Dodgers hire former Cub Brant Brown

Earlier this week, I reported the news that the Los Angeles Dodgers had hired former Cubs pitcher Mark Prior as their bullpen coach.

Thursday, the Dodgers announced the rest of their 2018 coaching staff and yet another ex-Cub will be on it:

Brant Brown was the Cubs’ third-round pick in 1995 and made his big-league debut in 1996. In 1998, he played a fair bit of outfield and appeared in 124 games, hitting .291/.348/.501 with 17 doubles, seven triples and 14 home runs in 380 at-bats. That’s a pretty good year; it produced 1.7 bWAR. The most famous game Brown appeared in, of course, was this one:

That’s from a TV highlights show; you probably remember that September 23, 1998 play better as the one where radio broadcaster Ron Santo yelled, “Oh, noooooo!” after Brown dropped the ball.

Brown was traded to the Pirates after the 1998 season for Jon Lieber. That deal worked out pretty well for the Cubs. Brown never had a year as good as his 1998 Cubs season; he briefly returned to the Cubs in 2000 when they traded Dave Martinez to the Rangers for him.

From 2007-12, Brown was a coach in the Rangers minor-league system, and from 2013-17 he was the minor-league baserunning and outfielding coordinator in the Mariners system before being hired by the Dodgers.

Brown is now 46. Time does fly by, doesn’t it? I wish him well in his new role in Los Angeles.