Last year, the Chicago Cubs made news when they signed Manny Ramirez to play for their Triple-A team, the Iowa Cubs. Now, they are back in business with the controversial former All-Star after reportedly hiring him as a hitting consultant.
According to Bruce Levine of 670 The Score in Chicago, Ramirez’s official title is “major and minor league hitting consultant”:
A consultant can mean many different things in sports. It’s like when teams hire former players to serve as a “special assistant,” which is basically a way of paying someone to go around speaking nicely about the franchise.
When the Cubs signed Ramirez last year, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said he was to serve in a player-coach capacity in Triple-A and that he wasn’t going to play in the big leagues, per MLB.com:
Manny is not only one of the best hitters of all time, he is also a dedicated student of hitting and has proven to be a gifted teacher with younger teammates who have worked with him in the batting cage. Behind the scenes he has always been a tireless worker who is very serious about the craft of hitting.
While he does carry a lot of baggage, Ramirez seems like the kind of former player who can talk hitting with anyone. He was remarkable during his playing tenure, posting a career slash line of .312/.411/.585 with 555 home runs, per Baseball-Reference.com.
Even in a vague consulting capacity, Ramirez seems like a perfect fit for the Cubs. This is a franchise grooming a lot of talented young hitters like Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Jorge Soler, et al. There may not be a better hitter to teach them the fundamentals of hitting successfully in the big leagues than Ramirez.
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