Nats fill out coaching staff

The Washington Nationals named their coaching staff for 2010 on Friday, bringing back three members of the 2009 staff and adding a trio of connections from manager Jim Riggleman’s past jobs in baseball.

Rick Eckstein (hitting coach), Pat Listach (third-base coach) and Steve McCatty (pitching coach) return in their 2009 roles. John McLaren, for whom Riggleman worked in Seattle in 2008, will be the bench coach. Riggleman is also bringing Jim Lett, who’d worked with him on the Dodgers’ coaching staff, to be the bullpen coach. Dan Radison, who was on Riggleman’s staffs in San Diego and Chicago, will be the first-base coach.

The 2010 staff will be more of a veteran group than anything former manager Manny Acta had put together - only Eckstein and Listach are under 50, and the other four coaches have all been in baseball for more than 25 years.

With former Nationals bullpen coach Randy Knorr becoming the manager at Class AA Harrisburg, the Nationals needed a bullpen coach with catching experience, which made Lett a good fit for the staff. He has been a bench coach for four major league teams and was the bullpen coach on Jim Tracy’s staff from 2001 to 2004 with the Dodgers, where Riggleman was the bench coach.

Radison had been the minor league hitting instructor for the last three seasons with the Cardinals, where he’d worked with Eckstein. McLaren was replaced by Riggleman after he was fired as Seattle’s manager in 2008 and spent 2009 scouting for Tampa Bay.

In other news, right-handed pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who was scratched from Saturday’s Arizona Fall League championship game when he twisted his left knee Thursday, will not need surgery. Dr. Lewis Yocum examined Strasburg in Los Angeles and found a dislocation in Strasburg’s left knee. The injury will be fine with rest and physical therapy, a team spokesman said, and Strasburg will be fine for the start of spring training.