Cubs continue to add massive influx of new faces with another hire

Add Daniel Moskos to the list of new coaches for the Chicago Cubs as the team continues to overhaul the front office and on-field staff. The organization announced the hiring of Mosko as the assistant pitching coach earlier this week.

Moskos joins a coaching staff that had already lost Mike Borzello, the associate pitching, catching and strategy coach, as well as Brad Mills, the advanced scouting/run prevention coordinator. On the surface, it looks like Moskos will replace Borzello, but the vibe now is that the Cubs are operating differently as more of one unit and not letting every position handle its duties, which, in my opinion is a better way to handle things.

“You want to make sure we’re acting as a team,” Jed Hoyer told MLB.com. “Sometimes, in the past, with all teams, I think that there’s a sense of Major Leagues and Minor Leagues. We have to eliminate that completely; in order to allow guys to come up and continue to get better, the verbiage and the teaching and the training is the same.”

Moskos pitched professionally for 11 years all over the world after being drafted fourth overall by the Pirates in 2007. He got a cup of coffee in the big leagues in 2011 before bouncing around and retiring after playing in the Mexican Baseball League in 2018.

Moskos comes to the Cubs from the Yankees, which was his first coaching job. He was the pitching coach for their Single-A and Double-A affiliate in the past two seasons. Moskos is now skipping Triple-A and going straight to the big leagues.

Chicago Cubs: Daniel Moskos’ coaching background is more important

The significance of the Moskos hire is that his coaching background started at Driveline in 2019 as a pitching trainer. The lab is used by current MLB players like Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Alex Wood and Matt Boyd – among others. The company’s founder, Kyle Boddy, was hired by the Cincinnati Reds in 2019 to be their minor league pitching coordinator, but he is no longer employed by the Reds.

Driveline is at the forefront of the analytics movement that has swept over baseball the past decade. It’s good to see the Cubs embracing analytics even more as part of their recent overhaul.

Moskos is the second new coach hired this offseason, joining Greg Brown, the new hitting coach. Brown came from the Rays – another analytics heavy organization – where he was the minor league hitting coordinator. It’s not just on-field coaches, either. The Cubs have filled multiple openings in their front office as well, with new General Manager Carter Hawkins coming to Chicago from the Cleveland Guardians and assistant GM Ehsan Bokhari from the Houston Astros.

The Astros, of course, are the banner analytics organization in baseball. There is a theme with all these hires and their philosophies and where the Cubs are leaning for the future. It’s nice to see the organization start to catch up to 2022 baseball after being stuck in the mud for a few seasons.

Seeing all these folks in action on and off the field and having them gel as a staff will be fun to see as Cubs fans. Now it’s Hoyer’s turn to add to the roster and give the new coaches some players to work with.