Red Sox 2012/2013 Offseason Thread

[Spitball]

I would say that there is not pitching coach alive that could bend pitchers to adopt a particular approach, not with the kind of money at stake these days. Pitchers simply are to different one to the next. Even what they do with and for each other is not more than a series of efforts to try something that might work.

 

No offense, Jung, but you are expressing your opinion here as though it is fact. I do respect your posts and hope I can disagree here without offending you.

 

You mention "the money at stake" and should realize that has made the pitching coach's job all that much more important. Not only are proper and excellent mechanics needed to maximize production but also to prevent injury to multi-million dollar arms.

 

There may be some established stars and cocky rookies who are hard to coach, but most baseball pitchers need to please the establishment.

 

It is true that a pitching coach has to understand each pitchers motion and try if he can to catalog them in such a way as to able to detect when one of them has gone awry. More importantly he has to be up to speed on the changes that the pitcher has made in the offseason if he has made any so that the coach is not one year behind where the pitcher is now. However there is no one way to pitch. Sure drop and drive power pitchers are going to use their lower bodies more and all power pitchers are more likely to come as much over the top as they can but you can't cookie cutter these guys. If a pitching coach had a bunch of soft tossers he could probably try to get them pitching to contact especially if they were cost controlled but I happen to think that the era of coaches "dictating" anything to players is gone.

 

For one thing, you won't find any drop and drive pitchers around in the big leagues in this era. Those mechanics have pretty much been eliminated by pitching coaches. They know more scientific approaches today.

 

You are right about there being a variety of pitchers and styles, but the basic principles are almost always present. Today, pitchers lead with their front hip which creates a fulcrum for a long stride necessary to create energy in an effective and safe way.

 

The Manager is the only guy this generation of players really cares about because he rules their playing time and even that control is clearly limited. You have to go back a lotta' years to find that higher level of control being exercised by hitting and pitching coaches.

 

Coaches may advise the Manager with regard to who should play or who should pitch but the Manager is going to decide who plays and who does not, at least with regard to day to day decisions, the GM having more to do with who is actually on the roster to begin with.

 

Coaches will help players and watch for changes in their motion or in the swing for a hitter but they are't dictating anything to these guys. Would you let some guy making a few $100k per year dictate to you what you are going to do to maintain your multimillion $$ stature?

 

You are a knowledgeable poster, but I believe you have some basic misconceptions about the business and science of performing on the baseball field.

[BSN07]

There's no f'n way... Is there?

 

If a market develops for him it's possible. He was a good SP for the Marlins the last time he pitched. It's like a SP who missed a season with injury, except he didn't have an injury.

 

Nats are interested on a minor league deal at the moment as well. That would make sense, He could be injury insurance for the rotation and they said they be ok with giving him an opt out date.

[BSN07]

You are a knowledgeable poster, but I believe you have some basic misconceptions about the business and science of performing on the baseball field.

 

Thing is, unless you play or work in the game in some manor it's hard to fathom the work and training it takes to create a consistent ball player/team.

 

I'm a perfect example. I joined this site 7 years ago as your typical fan, loved baseball, played as a kid up through High School, thought I knew the game. Started playing here again and got into coaching a couple years after that. 4 years later, I'm running the baseball program at our club and work with the Junior Netherlands team(21 and under). And my view of baseball and how things should be done when running a quality program probably couldn't be more different then it was when I started. You have to live it to have any chance of really grasping all of it.

[jung]

What I am saying is that whatever method the pitcher uses to get the ball to home plate.....he has learned it before getting to the ML's. He is not going to "learn" much from coaches in the ML's. That is not what coaches do at that level. In part the proof is Bard who went nowhere as a starter.... IMO did not get the assistance he needed to make that transition and while he likely would have failed anyway, things that he needed to know and do as a starter he never did nor made a single days improvement on while he started.

 

He was totally lost with regard to working his way through a lineup a second or third time through just as one example that should have been obvious so I will use it (although I am not sure he ever got to a third time last year). That is the sort of thing that a starting pitcher in the ML's is expected to know by the time he is pitching at the ML level and expecting that the pitching coach whether one of them, two of them or three of them was going to "teach" at that level from a position as a ML coach was simply wrong. Nor are they going to dictate to a ML pitcher. Help yes...dictate...not going to happen IMO. I fail to see the evidence in the modern game that coaches have that kind of power or authority. The money has just gotten way out of control....has been headed that way for decades and you really have to go back decades now to find coaches with that sort of power and authority to "teach" at a ML level.

 

You do find players going to get assistance in the off season from guys that did "teach" them at a developmental level or that work at a developmental level if they are trying to regain something they had or change something and you even see teams recommending somebody the player can go to but you really don't find teams controlling that sort of activity in the sense that a pro football team controls it. You won't find pro football players doing more than unsupervised work outs with each other in the off season. Everything else is really controlled at a level that baseball players would find wholly unsatisfactory.

