REPORT: Bill Mueller candidate to be Chicago Cubs’ hitting coach

Former Chicago Cubs third baseman Bill Mueller is a candidate to become the team’s new hitting coach.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the 2003 American League batting champion has worked in the Los Angeles Dodgers front office since retiring in 2006 after an 11-year playing career which he hit .291.

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Mueller, 42, worked for the Dodgers as a special assistant to the general manger and as a scout.

Mueller played 173 games with the Cubs from 2001-02 and joined the Boston Red Sox in 2003, when current Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein was in his first season as general manager in Boston.

"“Obviously, the right hitting coach has to be on board with the organizational philosophy but maybe more importantly than that, he has to be able to connect with players,” Cubs president Epstein said, “and teach them and support them and struggle with them and ultimately triumph with them. So I think it’s going to take a really dynamic personality and somebody with great feel and the ability to connect with all different kinds of hitters. Because not everybody does it the same. But we want someone who’s really well grounded in selective aggressiveness.”"

The Sun-Times also reported, minor league instructors Gary Jones of the San Diego Padres and Bruce Fields of the Detroit Tigers are candidates to become base coaches for new manager Rick Renteria.

Fields, 53, was an outfielder with Detroit and the Seattle Mariners who managed eight seasons in the Detroit minor league system. He also served as the Cleveland Indians hitting coach under Manny Acta. Last season, he was a hitting instructor in Detroit’s farm system.

Jones, also 53, spent 15 years with the Oakland Athletics, Boston, and San Diego systems as a minor league manager. The non-drafted free agent was signed by the Cubs in 1982 and played eight seasons in the minors.

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