The A’s won’t be bringing third base coach Al Pedrique back for the 2021 season, The Athletic’s Alex Coffey reports (Twitter link). This is expected to be the only change made to the Oakland coaching staff, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Pedrique has been a coach with the Athletics for the last three seasons, working as a first base coach in 2018-19 before shifting across the diamond to the third base box in 2020. Pedrique might be best known for his 83-game stint as the Diamondbacks’ interim manager in 2004, though the 60-year-old has over 25 years of coaching and managing experience at the minor league and Major League levels, as well as a special assistant job in the Astros’ front office from 2005-07. Before being hired in Oakland, Pedrique previous worked as a big league coach with Arizona in 2004 (as a third base coach) and with Houston from 2009-11 (third base coach and bench coach).
According to Pedrique via Coffey, the Athletics would “like to give someone else within the organization a chance” in a coaching role. Slusser thinks Mark Kotsay, currently the quality control coach, could be a candidate for the third base coach job, though she also suggests the A’s could go outside the organization for a familiar face. Chip Hale, who previously worked four years on Oakland’s coaching staff, recently became available after being let go from his third base coaching job with the Nationals earlier this month.