As we inch toward the winter meetings, the Atlanta Braves will be contending with other teams to fill out their roster. Not only will they need to add players to the roster, they now have THREE coaching vacancies they need to address this winter. Last year's bullpen coach, Drew French, is the latest Braves coach to be poached by an American League team.
The #orioles are hiring Atlanta bullpen coach Drew French as their pitching coach, according to an industry source. French replaces Chris Holt, who maintains his duties as director of pitching.
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) November 29, 2023
French served as the Braves bullpen coach from since Atlanta's World Series season in 2021. Since joining the Braves, Atlanta has consistently had one of the better bullpens in all of baseball. In those three seasons the Braves bullpen has a collective ERA of 3.61 (7th best in MLB) and FIP of 3.77 (4th best in MLB).
Prior to joining the Braves, French was a pitching coach in the Houston Astros minor league organization. In fact, when French was the pitching coach for Triple-A Round Rock, the Express set a franchise record with over 1,200 strikeouts.
The Orioles are coming off an impressive 2023 season, and the bullpen was a key part of that. Last year, Baltimore led baseball in bullpen ERA (3.55) and FIP (3.56) as well as finished second in fWAR (7.5). The key for the Orioles pitching staff will be improving the starting rotation, which finished 16th in fWAR (10.7) last year via Fangraphs.
For the Braves, this adds to another key loss among the coaching staff. Ron Washington and Eric Young Sr. leaving for the Angels created two coaching vacancies, but now with the departure of French, the Braves have a pitching position to fill. Things have remained rather quiet, as they often do under Alex Anthopoulos, in the coaching search; However, I would expect the Braves to conduct their internal and external interviews for each of these coaching jobs, once the offseason settles down a bit more.