Bobby Cox team featured such future major leaguers as Ron Guidry, Mickey Klutts, Terry Whitfield and Juan Bernhardt. Overall, Cox had a highly successful six-year tenure as a minor league manager, compiling a record of 459 wins and 387 defeats (.543) with two league championships. He then spent the 1977 season as the first base coach on Billy Martin's staff with the World Series–winning Yankees before beginning his MLB managerial career. Cox replaced Dave Bristol as the manager of the Atlanta Braves prior to the 1978 season, inheriting a team that had finished last in the league during the previous two seasons
Bobby Rose (baseball) and announced his second retirement in March before the start of the regular season. Rose is remembered as one of the best foreign players in Japanese baseball history. He was 71 at-bats shy of passing Leron Lee for the top spot in career batting average (at least 4000 at-bats are required to qualify for the record), and hit over .300 for seven of his eight seasons in Japan. He also hit three cycles during his career (the most in Japanese baseball history). In 2018, Rose was hired to be the hitting coach for the single A Delmarva Shorebirds. Bobby Rose