Bizarre job title for new Guardians coach hints at 2023 priorities

The Guardians have gone full corporate with their newest coaching job title, but it hints at what’s most important for 2023.

A fancy job title is a clever way of making a job sound more glamorous or important than it is. For instance, “Facilites Management Technician” could simply be the same as “janitor”.

The Guardians are going full corporate with one of their new coaching hires and his job title. But while most fancy job titles are empty, this one actually might ring true and gives some clues as to what is ever-important for the team in 2023.

New Guardians coaching title hints at 2023 priorities

The Guardians had surprising success last year, taking the New York Yankees to a full five games in the divisional round of the playoffs despite having one of the lowest payrolls in the league. With that success, some of their coaches got deserved promotions and moved on to other teams, leaving openings that the team has filled with AAA coaches.

One of the roles they filled was “Run Production Coordinator” which, I’m assuming, is synonymous with “Offensive Coordinator” or “Offensive Coach”.

Jason Esposito, who was a AAA hitting coach for the Guardians before this, takes on this fancy job title and new role. While it’s easy to view this job title as a lot of words simply meaning “offensive coach,” it does indicate something important: Runs are the most important thing, and a lot of nonsense on offense doesn’t matter if it doesn’t translate to players touching home base.

Cleveland scored 4.23 runs per game last season which was middle of the road, 19th in the MLB. The team was actually 6th in the American League, however, but did so by tacking together plays that weren’t as flashy. They ranked 14th in home runs in the American League. They did rank sixth in the league and third in the AL in triples per game, however.

In their series against the Yankees, recall that they scored 2 runs or fewer in three of the five games, including just three runs across the last two games that the Yankees took to come back and win the series. Scoring just one run in a Game 5 to take the series isn’t something they can repeat this year.

The most important deliverable for Esposito has been made clear with his identity and job title with the team: Score runs.

The Guardians big offseason move was adding Josh Bell who has the potential to bring a lot to the table offensively. He, unfortunately, struggled in the second half of last year with San Diego and grounded into a lot of double plays. But his .936 OPS in 2019 with the Pittsburgh Pirates hints at what the Guardians hope they’re getting by adding him to an exciting young roster.