Houston Sports category interest

The Houston Astros will have two new coaches on the 2021 Major League staff with the additions of assistant pitching coach Bill Murphy (Pictured) and quality control coach Dan Firova.

The assistant pitching coach position is a new one for the Astros staff. Firova will replace Chris Speier, who retired following the 2020 season.

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Returning to manager Dusty Baker’s coaching staff will be Michael Collins (coach), Alex Cintron (hitting coach), Joe Espada (bench coach), Omar Lopez (first base), Josh Miller (pitching coach), Gary Pettis (third base), Brent Strom (pitching coach) and Troy Snitker (hitting coach). Miller, who had served as bullpen coach in 2019-20, now has the title of pitching coach.

Murphy spent the last five seasons as a pitching coach and coordinator in the Astros minor league system. In that span, he worked with several pitchers now on the Major League roster, including Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Brandon Bielak. Most recently, Murphy was the organization’s pitching coordinator for the 2019-20 seasons. As a result of the pandemic, Murphy spent the 2020 season working with pitchers at the Astros alternate training sites and then worked with the Instructional Camp in Florida in October. Prior to his coordinator role, he spent the previous three seasons as pitching coach for Rookie Level Greeneville (2016), Class A Short Season Tri-City (2017) and Double A Corpus Christi (2018), respectively.

Prior to being named Astros quality control coach, Firova’s previous Major League coaching stint was for two seasons (2016-17) as the Nationals bullpen coach, under Baker, who was the club’s manager at that time. The Nationals won the NL East in both 2016-17. Prior to his stint with the Nationals, Firova enjoyed a long run of success as a manager for 19 seasons in the Mexican League, where he won three championships as skipper of the Mexico City Tigres (1997, 2000-01). For his career, Firova won more games in league history than any other non-native of Mexico. He is fourth all-time among all managers.

A native Texan, Firova was born in Refugio and played several seasons of professional baseball as a catcher after being drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the second round of the 1980 January Draft (secondary phase). He would reach the Major Leagues for two brief stints with the Mariners in 1981-82, and for a one-game stint with the Indians in 1988.