they have been parting methods with co-hitting coach Ozzie Timmons and including Al LeBoeuf and Eric Thiesen to the employees as hitting coaches.
