Torey Lovullo Revamping Some Coaching Roles
As previously reported by Michael McDermott, Luis "Pipe" Urueta has left the D-backs organization to serve as the Marlins bench coach. That's a role he had also filled in Arizona in 2020-21, but for 2022 his title was Coordinator, Major League Player Development & Instruction. Lovullo talked about losing him:
This game is all about promotion. When you can get one of your staff members promoted to an elevated position that happens to be outside your organization, you're super excited for him. We're going to miss Pipe. It's a well deserved opportunity for him to go be a bench coach for the Marlins.
Urueta had a multifaceted role with the team. Some of those things included
- Game planner for each upcoming series
- Liaison to help players transition to the major league system
- Putting together the spring training schedule for the eight weeks of camp
Running a modern day coaching staff is a lot more complicated than it was in previous eras. Gone are the days when you just had a pitching, hitting, and bench coach to go along with your base coaches and a few assistants all doing 98% of the work. There is a lot more going on under the hood with numerous other roles to fill nowadays. It sounds like Urueta has left some big shoes to fill for someone who was not well known.
"We have some moving parts that will be going on through the course of our camp. We're still discussing exactly what we're going to be doing...... Pipe is very dynamic, he related to everybody, so we have yet to fill certain roles and gaps that we have inside of our clubhouse."
Alex Cultice, who held the title of Run Prevention Coordinator is moving to what Lovullo described as a more "dynamic role", presumably to fill at least part of what Urueta did for the team.
Staff member and former minor league pitcher Sharif Othman will take over as run prevention coordinator.
The D-backs made an external hire to join that department as well, bringing in Rolando Valles, who was an assistant coach with the Cincinnati Reds before being let go at the end of 2022. Said Lovullo of Valles:
He has a pitching background, but was more centered towards the hitting side of things with the Reds. He had a lot of good concepts that he learned and picked up. But he's a pitcher at heart. He's going to be part of our run prevention team inside of our clubhouse.
Despite all the internal changes, Lovullo is confident they won't skip a beat.
"The people that have moved on left a really good template that's firmly in place. All people need to do is step into that situation, continue to run it, and then sprinkle their own personality on it, and it's going to get better. "
