SALEM, Va. – The Boston Red Sox have assigned its Minor League coaching staffs for the 2020 season. Corey Wimberly is returning for his second year as the Salem Red Sox manager and will be joined by several new names to the Roanoke Valley.
Nelson Paulino has been promoted from Class-A Greenville as the hitting coach, Brett Merritt joins the Boston system from Driveline as the pitching coach and Matt O’Neil will serve as a fourth coach.
Nick Kuchwara and Joe Hudson return as the athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach, respectively.
Corey Wimberly enters his third year overall as a skipper after leading his first full-season club to the Carolina League playoffs last year. A 2005 sixth-round draft pick by the Colorado Rockies, the Florida native amassed a career spanning a decade between the Rockies, Athletics, Indians, Pirates, Mets, Braves, Reds and Twins. He reached several AAA affiliates with a career .289 batting average before spending two seasons with the Leones de Yucatan of the Mexican League where he smashed a .339 average. Wimberly began his professional coaching career the following season as the 2017 manager of the short-season Lowell Spinners.
Nelson Paulino returns to the Red Sox where he spent three seasons as hitting coach prior to serving the same capacity in 2019 for Greenville. The Dominican Republic native is one of Boston’s more seasoned veterans with twenty-three years in the organization. A former infielder, Paulino saw time at all four interior positions with the Atlanta Braves organization. He joined Boston in 1998 working with the Dominican Summer League.
Brett Merritt is experiencing his first year with Boston after time with both Driveline Baseball and the College of Central Florida as a pitching and player development coach.Matt O’Neil will also enter his first professional season. The University of Rhode Island alum led the Rams and Atlantic 10 Conference his senior year at the plate.
Nick Kuchwara and Joe Hudson continue their roles as athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach after serving Salem in the same capacity last season. This is Kuchwara’s fifth season with Boston and third at Salem and Hudson’s second season with both.Salem’s 2019 pitching and hitting coaches, Lance Carter and Lance Zawadzki, have both been promoted to AA-Portland.
Corey Wimberly will lead the 2020 Salem Red Sox into the season April 9 at Haley Toyota Field against the Lynchburg Hillcats.