Debunked: Yankees Haven’t Hired Thames

On Tuesday afternoon, Brian Cashman, GM of the New York Yankees, set the record straight regarding the hiring of Marcus Thames as assistant hitting coach. “That’s false, I have not talked to Marcus Thames at all,” he said. At this point Cashman isn’t even sure if he wants/needs to fill that position. “I am looking for a head guy first and then I can consider if I want to play with an assistant or not,” he said.

Thames may be a good fit for the organization, due to his familiarity with players and management. He was drafted by the team in 1996 and throughout the years had several successful stints with them. He’s been serving as a hitting coach in the organization since January 10, 2013 when we has hired by the Class A-Advanced Tampa Yankees. On 2014 he served in the  same capacity for the team’s Double A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder.

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If hired,  Thames would have an advantage over other candidates. Not only has he worked with the team’s up and coming talent, but he has also played alongside current members of the big league team, which may help him coach them. Even with this experience, there are no guarantees that he can successfully deal with the over-sized egos of New York players, specifically Alex Rodriguez.

The hitting coach position became available on October 10, when Kevin Long was fired after serving 8 seasons in that capacity.  The decision was made due to the teams scoring woes during the past two seasons. They managed to score 633 and 650 runs during the 2014 and 2013 seasons respectively, which marked a steep decline from 2012, when they scored 804 runs.

Yankees scoring was so bad this season that you’d have to go all the way to 1990 to find a worse scoring Yankee team. That year the Bronx Bombers were only able to push 603 runs across the plate.