Mike Harkey was hired as the Diamondbacks’ pitching coach on Monday, so the Yankees will have an opening for a bullpen coach.
Shortly after Joe Girardi signed a four-year extension, his entire coaching staff was rehired. Now, the manager needs to replace Harkey, who joined the Yankees with Girardi in 2008. Harkey was a teammate of Girardi’s with the Cubs and a candidate to replace Dave Eiland as Yankees pitching coach following the 2010 season. The job went to current Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild.
The Yankees can go several ways to find Harkey’s replacement.
If they go outside the organization, Gary Tuck, 59, is a candidate. He held the job in 1990 and was the Yankees’ catching instructor in 1998-99, when he tutored Girardi. Tuck was Girardi’s bench coach with the Marlins in 2006, and from 2007 to 2012, Tuck was the Red Sox’s bullpen coach.
Should the Yankees stay inside the organization, highly regarded Scott Aldred, the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre pitching coach. Arizona requested permission to talk to the 45-year-old Aldred, but it’s not believed he is in the running for the Diamondbacks’ bullpen job.
Aldred isn’t the only candidate with SWB connections. Manager Dave Miley, 51, was a minor league catcher for seven seasons in the Reds system and managed the big league club from 2003 to midway through 2005. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre hitting coach Butch Wynegar, 57, caught in the big leagues for 13 seasons.
Other possible internal candidates are Greg Pavlick, Gil Patterson, Tom Nieto and Julio Mosquera.
The 58-year-old Pavlick, a senior pitching instructor, was a bullpen coach with the Mets in the 1980s and 1990s. Patterson, 58, a minor league pitching instructor, is a former Toronto pitching coach. Nieto, who caught in the big leagues for seven seasons, was the Yankees’ big league catching instructor from 2000 to 2001. The 53-year-old was the Mets’ first-base coach in 2008. Mosquera, 41, has been the catching coordinator for the past eight seasons and is part of the big league coaching staff during spring training.