Maybe this is the Cubs’ penalty for stealing Pete Crow-Armstrong from the Mets four years ago. In a move no one outside of her immediate orbit saw coming, minor league hitting coach Rachel Folden has left the Cubs organization to become the HC for New York’s Double-A affiliate in Binghampton. Folden is very well respected within the industry and rose through the ranks with the Cubs to the role of hitting coach at Triple-A Iowa.
We’re not entirely sure why she’d make what appears to be a lateral move at best, but it could be a matter of philosophical differences or just having a clearer path to the highest level. Lord know the Mets haven’t been the most competent organization, so someone of Folden’s acumen should do exceptionally well with them.
Prior to joining the Cubs, Folden was a four-time All-American softball player at Marshall University and starred for five seasons in National Pro Fastpitch. She founded Folden Fastpitch in 2012 and has mentored innumerable hitters over the last decade-plus. Her ability to get the most out of her players is why Cubs director of hitting Justin Stone tabbed her for his staff over five years ago.
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“She’s going to be a star,” Stone told Jordan Bastian of MLB.com at the time. “She’s the first person I brought in for an interview. Even when I was interviewing with different teams, I brought this up in my own interview process, that this was important to me, because I knew wherever I was going to go, I was going to have to build a staff.”
Folden’s success isn’t just a matter of understanding hitting mechanics and technology, it’s about knowing her hitters as people. That’s why she was so keen to improve her Spanish as a way to communicate more effectively with players. Her selfless approach to player development has helped several young Cubs as they moved through the system, most notably PCA when he first came over and was working his way back from shoulder surgery.
“And I think a lot of coaches, myself included when I was a young coach, we want to credit,” Folden told CI soon after she joined the organization. “We want to help the players, but then we want the credit and we really make it about us.
“Something I’ve learned over the course the last few years. My career is over — I had a good one, I was a good player — and now it’s about helping them get to the pinnacle of whatever their career is, whether that’s an All-Star or whether that’s just making their high school team. Maybe that’s as good as it gets for them, but just helping them realize their potential is my job as a coach.”
I can’t say I’m happy about this because it both hurts the Cubs and helps the Mets, but Rachel is good people and I wish her the very best in this new role.
Ed. note: It’s hilarious to me to see folks crediting Mike Puma of the New York Post with being the first to report this news when a) Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register reported it about 3 hours earlier, and b) Folden’s X profile had been updated to show her Mets employment at least 3 hours before Birch’s tweet.
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