St. Louis Cardinals Third Base Coach Jose Oquendo Takes Leave After Surgery
After undergoing two knee surgeries this offseason, third base coach Jose Oquendo will not be ready to begin the season with the St. Louis Cardinals.
The St. Louis Cardinals have been relatively fortunate with their health question marks this spring; catcher Yadier Molina will be behind the plate on Opening Day, even after multiple offseason thumb surgeries, and pitcher Jordan Walden still has a good shot at cracking the Opening Day roster, even after he deals with persistent shoulder pain that dates back to last year.
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Unfortunately, one valuable member of the team will not be so fortunate next Sunday in Pittsburgh, as the club announced on Sunday afternoon that third base coach will take a medical leave “for the foreseeable future” as he recovers from knee surgery.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Derrick Goold detailed on Sunday, Oquendo has been attempting to get off crutches this spring, but he hasn’t been able to recover quickly enough from two surgeries: an operation done this winter to fix a nagging right knee injury, then another one during the spring to correct the first one. With Oquendo’s admission that he won’t be ready by the time the regular season rolls round next week, the Cardinals have made adjustments to their staff and organizational structure to compensate for his absence. (There’s no way of knowing the exact timetable on Oquendo’s recovery, but the number of changes within the organization that the Cardinals announced on Sunday would lead one to believe that he’ll be out for a rather long time.)
First base coach Chris Maloney will move over to coach at third, a significant increase in duties for the longtime minor-league manager. Assistant hitting coach Bill Mueller will assume Maloney’s duties at first, and he’ll also take over the infield coaching responsibilities that have long belonged to Oquendo. 10-year big-league vet Derrick May, who has been in the organization since 2005 and most recently served as the minor-league hitting coordinator, will take over as the assistant hitting coach. Baseball lifer George Greer, who has been in the game as a player, coach, and manager for 50 years, will assume May’s responsibilities in the interim.
Next: Evaluating the Cardinals' Remaining Bench Battles
Oquendo, who was long considered a prime big-league managing prospect, is now the longest-tenured member of the Cardinals’ coaching staff. After coaching in the Cards’ system in 1997-98, he became the bench coach in 1999 and has been the third base coach since 2000.