Listach to return as Tacoma Rainiers manager, team will have two new coaches

Pat Listach will be back as manager of the Tacoma Rainiers next season.

So will pitching coach Lance Painter.

The rest of the crew will be a mixture of new and old as the Seattle Mariners announced Monday the coaches for the organization’s Triple-A squad.

Listach, 49, the former American League rookie of the year with Milwaukee, will return for his third season as manger. He led Tacoma to its first Pacific Coast League Northern Division title since 2010, winning 81 games. The Rainiers lost to El Paso in four games in the PCL playoffs.

Painter is back as well for a second season. He was primarily responsible for getting left-hander James Paxton back on track last season while in the minors. The Rainiers posted a 3.92 ERA in 2016, their lowest mark since 2001.

A couple of new faces will be at Cheney Stadium as well.

Dave Berg is the new hitting coach, replacing Scott Brosius, who will now serve as a special hitting assistant for the Mariners.

Berg spent seven seasons in the major leagues as a utility infielder with the Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays, retiring with a lifetime .269 batting average.

Last season, Berg was the manager of the Double-A Jacksonville Suns.

Throughout their entire minor-league organizations, the Mariners have decided to add a fourth coach to each team.

In the Rainiers’ case, that would be Brian Hunter, the former two-time AL base-stealing champion who was an outfielder for six different major-league teams, including the Mariners in 1999.

The past two seasons, Hunter served as the hitting coach in rookie-ball Everett. In both years, the AquaSox led the Northwest League in runs scored.

Also returning for Tacoma are athletic trainers Tom Newberg and B.J. Downie, and performance specialist Derek Mendoza.

This story was originally published December 19, 2016 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Listach to return as Tacoma Rainiers manager, team will have two new coaches."