In a recent article we discussed the firing of Charlotte’s manager and the promotion of the team’s bench coach and Short A manager. More coaching changes have now taken place. It is our understanding that this coaching staff will now finish out the year as constructed.
The Flyers have fired pitching coach Julcir Malheiros and replaced him with Allen Mendoza. The new pitching coach has not been on a BBA staff since 2055. That year, he was the pitching coach for the Rocky Mountain Oysters. He held the same position for the Montreal Blazers in 2051. Prior to that, he served as a minor league pitching coach, first for the AA Winston-Salem Warthogs, then for the AAA New Jersey Devils. His New Jersey team made the playoffs twice and won a championship while he was there.
Malheiros was let go after the Charlotte pitching staff spent the first half of the season sitting statistically in the bottom half of the Johnson League. The team felt that a change was needed to try to get the most out of a pitching staff that they have spent a lot of time, prospect capital, money, and energy trying to build into a competitive group. The thinking is that Malheiros focused more on trying to develop power pitching traits in pitchers who were not really built to pitch that way. He also had strained relationships with several important members of the pitching staff. Mendoza is said to be a more well-rounded coach who tries to work on developing the skills that pitchers already have instead of trying to shoehorn them into one particular style. There is also a strong feeling that Mendoza is more likely to mesh well with the pitchers currently on the staff and some of the potential prospects who could be in Spring Training and/or the big leagues in the near future.
Charles McAleavy was brought in this week to manage the organization’s Short A Adirondack team.