The Los Angeles Dodgers coaching staff will feature plenty of new faces for the 2019 season, following the notable departures of former hitting coach Turner Ward and third base and infield coach Chris Woodward over the winter.
Woodward, who was instrumental in the Dodgers advancing to consecutive World Series, accepted a position to become manager of the rebuilding Texas Rangers last November.
Woodward was lauded for his ability to connect to players during his three-year stint in Los Angeles, which made him an appealing hire for the Rangers. With a young roster in place, he will be responsible for eventually propelling the club into a playoff contender.
Having been on the job for only three months, Woodward already believes his new Rangers team is a considerably tighter group than that of the Dodgers in recent years, via Levi Weaver of The Athletic:
“I tell you what, and this is not just because I’m managing the team, but I had no idea what I was get into here I knew what he [motions to Jon Daniels] stood for, I knew what the organization stood for, but I didn’t know where the players were at. But once I got to know these guys — I do like to compare them to the Dodgers, because they were in the World Series. That’s our goal. We want to win a World Series. Two years in a row, we had a World-Series-caliber team. This team is tighter than that team. It’s really not even close, to me. The actual care-for-one-another is much better here than it was in L.A. And I’m not saying L.A. was and — it was great — I’m just speaking about the impact these guys make on one another.”
Woodward’s comments come off as rather surprising, considering how close-knit the Dodgers appeared to the public eye during their back-to-back World Series runs.
For what it’s worth, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believes the 2019 clubhouse will be much quieter than last season, specifically noting the departure of Yasiel Puig.
