Blue Jays: Stubby Clapp gets a job after all

A potential managerial candidate for the Toronto Blue Jays, Canadian Stubby Clapp finally has a job with a major league team.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Cardinals have appointed Stubby Clapp as their major league first base coach, also adding Jeff Albert as their hitting coach.

Clapp, 45, was previously the manager for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate, the Memphis Redbirds. He was lauded by his organizational colleagues for his tremendous managing skills and excellent rapport with his players.

For a while, it appeared as though he had a chance to get a major league managing job somewhere. Jays fans are well aware of the enigmatic link to Clapp near the end of their search, but Clapp was also linked, in some capacity, to the Rangers and Angels prior to being promoted to the Cardinals big league staff.

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Prior to joining the Cardinals organization, Clapp, a native of Windsor, Ontario, was the hitting coach for the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and High-A Dunedin Blue Jays of the Blue Jays organization. Even before that, he held positions coaching in the minor league system of the Houston Astros, managing their Class-A affiliate for two seasons.

It’s great to see Clapp get an opportunity to coach a big league team. He’s definitely primed for a managerial job sometime in the future, but for now, it’s good for him to get some major league experience under his belt. Many cited his lack of big league coaching experience as a defining factor for why he didn’t get hired as a big league coach.

While it’s not exactly a sure thing that was the reason he didn’t get hired, it likely worked out in the end, as Clapp will get a chance to boost his resume before hitting the open market in a few years.