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With the departure of Roger McDowell and several young pitching prospects scuffling a bit, insuring that the Braves’ pitching development program was in a good place was a high priority for Atlanta.
Promoting Chuck Hernandez to pitching coach was a strong start, but that did leave a bit of a vacuum as he was the minor league pitching coordinator. The Braves looked to bring in some old friends to help infuse the organization with more guys who know pitching.
Chiti will serve as the Braves' director of pitching. Wallace will work with Chiti as a special assistant
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) November 2, 2016
Wallace and Chiti had previously worked with the Braves' minor league pitchers joining Baltimore's coaching staff after the 2013 season
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) November 2, 2016
Dave Wallace had previously served as the Braves’ minor league pitching coordinator before serving as the Orioles pitching coach starting in the 2014 season. Dom Chiti was an assistant to former Braves’ GM Frank Wren before joining Wallace in Baltimore at the same time to serve as the bullpen coach.
Its hard to measure the effect that Chiti and Wallace had on the Orioles given the normal timetable and nature of pitching development, but the Orioles’ pitching staff had the 11th best WAR of all staffs in the majors over the last two years which had struggled before that. Clearly the Braves are hoping that Wallace and Chiti will be able to jump start the rebuild even further while continuing to guide the organization in making sound personnel and development decisions.