The Guardians are expected to hire Chris Valaika as their new hitting coach, reports the MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Valaika had been serving as the assistant hitting coach for the Cubs.
A former infielder, Valaika appeared in the big leagues with the Reds, Marlins and Cubs from 2010-14. (His younger brother Pat Valaika still plays in the majors and spent the 2020-21 seasons with the Orioles). Chris Valaika wrapped up his playing career after 2015 and moved into an administrative role with the Cubs not long after. He spent a few seasons as the team’s minor league hitting coordinator before becoming Chicago’s assistant hitting coach over the 2020-21 offseason.
After just one season on a big league staff, Valaika looks set to land the Guardians’ hitting coach position. Should a deal ultimately come to fruition, he’d replace Ty Van Burkleo, who served as Cleveland hitting coach from 2013-21 but was let go last month.
Native Americans or First Citizens.
bring Wilson Contreras over with him? We need a catcher. they need pieces.. Food for thought.
Unfortunately Contreras costs more than a bag of balls and a gift card to Slyman’s. Too rich for our blood.
They need pitching which we have and our payroll is going way up this season, so he is not too expensive for us. We going be super close to 100 mil or over this season. We are not staying around 25 mil.. Why we didn’t spend last off-season, so we can now.
Seriously? You really believe they are going to spend a buck on anyone that isn’t a Punch and Judy hitter or 5 years past their prime? Hope your right but I’m not holding my breath.
Braves have his brother that might be a good option for the right price. Very green still …
Yes he is related to Pat Valaika
So when the Indians win the WS, will they say, Guardians, are champions of the galaxy?
Only if Bieber legally changes his name to Rocket Raccoon.
I didn’t know he was into roller derby.
He has to teach blocking too.
Gonna take some getting use to with the name change. I mean honestly… I don’t like it. I’m traditional in a way and didn’t think it should have been changed, BUT I’m not hardcore on it. Just wish they picked a cooler name …
How about something non-binary like the Cleveland Them or Cleveland They. They’re not guarding anything.
The Cleveland They, hahaha
Pretty soon we’ll have the Pittsburgh Pencils, the Atlanta Aspirin, the Colorado Rain and the Miami Toenails. I put nothing past this generation.
Pens, Tylenol, Sun, and Fingernails all have issues with this… Your court date awaits.
Getting edgy in here!
I like that he’s young, has coaching experience, and played a few years in the majors. I don’t like that he comes from a team that already fired their own hitting coach and apparently didn’t seriously consider him as the replacement. But it’s not Van Burkleo, so I’ll take it.
Your last sentence? Priceless!
Guys Cleveland name change is official since the 2021 season ended
actually it isnt, which is kinda what ive been wondering about. when does it become official?
Indians
Why does a roller derby team need a batting coach?
Overzealous fans rushing the rink?
The Cleveland Americans.
I think it’s time to move on.
The Cleveland Moving Ons.
Cleveland has a system for pitching. Carl Willis didn’t exactly shine as pitching coach in his first stint with the Indians, with the Mariners, or with the Red Sox. He came back in 2018 and look how good he’s gotten!
Francona and the FO have been together since 2013. The Guardians must have a system for hitting. It’s not been working out well as of late. Maybe Valaika was brought in to tweak it. Maybe he came across in his interview as having ideas on how to revamp it. Maybe Van Burkleo lost the trust of the hitters he was working with. Who knows?
The Guardians have a reputation for getting the best out of many players that other teams cannot. Everyone knows about the pitching. But the past few years Francona and his staff have gotten much better overall performances out of position players such as Amed Rosario, Austin Hedges, Jordan Luplow, Franmil Reyes, Josh Naylor and Harold Ramirez. They’ve also had a number of guys wash out – but short of Yandy Diaz and Urshela I can’t think of one that went to another team and prospered. Like the Rays (who I believe they copied after copying the A’s but not getting anywhere) they don’t look so much for stars, but try to put role players in positions to play maybe 15-20% better then they ever have, with the cumulative effect of making the team much better than it appears on paper.
