Dodgers finalize coaching staff for 2019 and acquire pitcher

The Dodgers on Wednesday announced their coaching staff for the 2019 season, a group that includes four newcomers and three first-time major league coaches.

As previously reported, Dino Ebel will join the club as third base coach after 14 seasons on the Angels coaching staff and Robert Van Scoyoc will serve as hitting coach.

Before joining the Angels, Ebel spent 17 seasons with the Dodgers as a minor league player, coach and manager. Ebel, 52, replaces Chris Woodward, who became the Texas Rangers’ manager this month. Van Scoyoc, 32, has never coached at the major league level. He spent last season as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ hitting strategist and has worked with big leaguers individually during the offseason. He replaces Turner Ward, who left to become the Cincinnati Reds’ hitting coach.

Aaron Bates, 34, was hired as assistant hitting coach after four seasons as a coach in the Dodgers’ organization, replacing Luis Ortiz after he joined Woodward’s staff in Texas as hitting coach. Chris Gimenez, 35, will serve as the team’s game-planning coach. Gimenez ended his 10-year big league career in 2018, playing in 25 games for the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs.

The remainder of the coaching staff remains intact under manager Dave Roberts. Bob Geren will return as bench coach for a fourth season, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt is returning for his 14th season, George Lombard will coach first base for the fourth year, and bullpen coach Mark Prior and hitting strategist Brant Brown are slated to return for their second seasons.

Also, the Dodgers acquired left-hander Adam McCreery from the Atlanta Braves for cash considerations and designated ambidextrous reliever Pat Venditte for assignment. McCreery, 25, is a 6-foot-9 sinkerballer who made his big league debut in 2018, logging an inning for Atlanta. He had a 3.62 earned-run average in 42 games between double-A Mississippi and triple-A Gwinnett.

MLBPA extends Tony Clark’s contract

After a winter of austerity before the 2018 season led to an outcry from baseball’s labor force, the players of Major League Baseball have chosen to extend the contract of Tony Clark as Players Assn. executive director through 2022 as the union gears up for a potentially calamitous negotiation with MLB officials when the collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021.

The relationship between MLB and its players’ union fractured in the offseason as teams declined to spend extravagantly on free agents. It has not become clear if the trend will continue, with top-flight players such as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado expected to score lucrative contracts this winter. But the lack of spending frustrated the players, some of whom speculated publicly on the possibility of a work stoppage for the first time since 1994.

Clark, 46, played 15 seasons in the majors. He took over as head of the union after the death of Michael Weiner in 2013. Clark drew criticism for the collective bargaining agreement negotiated in 2016, which improved on player amenities but did little to confront the wrinkles hampering the free-agent market, like the qualifying offer or the luxury tax. In August, the union hired Bruce Meyer, a veteran labor attorney, to handle collective bargaining moving forward.