Categories: News

Tommy Joseph among 3 former Phillies hired as coach by St. Lucie Mets

Tommy Joseph spent a few seasons with the Phillies. (Brandon Apter)

Former Philadelphia Phillies general manager Rubén Amaro Jr. should be proud of the coaching staff that the St. Lucie Mets have put together, being that it features three players that he once acquired.

Michael Mayer of Metsmerized notes that Low-A affiliate of the New York Mets has a four-person coaching staff for the 2021 season, one that features three former Phillies.

Reid Brignac – who spent the 2014 season with the Phillies and their Triple-A affiliates, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs – will manage the team. Brignac’s 37 games with the Phillies weren’t especially memorable, though he did hit a walk-off single against the Mets on May 30, 2014.

Now 35, Brignac had been slated to manage the Single-A Columbia Fireflies in 2020, but COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the season. As part of the realignment of minor league baseball, the Fireflies are now the Single-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

39-year-old Jerome Williams will be Brignac’s pitching coach. Famous for his pink glove, Williams appeared in 42 games for the Phillies between 2014 and 2015. Though he did post a 2.83 ERA in nine starts for the Phillies in 2014, his most notable moment with the franchise probably came on June 16, 2015. Williams started an eventual 19-3 loss, giving up six runs in just 2/3 of an inning against Manny Machado and the Baltimore Orioles. Williams left the game with an injury before even completing the bottom of the first. Phillies Nation‘s Destiny Lugardo rated it as the seventh-most painful loss of the decade.

Brignac has tabbed former Phillies slugger Tommy Joseph to be his hitting coach. Joseph was a top catching prospect, acquired in the Hunter Pence trade with the San Francisco Giants in July of 2012. Unfortunately for Joseph, concussions forced him to move to first base, where his value was greatly reduced. If Joseph had a strong arm and homered 43 times in 810 at-bats as a catcher, he would have stuck around in the league for a long time. At first base, however, the strong arm wasn’t nearly as useful, and the power wasn’t as valuable, especially when you consider that he almost never walked.

Following the emergence of Rhys Hoskins late in the 2017 season and the signing of Carlos Santana prior to 2018, Joseph was waived by the Phillies, and eventually claimed by the Texas Rangers. Joseph did slash .284/.351/.533 with an .884 OPS between Double-A and Triple-A in 2018, but he never got an opportunity at the major league level.

Joseph took a chance with the LG Twins in Korea in 2019, but was ultimately waived in July of that year. Joseph would finish the year in the Boston Red Sox organization, spending 15 games between the Gulf Coast League and Eastern League. That proved to be his final action with one of the 30 organizations.

After playing in four games last year in the Consolation Energy League and eight games this past offseason in the Dominican Winter League, Joseph has evidently decided to hang his spikes up, at least his playing ones.