Could more MLB coaches leave professional ball for college, even with Craig Counsell setting a new standard for manager salaries?
Following two seasons with the Minnesota Twins—the latter of which saw him qualify for the All-Star Game and finish second in the Cy Young voting—Sonny Gray earlier this week agreed to a three-year, $75 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. The 34-year-old free agent made the kind of choice that athletes hope to be able to make in doing so.
Former Minnesota pitching coach Wes Johnson stated, “It came down to a contract and things he needed and so forth and so on— money and everything else.” Therefore, it’s not that Sonny dislikes Minnesota; rather, it was the right decision for him and his family. And ultimately, I believe that’s what those guys comprehend.”
Johnson and Gray played together for the Twins for just half of the season, but they clicked right away. Therefore, Gray was the first player Johnson called with the news when he had the chance to make a similarly contract-centric decision to leave Minnesota in June 2022.
It was tough for Johnson to announce that he was returning to college to the team that had made him the first major league coach in forty years. He continued, “But what I really like about all those guys is that they understand that this is a business.”
I believe there will be an increasing amount
Before the 2019 season, Johnson was hired by the Twins from the University of Arkansas. Three and a half seasons later, Johnson took the unexpected step of joining Louisiana State University as pitching coach, leaving a major-league team that was in first place at the time. He moved from LSU to take a position as the head baseball coach at the University of Georgia earlier this summer.
As soon as word leaked out that Johnson was leaving the Twins, reports at the time mentioned a huge pay increase.He was reportedly leaving an MLB position that paid slightly more than $350,000 for a three-year, $1.14 million contract with LSU; however, this is not taking into account incentive clauses, which can be substantial at the collegiate level.
Johnson’s choice brought attention to a pay disparity that was brought up again this offseason when Craig Counsell signed a record-breaking five-year, $40 million contract to join the Chicago Cubs from the Milwaukee Brewers. With his highly anticipated free agency, Counsell was a well-known manager who had the potential to establish new benchmarks for baseball coach pay. When he did, however, the news cycle emphasized how it contradicted the slowly gaining trend of certain colleges paying higher salaries than Major League Baseball teams.
An article from USA Today lamented how MLB managers have become “grossly underpaid,” and it came out about a month before Counsell’s contract.
“It makes sense why players are quitting to play in college,” the story cited an unnamed manager as saying.
While Johnson did not provide specifics, he did affirm that his salary as a college coach is higher than that of a big-league player and that it also provides him with more stability.
Yes, there was a little extra cash exchanged. He added, however, that the length of my contract that was assured was longer. At the big-league level, you get a lot of one- and two-year contracts with a club option for Year 3. I also received a longer guaranteed deal, which meant that in addition to a little extra money, I also received more security.
Among them, Johnson’s midseason departure from the Twins was undoubtedly the most well-known. However, some coaches are returning to college while others are moving on to the professional ranks. This season, there have been two departures from the SEC: Max Weiner, who was the pitching coordinator for the Seattle Mariners, went to Texas A&M University, and Everett Teaford, who was the pitching coordinator for the Chicago White Sox, went to Auburn University.
Regarding this trend, Teaford stated, “I think it’s going to be more and more.”
He isn’t getting paid more at Auburn as a fourth assistant coach than he did with the White Sox. Even so, he believes that the work-life balance is already much better and that “compensation is probably going to be way better in the long run in college.” He essentially lived out of hotels as the White Sox’s pitching coordinator, overseeing all minor league levels.
The three-parent father now stated, “I drop my kids off at school every morning.” I ride in a carpool. Every night I read bedtime stories. You’re not doing that when you’re staying at the Winston-Salem Marriott.
“Everyone enjoys going to see a winner.”
When it comes to the phenomenon of college coaching becoming more lucrative, appealing, and competitive, it can be difficult to separate cause from effect. In June, after Johnson’s LSU team emerged victorious and his standout pitcher Paul Skenes was selected as the first overall pick in the draft a few weeks later, the Men’s College World Series attracted unprecedented viewership.
Regarding college baseball’s growing appeal, Teaford remarked, “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find another sport that’s really kind of on the rise.” Additionally, money is driven by popularity, which encourages investment.
“I believe what you’ve discovered in the SEC is that baseball can become a revenue source for that university if you play well and win. Yes, it is,” Johnson remarked. According to him, baseball was profitable for five of the 14 SEC schools last season, which is unusual for any NCAA sport that isn’t basketball or football. According to him, some schools are utilizing this chance to enhance the baseball game-day experience by drawing ideas from the minor leagues.
In the end, “people are realizing that development can propel your program to success when it happens in the right places.” Everyone then enjoys going to see the winner.”
In practical terms, that means SEC colleges providing their baseball teams with the state-of-the-art equipment required to maximize the development of contemporary players, and matching that equipment with outstanding, contemporary coaches who understand how to make the most of it. Alternatively, it appears that it involves luring in top coaches and providing them with the means to establish a program for competitive development.
According to Johnson, “there are a few schools that I’ll put up against anybody in the country as far as developing a player.” “And, you know, Major League Baseball teams are included in that.”
We are, I believe, one of only three universities with it at the moment. Regarding Auburn’s KinaTrax Motion Capture technology, which produces three-dimensional images of a pitcher’s delivery without attaching anything to their body, Teaford remarked, “And not even all minor-league stadiums have it.” When he was hired, he claimed that Butch Thomson, the head coach of Auburn, said to him, “I want somebody that I can put in this position and let run with it.” I was very excited to have so much autonomy from him.
“I won’t say it was a blank check, but I’ll say it was close,” Johnson said of Georgia. “When they hired me as the head coach here,” Johnson added, “it was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to give you the resources from the technology standpoint to do whatever you need to do to develop.” Both also mentioned the appeal of having a significant say in player acquisition and identification.
This is all happening within a broader, dynamic sports ecosystem that includes both baseball and the NCAA. Players find college to be a more attractive option due to the expanding market for name, image, and likeness rights, and the minor league system’s decline encourages more growth outside of the professional ranks. In the meantime, more people are in a position to consider college coaching to be an improvement due to the pro coaches’ growing numbers.
The salary of many lower-level coaches is likely to be constrained by MLB’s conventions surrounding teams’ need to give employees permission to interview with the competition, even if Counsell’s contract establishes a new benchmark for highly sought-after managers.
Johnson remarked, “I wouldn’t be shocked if more people started to come and do what I’ve done.” How many actual big-league pitching coaches will return to their roles as college or hitting coaches is a mystery to me. However, I believe that you will begin to notice that some of the assistants at that level may be acting in different ways.
Even though he is still in his first year, Teaford is enjoying the stability Auburn offers, both in terms of seeing his guys grow without having to travel to a new affiliate level every few days and as a family. Teaford admits that he would have preferred to be there with his longtime friend Chris Getz when he was promoted to general manager after he left the White Sox.
But how does the day-to-day work of managing a major league team differ from that of collegiate coaching?
He remarked, “I’m not sure if I necessarily miss anything.”
