Chris Newell/Marty Budner (Hometown Life)
The New York Mets have announced the 2020 coaching staff to lead the Kingsport Mets as their 40th season as the organization’s minor league affiliate. While this is the 40th year of the Mets affiliation with Kingsport, the coaching staff has a very new feel to it.
Leading Kingsport will be Chris Newell in his first season as a manager of an affiliated minor league team. Previously, Newell was the manager in the United Shore Professional Baseball League and the Frontier League. Prior to that experience, he was a scout for the Rays and Yankees organizations, and he was a private batting instructor. His most famed client was DJ LeMahieu.
Joining Newell in his first season as the Kingport manager will be:
Bench Coach Gilbert Gomez
Pitching Coach Glenn Abbott
Hitting Coach Trey Hannam
Athletic Trainer Austin Dayton
Performance Coach Ayram Texidor
This is Gomez’s third season as a coach in the Mets farm system. Last year, he was the bench coach for the Columbia Fireflies where he worked with some of the Mets top prospects in Ronny Mauricio, Shervyen Newton, Thomas Szapucki, and Mark Vientos.
Abbott has been a pitching coach in the Mets farm system for 10 years, and he has worked with pitchers like current Mets Jacob deGrom and Seth Lugo. He spent the last two years with Triple-A Syracuse, but he would miss much of last season due to a health scare.
Hannam is the founder of the Trey Hannam Training LLC, and he is a former assistant coach for Western Illinois. One of the players he worked with in his clinic is Mets 2019 fourth round draft pick Jake Mangum. On his Twitter account, Hannam has shown some of the things he preaches and some of the drills he uses with his clients:
Workin’ on it.
Big fan of side toss. Tosser in total control of the loading process & speed of it.
Hitter learning how to control the only thing they can control, themself loading…. Plus, moving ball for timing pic.twitter.com/ihb3TowdWH
— Trey Hannam (@TJHannam10) February 2, 2020
While relatively new, this is a very accomplished staff. For example, Newell has lead teams to the USPBL titles in two out of the last three years, and his teams have had the best record in the league three out of the last four years. With him at the helm, Kingsport seeks to win their first Appalachian League title since 1995.
