photo: Ron “Pop” Warner, Harrison Bader, Paul DeJong (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
At his introductory press conference on Sunday, new St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said his former position of bench coach would be manned by a “committee” of other coaches on the staff.
On Thursday, that course was changed, with the announcement of the team via Twitter (as opposed to the usual press release) that Ron “Pop” Warner is returning to the major league staff as bench coach.
Ron "Pop" Warner will join the #STLCards coaching staff as bench coach. He will wear #75. pic.twitter.com/znHY5l6Vlx
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) July 19, 2018
Warner, 49, has spent almost all of his career as a player, coach and manager in the Cardinals organization, winning the 2005 Florida State League title as Palm Beach’s skipper and finishing his 11 seasons managing with Memphis in 2014. Overall, Warner’s clubs were an aggregate 734–730 (.501). He received the organization’s top player development honor, the George Kissell Award, in 2005.
Ironically, Shildt replaced Warner as skipper of the Redbirds for 2015, as the latter had succeeded Chris Maloney as the Triple-A manager three years prior. Most of the last four years, Warner served as a roving infield instructor and assistant minor league field coordinator under Mark DeJohn.
As part of the coaching changes with St. Louis announced last June, Warner joined Mike Matheny’s staff in a general coaching role, where he remained for the rest of 2017. Though coaching assignments were shuffled at the time, the June firing of third base coach Maloney ultimately created the open coaching position which Warner filled. For 2018, Warner returned to his assistant field coordinator role as Willie McGee was added to the big-league coaching staff.
Other new members of St. Louis’ field staff announced Sunday are hitting coaches George Greer (no. 36) and Mark Budaska (no. 58). They replace John Mabry and Bill Mueller, both of whom were dismissed along with Matheny.
Warner will wear uniform no. 75 and Shildt has shifted to no. 8.
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Brian Walton can be reached via email at brian@thecardinalnation.com. Follow Brian on Twitter.
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