Yankees announce 2015 coaches: Tony Pena moves to first base, Rob Thomson new bench coach

After announcing their new hires Sunday afternoon, the Yankees have announced some big changes to the coaching staff for 2015. Joe Espada, who was announced as infield coach yesterday, will take Rob Thomson's job at third base in 2015. Thomson moves into the bench coach role previously occupied by Tony Pena, who will now serve as the team's new first base coach.

The good news here is that Thomson is getting booted away from third base, where he was nothing short of a disaster in 2014. It's unclear why he receives a de facto promotion to bench coach for being awful, but I'm not paid to make these decisions. Jeff Pentland will be the hitting coach with Alan Cockrell serving as his assistant. Larry Rothschild is obviously still the pitching coach and Gary Tuck remains the bullpen coach.

Hopefully Joe Girardi keeps his temper in check this season, because Thomson will be leading the team every time Girardi is forced to watch the rest of the game from the clubhouse. That's kind of a scary thought. At least he can't wave in runners from the dugout, I guess.

What do you think led the team to moving Tony Pena to first base in favor of Thomson? How did the man manage to work himself into a promotion? Help us all make sense of this.