Lorenzo Bundy Out As Dodgers 3rd Base Coach

tfw ur bad 3b coach coaches you into a dumb decision

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Lorenzo Bundy, third base coach who was pretty maligned this season has been ousted from his position with the team today

It’s a pretty curious move to make at this point in the season, however he was “responsible” for the WORST BASERUNNING TEAM IN BASEBALL ARRGHEHGASHHEHRHGH. That is 16.4 runs below the average team the problem is that the entire team is bad, Justin Turner, Andre Ethier, Joc Pederson, Adrian Gonzalez, they’re all putrid. Well, aside from the mature and calm Yasiel Puig. That is my favorite stat this season and I hope it holds.

I figure that this didn’t have a whole lot to do with Bundy as it did with Ron Roenicke especially considering Roenicke’s obvious history with the organization. Roenicke debuted as a member of the Dodgers organization in 1981 and had a .625 OPS in 212 games, mostly as a pinch hitter/reserve outfielder type player and then went on to have an 8 year career in the bigs.

Apparently to have Roenicke on board, assistant hitting coach John Valentine won’t be on the bench during games, it appears like this change will be made as soon as possible.

His most recent work included the Brewers managerial gig, and he was fired on May 3rd after a tire fire of a start, 7-18 while being in the same division as the Saint Louis Cardinals.

Do what you will with the horrible baserunning statistics, and not a lot is likely to change this season because third base coaches just don’t have a negligible impact on a single baseball game let alone the baserunning responsibilities for an entire team, I get the propensity to blame the guy who waives home the runners, but way more often than not a runner knows what to do in those situations and way more often than not the runner’s outcome depends on his ability for baserunning and not doing dumb things, something that isn’t necessarily dependent on a guy standing near third telling you what to do.

Also I don’t think Bundy’s at total fault because if a third base coach could basically be worth -16.2 runs below average then teams would invest a ton of money into that department. Keep in mind that -16.2 runs is ~1.6 of a win below replacement, and worth millions of dollars on the open market. So this is a long way of saying that the team probably wanted Roenicke in the organization and wanted to have “not Lorenzo Bundy” waiving their admittedly bad baserunners home.