Indians round out the coaching staff with latest two moves

The Cleveland Indians didn’t make any major changes to the coaching staff this offseason, yet two small moves were made to complete the staff.

The hiring of a new bullpen coach is not cause for Cleveland Indians fans to go wild. Though I’m sure there are at least a few fans out there happy about the move.

Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com recently shared the news that the Indians made two coaching moves. The first was to promote Brian Sweeney to the role of bullpen coach. The second involves Ruben Niebla getting a newly created position. The exact role appears to be undefined right now.

The only coaching staff move of note this offseason came when bullpen coach Scott Atchison was fired. That led some, including myself, to have fun and wonder if Mickey Callaway may rejoin the coaching staff in some capacity.

That likely would have created a power conflict with Carl Willis so instead the Indians are keeping it simple. Sweeney has been with the team and Niebla has been with the organization. Both know the pitchers and can step in without any disruption.

I am a proponent of the Indians keeping the majority of the staff in place. The team dealt with plenty of injuries and managed 93 wins during a year when the front office didn’t add too many reinforcements.

More experience and key players being healthy should mean a better year in 2020 and hopefully a return to the postseason. Changing the staff would not have made sense.

But for those keeping track the Indians now have all the major roles filled. Next up is maybe adding a free agent or two to give the staff more talent to work with in 2020.