This week in baseball.

What is it? It's an opportunity for me to share what I know, what I'm thinking and what I've learned with you, the Five Tool reader. I am going to highlight something at the following five levels of baseball: MLB, Power Five, Non-Power Five DIs, DIIs and DIIIs, Junior College and High School. Each week I will pick a topic to cover for each level as a way to keep people posted on all things baseball. Want to be in the know about what's happening in the game you love across all levels? I hope I can help. 

For this week, I wanted to highlight five new coaches or staffs that will be kicking off their stints at new spot.

(photo courtesy Baylor Athletics)

HIGH SCHOOL: Philip Schwarz - Cy Woods High School

New Head Coach Philip Schwarz comes to Cy Woods from Cuero where he had been the coach since the 2012-2013 school year. As the winner of five district championships, more than 30 playoff games, and five district Coach of the Year awards, Schwarz inherits a loaded roster in his inaugural year at his new post. In his senior class alone he has players that have signed with or committed to Texas A&M (Brady Sullivan), Louisiana (Chase Morgan), Texas State (Ethan Farris), Baylor (Mason Green), TCU (Sam Myers), and Houston (Tristan Russell) amongst others. Coach Schwarz will look to make waves in a tough District 16-6A as the Wildcats vie to build on a playoff season last year where they lost in the first round to Klein Oak.

JUNIOR COLLEGE: Tyler Johnson - McLennan CC

New head coach Tyler Johnson will look to replace junior college and state of Texas coaching legend Mitch Thompson, who left for Baylor. A year removed from winning the NJCAA World Series, the #BosqueBoys chose then assistant Johnson to take over the storied Waco-based program. A rising star in the industry, coach Johnson will attempt to carry on the tradition of a program that has made it to Grand Junction eight times. McLennan finds itself ranked inside the top 10 and as high as second in the preseason rankings. A catcher by trade, Johnson grew up on a baseball field as the son of Oklahoma head coach and noted pitching guru, Skip Johnson. In just his fifth full season coaching in college, Johnson will look to a staff of Peter Stark, Christian Reyes, P.J. Carmichael and Blake Allemand to lead the Highlanders.

Non-Power Five Division I: Clay Van Hook - University of Texas-Arlington

First-time head coach Clay Van Hook takes over a Maverick program that is looking to build a name for itself in the college baseball landscape. The Brenham native will use a model similar to how Rice built itself into a powerhouse. The Owls build a wall around the Houston talent and Van Hook will look to to the same in the loaded DFW area. Van Hook made strong hires by tapping Mike Taylor and Mike Trapasso as his assistants. With the on-field and recruiting experience of Taylor and Trapasso, Van Hook will be able to focus on how he wants to build his program. Van Hook was hired fresh off a CWS final series berth where he led an Oklahoma offense that caught fire down the stretch. A national championship winner himself at the University of Texas, Van Hook played for and coached under some of the games biggest names in Augie Garrido and Wayne Graham.

Power Five: Mitch Thompson - Baylor

The aforementioned Mitch Thompson looks to return a proud Baylor program to the winning ways that he helped build in the early 2000s. The recruiting coordinator of a program that made a trip to Omaha in 2005, won regionals in 1999, 2003, and 2005, and won the Big 12 in 2000, 2005, and 2012, Thompson never left Waco after making a move to lead the McLennan program for the 2014 season. The winner of the 2021 NJCAA World Series, Thompson took the McLennan program to new heights as a perennial winner before returning to the place where he was an assistant for eighteen years. To help guide the Bears, Thompson chose familiar faces in former Baylor catcher Zach Dillon and former McLennan Pitching Coach James Leverton, a Texas Tech and Rockwall High School standout.

MLB: Bruce Bochy - Texas Rangers

In hiring Bruce Bochy, the Rangers are getting a manager with three World Series titles as the skipper of the San Francisco Giants. As one of only twelve managers with more than 2,000 wins, Bochy brings a championship pedigree to an organization starved to return to its once winning ways. Having sat out the past three seasons, Bochy appears energized and convinced that Rangers ownership is willing to invest their resources to make the Rangers a real contender. As evidenced by their spending in the past two offseasons, the roster has some real star power with the signings of Jacob deGrom, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Nathan Eovaldi. 

Potential newcomers Josh Jung and Jack Leiter also give fans some exciting young players to expect in the coming years. General manager Chris Young used his relationship, having played for him in 2006, to lure Bochy out of retirement and back to the dugout. Another familiar name to Ranger fans, Mike Maddux makes his return to lead what hopes to be one of the better pitching staffs in recent memory in Arlington. Young and Bochy also brought on former Ranger Will Venable to be the bench coach. A unique distinction that Venable and Young share is that they are the only two athletes in Ivy League history to be both first team All-Ivy League in both basketball and baseball. Thanks to Bochy and some aggressive offseason moves, there is some excitement heading to Globe Life for the first time in a while.

Drew Bishop