Chip Hale Named Manager of Diamondbacks
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Mike McGinnis/Getty Images(PHOENIX, AZ) — The Arizona Diamondbacks have named Chip Hale as the new manager of their baseball franchise.
After finishing 64-98 last season under Kirk Gibson, who was fired with three games remaining in the season, the Diamondbacks tabbed the 49-year-old Hale to lead the team. Hale spent the least three seasons as the third base coach for the Oakland Athletics.
In May, Arizona named Tony La Russa as the chief baseball officer. After the season, the Diamondbacks fired GM Kevin Towers and named Dave Stewart as his replacement.
“When you walk into a room like that and you sit down to talk baseball you know this is the place you want to be.” Hale said, in reference to working with La Russa, Stewart and special assistant to the team president Luiz Gonzalez.
Under the leadership of Towers and Gibson the Diamondbacks were 353-375. While the team has promising players such as Mark Trumbo and Paul Goldschmidt, La Russa, Hale and Stewart will have work to do bringing in players that fit Arizona’s style of play.
“We wanted a guy that would give us our best chance to communicate with the players that we have in our clubhouse,” Stewart said of Hale. “The chemisty in our clubhouse is important and the guy that leads that chemistry is important.”
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