Rob Deer Hired As Cubs Assistant Hitting Coach

Rob Deer and Dale Sveum were Milwaukee Brewers teammates from 1986 to 1990.

And now, as you see from Carrie Muskat's tweet below, they're putting the band back together:

#Brewers teammates Dale Sveum & Rob Deer are back together. Deer hired as ass't hitting coach on Sveum's #Cubs staff

— Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) November 26, 2012

Rob Deer had one of the strangest careers in recent baseball history. He had prodigious power -- I once saw him hit a home run in spring training at the old Ho Ho Kam Park, where center field was 430 foot away and there was a 30-foot hitter's background, and he hit it over the background. He drew tons of walks, which is always good. He was kind of a poor man's Adam Dunn.

But he struck out a lot, and never hit for much of a batting average. In 1991, having moved on from the Brewers to the Detroit Tigers, he hit .179/.314/.386.

Contemplate those numbers for a moment. .179 is a bad batting average -- but he walked enough (89 times in 539 plate appearances) to have a decent OBP. The 89 bases on balls was tied for eighth in the American League that year. He also hit 25 home runs in 1991 and holds the dubious mark for lowest batting average for anyone who hit 25 or more homers in a season.

Deer, who turned 52 in September, hit 230 home runs in 1155 major-league games and finished with a .220/.324/.442 line, good enough for a 109 OPS+. Perhaps, unlike Kosuke Fukudome, he can actually help Cubs hitters be more patient. His previous coaching experience includes being a minor-league instructor in the Padres organization.