Doug Mientkiewicz, who three months ago guided the Chattanooga Lookouts to their first Southern League championship since 1988, will return as manager in 2016.
The Minnesota Twins revealed their Class AA staff lineup Tuesday, and Mientkiewicz will be accompanied next spring by pitching coach Ivan Arteaga and hitting coach Tommy Watkins. Arteaga and Watkins will be in their first year with the Lookouts.
“We are happy to announce that manager Doug Mientkiewicz will be returning to Chattanooga,” Twins player development director Brad Steil said. “We had a great first year in Chattanooga, and we really appreciated the warm reception we received from the fans and the front office. We believe that we will have another talented roster in Chattanooga in 2016, and we hope to contend for the league championship once again.”
Arteaga was the pitching coach of Minnesota’s high Single-A team in Fort Myers, Fla., earlier this year. Watkins, who spent this past season at Single-A in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, came up as a third baseman with Minnesota and played nine games for the Twins during the 2007 season.
The Lookouts began their 2015 season with three of the top 50 prospects in minor league baseball – center fielder Byron Buxton, third baseman Miguel Sano and pitcher Jose Berrios. Chattanooga roared to a 43-25 record and the first-half North Division title, but those three prospects were gone by July 1 and the Lookouts struggled to a 33-36 second half.
Max Kepler and Adam Walker kept the Lookouts competitive down the stretch and excelled in the playoffs. Kepler became just the fourth Lookouts player to win league MVP – joining Brady Clark (1999), Joey Votto (2006) and Scott Van Slyke (2011) – and was called up to the Twins after hitting three home runs during the best-of-five championship series against Biloxi.
Walker set a Lookouts franchise record with 31 home runs.
“We took our bumps, but by the end of the year we had guys in the positions we wanted them to be in,” Mientkiewicz said after winning the title. “It ended up working out.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.