The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

With a tough task ahead, the Nationals’ coaching staff is taking shape

Updated November 2, 2021 at 2:36 p.m. EDT|Published November 2, 2021 at 11:48 a.m. EDT
Gary DiSarcina, left, will be the Nationals' new third base coach. The team has not officially announced the staff for 2022. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
3 min

With a mix of old friends and new faces, Dave Martinez is putting the finishing touches on his Washington Nationals coaching staff for 2022. Gary DiSarcina will be the team’s third base coach, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, while Eric Young Jr. joins to coach first. Pat Roessler will remain as the club’s assistant hitting coach, according to a person familiar with the matter, working under new hitting coach Darnell Coles. Beyond that, the Nationals have not announced the full staff or any role changes for returning coaches.

But a group is coming into focus around Martinez, who was hired by the Nationals in October 2017. Before last season, after he signed a contract extension, Martinez made a few changes — including letting go of Chip Hale and Paul Menhart — to install a staff of his liking. After one year, though, hitting coach Kevin Long departed for the Philadelphia Phillies; and Bobby Henley and Randy Knorr were moved to player development roles. Both organizational lifers, Henley and Knorr will be replaced by DiSarcina and Young, respectively. And thus the Nationals will bring in more fresh eyes for the next phase of their rebuild.

What’s next in this volatile World Series? Barry Svrluga and Adam Kilgore take your questions.

DiSarcina, 53, has been the New York Mets’ third base coach for the past three seasons. Before that, he spent one year as a bench coach for manager Mickey Callaway. A Malden, Mass., native, he played 12 major league seasons, all with the Angels, and made 1,056 career starts at shortstop. So on top of coordinating the club’s base-running — a duty typically shared between the Nationals’ third and first base coaches — DiSarcina could chip in with training the young infielders. Bench coach Tim Bogar is expected to head that effort again.

Young, 36, is expected to be the youngest member of the Nationals’ in-dugout staff. He ended his 10-year career in 2018, having bounced among five teams. In 2013, he led the National League with 46 steals, making him a good fit to help Victor Robles, Lane Thomas and Andrew Stevenson, among others, become better base runners. Two of Henley’s day-to-day jobs were coordinating base-running with Knorr and coaching the outfielders. Young, with time at all three outfield spots, could immediately fill both of those needs (and has notably more playing experience in each area). He spent 2021 as a coach for the Tacoma Rainiers, Class AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners.

Darnell Coles, ‘born and raised’ in the Nationals’ organization, comes home as hitting coach

With Coles, DiSarcina and Young, the Nationals will fill three holes from outside the organization. Coles, officially hired in October, is a longtime friend of Martinez. As for the rest of the staff, the Nationals could still shuffle roles and add positions, especially since they had only seven official coaches in 2021. Martinez said in late September that Jim Hickey would return as pitching coach. Bogar and bullpen coach Henry Blanco are Martinez’s right-hand men, though the team has not confirmed what their titles will be next season. According to two people familiar with the situation, it is likely that Blanco, whose biggest task is working with the team’s catchers, is shifted in some capacity.

The challenges for this group will be important and cumbersome. The offense, heading into the winter, is Juan Soto, Josh Bell and a lot of movable, inexperienced parts. The starters are either young, unproven or injured (or some combination of the three). And the bullpen put up historically bad numbers in August and September, due to the pitchers who were deployed and the workload heaped on them.