The Rockies shook up their major-league coaching staff for the first time in several years, moving pitching coach Steve Foster off the bench and replacing him with bullpen coach Darryl Scott, sources confirmed to The Athletic on Monday night.
Foster, 55, who helped oversee a pitching renaissance in Colorado as coach since 2015, was the second-longest tenured pitching coach in Rockies history, behind only Bob Apodaca, who coached nine seasons in the role between 2003 and ’11. Foster chose to step down from the role to spend more time with family, a source said.
There is some expectation, or hope, that Foster will remain with the club, sources said, perhaps taking over as director of pitching operations, the role vacated by Mark Wiley, 73, who retired last week. That job is meant to guide the club’s entire pitching philosophy, from the rookie levels through to the big leagues.
Scott, 53, just finished his second season as the Rockies’ bullpen coach. In the three years before, he was the club’s minor-league pitching coordinator and, before that, a pitching coach at three minor-league levels.
The coaching changes are the first of what may become a series of overhauls under the eye of newly-named general manager Bill Schmidt, who was hired officially at the end of the season. Schmidt, previously Colorado’s vice president of scouting, took over as interim GM after Jeff Bridich left at the end of April.
Schmidt has already talked about wanting to overhaul the Rockies’ minor-league structure, adding staff and solidifying an overall philosophy that better feeds into the major leagues. He has placed as big an emphasis on those plans as he has with the winter free-agency market and drafting and developing. Schmidt also underlined a desire to make mental skills a more prominent coaching focus within the club.
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