Blue Jays fire hitting coach Brook Jacoby

The Blue Jays are moving on from Brook Jacoby, officially beginning the search for a new coaching staff under newly hired skipper Charlie Montoyo.

Amid intense speculation, hitting coach Brook Jacoby has, according to John Lott of the Athletic, been fired by the Toronto Blue Jays. Lott notes that the search is “underway for a replacement”. Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet also reported the same shortly after.

Interestingly enough, Jacoby was thought to be fired starting only early Saturday, when an astutely observant Twitter user pointed out that Jacoby, who has been serving as the Blue Jays hitting coach since 2014, was no longer listed on the coaching roster for the Jays on MLB.com.

Jacoby, 58, was a former major leaguer who had previously served as the hitting coach for the Cincinnati Reds prior to coming over to Toronto.

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Although it’s not clear at this point just why he’s being let go, it appears as though the new coaching staff, led by Montoyo, will likely look for a more modern approach to hitting and analytics. Though Jacoby was often lauded by his colleagues for his personability and expertise, he was undoubtedly too old school for the current taste of the organization’s leaders.

It’s currently unclear as to who will replace Jacoby, but Lott notes that the search will soon begin, as the team will likely want to have a new coach in place before the bigger, more important moves regarding the actual players get made.

Mike Wilner of the FAN 590 also added that it was questionable that the entire coaching staff, not just Jacoby, would remain with the team. With contracts through the 2019 season, it’s possible that Tim Leiper, Pete Walker, DeMarlo Hale and Luis Rivera could all be replaced in the coming weeks.

It’ll be interesting to see who is retained and who is let go as Charlie Montoyo and the front office build a coaching staff to carry this team into the next era of Blue Jays baseball.