Their rebuild on the fly is coming to a head the next few years. Young players will be coming up from the minors. The team has not developed an impact position player since Lindor, Rameriz, Urshela, and Brantley came up 6-8 years ago. They need offense to be true championship contenders. Let’s see how this move works out.
Jesus Aguilar would like a word.
My sentiments exactly friend. Never,never,never given a decent chance.
The most bigoted people can be found on MLBTR comment section. Never fails
I’m sorry this is happening to you. Tragic.
We found someone who got their panties wet
Well, among the refusal to call the team “Guardians”/ insulting people who dislike the name “Indians”, bringing up pronouns and even tossing some cancel culture references in there, it appears there was the huge sale on the Conservatives Talking Points Starter Kit, and they have to get their money’s worth.
You should cry some more. Do you need a safe space to do it in though?
You read my comment throwing shade at conservatives, and got offended enough to respond with what I think you consider an insult (and not a very good one at that)… and I am the one crying? If that did not hurt your feelings, you could have disagreed, not tried throwing it back onto the person who hurt your feelings.
And I mean, if pointing out the predictability of a sub-set of commenters on virtually every article about the Guardians is crying, then I’ll take my tissue box with me to the closest safe room, but man… you should maybe consider how insecure and weak your comments look before trying to pin it onto another person.
I think the bigots moderate these comment sections. This is the SECOND TIME, that I, a Native American, have had my comment removed after giving both my opinion and my confusion on the name changes of native nicknamed teams. What a bunch of racists. Here was my original reply to sox4ever…***** No kidding… Why do people like yourself ‘sox4ever’ and ‘Disadvantage’ hate us Native Americans so much that you’re removing us from major sports? I have tribal blood on both sides of my family, and all of us are proud of our Kansas City CHIEFS. The Braves, Indians, Seminole, and Fighting Sioux are also a sign of RESPECT to us… the ACTUAL NATIVE AMERICANS. Personally, I never took issue with ‘Redskins’, but I understand why some of us natives saw it as a pejorative. But why do WHITE liberals feel we need them to decide OUR feelings and opinions. Oddly, youre the same lefties that remove Confederate statues. You say that is because confederates were bad people. OK, I see that I guess… so why do you say you are supporting us, while you are ERASING us too??
A perfect solution would be to change the type of Indians they’re referring to in their team name. They can be India Indians and no one can complain
Whoa! There’s a lot to unpack here, most of it having nothing to do with my comment pointing out the predictability of conservative commentariat (I can’t speak for sox4ever) but here we go…
1. Bold of you to assume that I am white. I’ll give you half credit, but my dad is from China.
2. Bold of you to assume I am liberal. I lean left, but I feel liberals tend to put their weight into PC culture, and do more harm than good.
2a. Then again, whiny people that say that the logos are not offensive, even though they are not part of the demographic, are also annoying (and often very hypocritical). They’re often the same people that will simultaneously complain about people like Bomari Jones, who wore a “Caucasians” shirt that mocks the Chief Wahoo logo on Mike and Mike for being offensive (seriously, if you are not familiar, check it out… it’s hilarious).
3. I… am not sure how I insinuated I hated you and Natives, or that I am erasing you? I personally feel a mascot that has nothing to do with me is none of my business. I want to push back on the erasing part, because I feel dollar for donuts, learning about Natives in school is a 100-fold more effective than an athlete wearing a jersey that says “Braves” on it, and I am going to go on a limb to say that people from point 2a are also those who are perfectly okay removing Natives from history books (or ignoring our ugly past, and focusing only on the good things).
4. As a Native American, your opinion on the team name definitely should hold weight, unlike myself or other non-Natives, but it is still anecdotal. If there are Natives that find the team name offensive, then I think it should be changed, even if some Natives do not mind.
