Milwaukee Brewers are making changes to their coaching staff. Yes, most of you, including me, are thinking they’re making the deal that we all expected them to make. They’re getting rid of the hitting coach Andy Haines, right? Wrong. He is staying on board. Instead, Milwaukee is reassigning long-time coach Ed Sedar from the third-base coach position and the base coaches will be Jason Lane and Quinten Berry instead. Haines will continue to have his job. Despite my advocation for Haines to be fired last season, this tells me something about David Stearns more than anything else.

This is a pure indication from Stearns that he failed from an offensive standpoint. He admitted that as much in the postseason press conference. From Stearns and potentially Craig Counsell’s standpoint, Haines was not given the tools to succeed last season. The players that were supposed to be the guys for Haines just were not. Think about all of the things that went wrong with the top tier guys, not the players Stearns brought in. Christian Yelich was a bigger hot mess than a drunk college kid at 2 AM. Keston Hiura met the sophomore slump and never got out of it. Ryan Braun had consistent back issues. Add in the fact that most of the guys Stearns brought in could not produce and it’s a disaster.

Stearns is willing to give Haines another shot likely for the reasons stated above. Still, the approach needs to change from year-over-year. The first time through the order approach never felt right all season. Milwaukee took a major step back from a team who scored a ton of first and second inning runs to one that scored barely any. Maybe it was a law of small numbers only playing 60 games, but that stood out last year. Besides fixing Yelich and Hiura, this should be Haines’ top priority.

As for Berry and Lane, it is unknown which will be the third-base coach. Sedar is a staple of Milwaukee’s organization and one of the good guys to the media and everyone yet it was time to move on. There were many mind-numbing mistakes at home based on Sedar’s calls. This is a welcomed change. If I were a betting man, my bet is on Berry to be the third-base coach given his baserunning prowess.

This shouldn’t escape Haines from the hot seat but this is a solid coaching staff to kick off next season.

Charlie.