Longtime Crew coach Sedar to advisory role

MILWAUKEE -- After 10 seasons as Brewers third-base coach and 14 seasons on Milwaukee’s Major League coaching staff, Ed Sedar is moving to what the club is calling an advisory role as part of adjustments to manager Craig Counsell’s staff announced Wednesday.

The Brewers are bringing back the bulk of the staff for 2021: Bench coach Pat Murphy (who is back to full health after suffering a heart attack in early August), hitting coaches Andy Haines and Jacob Cruz, pitching coach Chris Hook and bullpen coach Steve Karsay along with Jason Lane, who will coach one of the bases in 2021 after manning first base last season. Walker McKinven also returns as associate pitching, catching and strategy coach.

New to the Major League staff as a base coach is Quintin Berry, who has three years of experience as an instructor in Milwaukee’s Minor League system, starting with a stint as a player/coach at Triple-A Colorado Springs in 2018. That idea, rather unique in today’s game, came from Brewers farm director Tom Flanagan, and the Brewers immediately loved what they had in Berry as coaching material.

“Eddie is a great Brewer and we’re thrilled that he’s going to still be a member of our organization and be around the Major League team going forward,” Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “And we’re also really excited to add Quintin to our staff. We’ve pegged him as a Major League coach for a long time and we thought now was his time. We looked at our staff this year with a future-oriented focus and making sure that ‘Q’ was a part of it for us was really important.”

The Brewers haven’t decided yet whether Berry or Lane will have the higher-profile role at third base.

“We know we’re going to have an inexperienced -- it’s going to be Jason or Quintin there, and at this point there’s no games for five months and we’re going to take our time making that decision,” Counsell said.

Berry will assume Sedar’s duties as outfield and baserunning instructor, said Counsell, who lauded Berry’s energy, a “presence” that impacts players, and his knowledge of baserunning and outfield play.

Stearns also addressed the decision to retain hitting coaches Haines and Cruz in the wake of a season in which the Brewers’ offense was their weakness all season, posting the lowest batting average in franchise history and ranking 27th of 30 teams with 4.12 runs per game during the shortened regular season.

“We have history with Andy Haines and we believe in him as a coach,” Stearns said. “Jacob Cruz, this was his first year with our organization, but he is somebody we targeted to bring into our organization so we’re very confident in our hitting plan. I think we have a very strong group of hitting coaches and this was a strange year throughout the entire league. It is tough to draw too many conclusions about the effectiveness of any one particular coach over a very unusual 60-game season.”

Also new to the staff are a pair of former Minor League catchers, Néstor Corredor and Adam Weisenburger, who will be the Brewers’ bullpen catchers. Corredor was to manage at Double-A Biloxi in 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic led to the cancellation of the Minor League season. Weisenburger was an active player in independent ball as recently as 2018.

With Corredor and Weisenburger coming in, it means longtime Brewers bullpen catcher Marcus Hanel will not be back in 2021, nor will fellow bullpen catcher Robinzon Diaz. Hanel, a Racine, Wis., native, was among the longest-tenured Brewers employees, having been named to his position on Dec. 1, 1999, after the end of an 11-year professional playing career. Hanel will stay busy with his four kids, ranging in age from a son in fifth grade to twin girls who are nearing college. He is taking new clients for private lessons at the Milwaukee-area Hitters Baseball Academy, which has produced top 100 prospects like Gavin Lux of the Dodgers and Jarred Kelenic of the Mariners.

“My heart’s always with the Brewers,” Hanel said.

“Marcus was certainly an important part of us for a long, long time,” Counsell said. “This is a physical job. It was time for someone new to do it … I feel great about our adds there. I feel like there are some other places [Corredor and Weisenburger] are going to help and be huge assets to us. So although it’s sad to see Marcus go, I think we’re in a really good place moving forward.”

Sedar, 59, has been working in the Brewers’ system even longer. When he arrived in 1992 as a Minor League outfield and baserunning coordinator, he was assigned to a big league Spring Training camp that included Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Jim Gantner in their final season as teammates. Sedar later served as a Minor League manager before joining then-manager Ned Yost’s Major League coaching staff prior to the 2007 season. After several seasons as first-base coach for Yost and subsequent Brewers manager Ken Macha, Sedar moved to coach third base for Ron Roenicke beginning in the 2011 season.

He had been there ever since, known for his sense of humor and an aggressive style that was encouraged by both Roenicke and Counsell. Stearns said Sedar would be in uniform during Spring Training and at Brewers home games, and would “continue to serve as a resource for Craig and our staff.”

“I’ll probably just help out doing whatever they want, since I’ve done a little bit of everything for the organization since 1992,” said Sedar, who expects to continue throwing batting practice despite knee surgery and two shoulder surgeries over the years, not to mention a flexor tendon injury in his non-throwing elbow in 2020 that he is trying to heal with rehab. “Wherever ‘Couns’ or David need me, I’ll be willing to pitch in and share my knowledge. I’ll be that extra coach, but when it comes to game time, I think I’ll be relaxing because I don’t think I’ll stay in the locker room. I just think that would be too nerve-racking. I’d be too antsy to do that.”

Most of all, Sedar will miss his direct connection to the fans. He was known for delivering sunflower seeds to fans in the front row at Miller Park, and developed friendships over the years with season ticket holders from St. Louis to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, where one group of fans kept detailed records of his sprint speed to the coach’s box.

“When David and ‘Couns’ gave me the opportunity to stay and do this stuff, I went, ‘You know what? Let’s try it,’” Sedar said. “Who knows, maybe it will ease up the beating [his body] takes.”