[jung]

By the way, Kuroda is more a drop and drive pitcher, although Colon is probably the last of the classic drop and drive pitchers left standing....just barely. When Appier was around there was at least the two of them. The only other guy I can think of is Drabek.

[seabeachfred]

What were the alternatives? Everyday, same old s***. What were the alternatives????

 

 

....and keep in mind that I do like you as a member here, but you and SBF are the most negative members here. There is a difference between being critical and negative. I am critical of them, very critical.....but I am also very realistic. There was very little on the market that would have been worth the investment.

 

 

What is a stumblebum? Its not a real word since spell check detected an error with it as I typed it. When will you get used to the idea that we aren't spending money on bad investments this offseason?

 

BTW, we are making the playoffs this season, and its not going to be decided by Gomez playing 1B. It will be decided by our starting pitchers performing to their abilities.

 

We ARE going to sign Napoli and we ARE going to make the playoffs this coming season. Fine SCM, that sound swell. Now pray tell, how are we going to do it? You have that kind of confidence in the pitching we have? I guess if I were to describe you it would be as an optimistic critic, so have at it. Tell me if you will why we're making the playoffs this season. I'm all ears.

[seabeachfred]

Sox looking at Javier Vazquez, who says he's considering a return to MLB. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

 

Now this is some news to whet our appetites for Red Sox baseball this season. First we're looking at a twit named Bobby Abreu who is finished but apparently not according to the Boston front office and now we're looking at Javier Vasquez, who was a human pinata the two years he pitched for the Yankees against the AL East. Seems I recall him getting the s*** knocked out of him in the ACLS---now what year was that? And he was eight or nine years younger then. Well he fight fit the new Red Sox bill......old, out of shape and ineffective..Let's put him at #5 in our rotation.

 

Well how about Shawn Marcum or Kyle Loshe? Think they might be a mite better than Javier Vasquez

[Spitball]

Thing is, unless you play or work in the game in some manor it's hard to fathom the work and training it takes to create a consistent ball player/team.

 

I'm a perfect example. I joined this site 7 years ago as your typical fan, loved baseball, played as a kid up through High School, thought I knew the game. Started playing here again and got into coaching a couple years after that. 4 years later, I'm running the baseball program at our club and work with the Junior Netherlands team(21 and under). And my view of baseball and how things should be done when running a quality program probably couldn't be more different then it was when I started. You have to live it to have any chance of really grasping all of it.

 

I agree. Back in the mid-80s to the mid-90s, I coached and help run baseball clinics for youth baseball. You learn a lot.

[seabeachfred]

Ok you have taken "the glass is empty" look on every single SP. Go take that same look at all the other division SP and maybe you won't feel so bad about the Sox chances. In fact I will give it a whirl,

 

TB- Lost Shields, needs Hellickson and Moore to become 2-3, if they don't they are in trouble as they will have a harder time adding talent.

 

Baltimore- hahaha just look at the rotation, I don't even have to say anything.

 

Yankees- CC had elbow surgery, Pineda will give nothing this season, Hughes is as wonky as Bucc, Kuroda is good, but we know what happens to Japanese pitchers exposed over time in the AL East. Nova? he needs to take a big step forward

 

Toronto- Romero is terrible, Johnson is Beckett 2.0, Buerhle is a soft tossing LHP now and Dickey is a 38 year old KB riding a three year run of success. He will either regress or keep his streak going and probably be considered the greatest KB ever. What's more likely?

 

Now an alternate look at the Sox SP

 

I'm not willing to overlook Lester's body of work for his career for a 12 month span.

 

Doubront talent emerged last season when he was the head of the rotation for the beginning of the season. He hit a wall as he broke past his innings total from the previous season and understandably struggled for a period. I believe his last 5-6 starts last season were all good starts.

 

I probably dislike that moose knuckle Lackey more then anyone here. But even I can step back and look at his ineptitude in Boston being partly to blame from a bum elbow. He wouldn't be the first and won't be the last guy to bounce back from TJS.

 

I wasn't thrilled with Dempster. I would have rather had Marcum considering he has some AL experience. But given the Sox issues last year in the rotation, getting a guy that pitches close to 200 innings every season was important.

 

OK BSN, pretty damn good retort--but it still means that our staff, especially Lester and Buchholz have to step up big for us and they didn't do that last season. We need then this year and, yes, Lackey could be much better now that his elbow is sound---hopefully.

 

I do agree that the AL East is wide open and, yes, we COULD ACTUALLY COME ALL THE WAY BACK AND WIN IT (are now listening SCM...how's that for optimism). I still think we could have signed Marcum and made our rotation stronger. Here is a guy who pitched in the AL East and did rather well. Instead we signed Dempster who had trouble in the AL when he came over last summer until his last few starts.