4. What do confederate statues have anything to do with this?
Disadvantage… 1. You dismissed arguments against the Guardians moniker as illegitimate bc ‘conservative talking points’ were mentioned… though they might be correct TPs…. 2. Seems I was right about the white liberal, even if its half or leans… moreover, I was referring to most of the anti-native logo crowd as white liberals. Lefties who have no skin in the argument, no information on how the majority of us natives actually feel, not just their lefty assumptions. 3. Why not BOTH? Education in history curriculum AND being honored by millions of fans, billionaires and their billion-dollar franchises being named for native American icons. If someone were to name their kid Greg, after me, I would be honored. That’s how most us us see it. We just have jobs, families and better things to do with our lives than to counter-protest the morons that claim to speak for us… 4. It is NOT anecdotal. My whole family, all but one of my native friends(he’s just sour on ‘redskins’), and numerous surveys done by many Nations in the US are PROUD of the sports nicknames, not offended. My Chiefs front office literally consulted with our area Nations and got feedback before nixing the tomahawk chop… doubling down on Arrowhead Stadium and the Chiefs name… and modifying the the War Drum in the upper deck and how it’s used. Had Cleveland done that, I doubt they would have this ridiculous Guardians name, but would still be done with chief wahoo. make sense?
I mean, I think we actually mostly agree, save for a few details. I haven’t seen the surveys you mentioned, but if in fact most Natives do not mind the name, or as you mention, embrace them, then I think they should be the deciding factor. SJWs that complain on behalf of what they think is right, for brownie points or something, is often counter-productive.
My original point has nothing to do with the name change (it doesn’t affect me one way or another), but rather, the execution of the comments that disliked the name change, and how predictable they are. They do not present any solid talking points, and when unrelated topics such as pronouns are brought up, then it is pretty safe to discard that opinion (in the same way someone would discount a white liberal saying the name too offensive).
You called the people who are unaffected by the name change that claim to speak for you morons. Then why aren’t the people who are unaffected by the name change but do share your opinion any different?
Good god! The level of PC nonsense in this thread is embarrassing. The team’s name is the Guardians. It’s hard to believe that there are people so immature that they’ll insist on using an antiquated name because the new one doesn’t fit with their weird political fetishes.
It’s not that the current names doesn’t fit someone’s weird political fetishes…. The problem is the the old name didn’t fit YOUR weird political fetishes. The franchise didn’t rename because they wanted to, they did it because of the cancel culture that will erase every thing that was good or bad.
Ummmm I think you might need a dictionary. PC means politically correct. The only PC nonsense was a bunch of fragile millennials crying until the franchise was forced to change the name. That, my friend, is “PC nonsense”
I don’t care if they want to change their name but come up with something better.
Agreed. While the conflicting arguments regarding the former moniker amuses me from both ends, I find the ‘Guardians’ name and logo to be severely lacking.
Yeah, the world doesn’t conform to my opinion, but even ‘Spiders’ was a better naming choice imo.
The team was named for this:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Memorial_Bridge
Still stupid, but gives context.
Thank you.
Sorry, not the Guardians until they can win that lawsuit against the roller derby team.
I want to see the guardians go winless this year. Stay woke kids
Is that a soccer team?
No, the Guardians are the Yankees of the Storage Wars League.
Why is a roller derby team hiring a hitting coach?
And to me, it’s DL not IL.
The name is changed. Grow up and change with it.
Says the guy with Chief Wahoo as his image
All jokes aside, why does this site call them something they don’t even call themselves yet? Not to mention the name is now tied up in a legal battle.
Seems like they should still be referred to as the Indians until they officially stop calling themselves the Indians.
It’s the Indians. The guardians what a dumb liberal name.
How about we reach a compromise and change the name back to Cleveland spiders.
easily the worst option…
Could just as easily call themselves the Naps that am would start things up.
Where in the world did they come up with a name like *THE GUARDIANS*?….I mean isn’t a Guardian someone that pulls Lookout duty on top of the fort for marauding Indians? Is a Guarian someone that speaks several languages, so they can communicate with the Braves, so they can go talk peace treaty with the Chiefs?