The Blue Jays hired the former bench coach DeMarlo Hale as associate manager. None of the articles I’ve seen explain the role of an associate manager, but it appears to be bench coach with a better title. Of course, the Blue Jays have Don Mattingly as a bench coach, but he is also now the offensive coordinator.
Please allow me to put on my grumpy old man hat for a minute. When I was young, teams used a manager and four coaches; first base, third base, hitting, and pitching. The Rays list twelve coaches under manager Kevin Cash. That nearly a coach for every two players on the active roster.
Management bloat in general is a bad sign for organizations. A sure sign of that happening is the invention of new titles so that people can be promoted. Sometimes this happens due to growth. I saw this at ESPN, as he ranks of the higher level producers swelled, but ESPN was about to create a second network (and more), so the bloat was relieved by the expansion. I don’t think baseball is going to 60 teams anytime soon.
Baseball coaching is so much better and more personalized now that it was even a decade ago. Coaches are cheap (compared to players). Front offices have recognised this is a competitive advantage, so of course they are adding coaches.
So maybe the job of the associate manager is to manage the coaches? I can see it going both ways. Teams hire a manager to either manage personnel or manage the game. The associate manager does the other job. Given how many people are on the field staff, it’s getting tough for a manager to do both.
I suppose this model existed with Joe Torre and Don Zimmer. Torre’s skill was managing the people. Zimmer could manage the game, but not the people, so they split along those lines.
I vaguely feel that the first new coach beyond the first four coaches was bullpen coach. Before it was a separate position, the pitching coach was in the bullpen, or so I assume from the story of Clyde Sukeforth telling Dressen to bring in Branca because Erskine bounced his curve, leading to the Bobby Thomson HR.
It would be great to have a timeline for these developments, but coaching records are extremely spotty.