 

OK, point well taken. Still I have doubts about Lester and Buchholz. Those two have to win big this season if we are to have any real chance at all. Gee, I guess even I can pollyann it once in awhile. Thanks for the retort.

[seabeachfred]

I think it would be a combo of Farrell coming back and Salty leaving.

 

And pitching coaches do make a difference. The good ones at least. Most of it is on the player, but coaches have the purpose.

 

And I think a good catcher can even be a bigger influence on the staff and that is why I want the Red Sox to trade Satalamacchia. The guy in his two years with us has proven to be a miserable defensive catcher. Not only his throwing, but his pitch calling and field generalship has seen our pitcher much less effective when he is behind the plate. I want the Red Sox to bite te bullet and turn the catching job over to Ryan Lavarnway. He suffered with his hitting as compared to 2011 when he was instructed to concentrate on defense. My guess that if he were installed at catcher our pitching might improve and by the middle of the season he would be crashing some balls over the monster. We put Middlebrooks in the lineup last year, we should do the same to Ryan this season, Boegarts the next and Bradley and Brentz after that, with hopefully two of our pitching prospects developed enough that we could add two of them to our rotation. We do need to get younger and promote our young talent and blend them in with our solid veterans.

[a700hitter]

I agree. Back in the mid-80s to the mid-90s, I coached and help run baseball clinics for youth baseball. You learn a lot.

By the time they reach the majors and certainly by the time they have reached Lester's level of experience and success in the majors they have mastered the fundamental mechanics. The refinement at the major league level is incredible as these guys have repeated their deliveries thousand upon thousands of times. The major league pitching coaches are doing far less tinkering with mechanics than coaches at lower levels. If pitching coaches made such a big difference, they would make a lot more money and they would be more valuable than the managers. The fact is that they make modest money and they show up in one organization after another like a game of musical chairs. They are very interchangeable. The teams with great pitching talent had the best talent evaluators who do a better job of identifying and drafting the talent. The organizations are not do ing such a great job developing the Matt Cains and Lincecums and so forth. They are doing a great job at finding them and drafting them.

[jacksonianmarch]

a700, the job at the big league level is harder than it is in the minors just because of what you are saying. These kids coming from the Dominican with horrid mechanics but 95mph arms need everything revamped. But when you have a guy whose mechanics look perfect but they're opening up a split second early or they are short-arming by a couple inches, then choosing the tinker is the art of the position. No matter how great the pitcher, someone familiar with their mechanics will help them, especially when little things are tipping them off kilter.

[jung]

And besides the pitching I have recently begun focusing some attention on the offense because my position is that they cannot pitch with the competing teams and won't hit the teams with solid pitching good enough to win enough of those games either.

 

This to me is an incredibly thin offense. Take Ortiz with his Acilles out of it. Then where are you? When the Sox brought in Agons, all be it another wrong headed move, they were adding Agons to Pedey, Ortiz, Youk who they thought still had something left, Ells, JD Drew and then got Crawford. They at least thought they had a sustainable offense. That team turned out to be a house of cards on so many levels.

 

This team is not a house of cards but it does not appear to be headed toward anything like the offensive depth that the 2011 team had even with Napoli. You can think of offense two ways....who comes in to fill the spot for the injured player....or who in the existing lineup picks up the slack enough. To think of it in terms of an injury free season is more foolhardy than depending on 5 SP question marks all putting plus signs in their respective boxes.

 

If Ortiz as old as he is and with a known issue breaks down, I don't see any way this team replaces him or his offense or even part of same. With the exception possibly of catcher, everyplace around the diamond and the outfield finds this team with critical players that must both produce at close to career best numbers and must do it for an entire season because there is close to nothing behind them. If Ells goes down we have Victorino. But that moves Kalish to full time RF and brings us (sound the trumpets)...Nava platooning regularly....just like that. WMB goes down...where are you....Gomez??? If Pedey goes down where are you....Ciriaco????? If any two infielders are injured at the same time...then where is your offense??? We have already seen that the only way Ells hits for power is if he is perfectly healthy. Even if he sustains an injury he can play with, take any chance he has of generating power and throw that out the window. This is not something we have to guess at any longer. This is stuff we know.

 

This offense is not IMO going to be that great even with everybody in place. But now even more than 2011 if any combination of Ortiz with either Pedey or WMB is out for any period of time...they are sunk offensively. This time I would say even Ortiz by himself for a considerable period is a hole that the Sox won't be able to fill.

 

So while we are for good reason focused on the starting pitching as the weakest element of this team by far, it is also looking like the weakest offensive team they will have started a season with in a good long time. They simply do not have the offensive firepower to stand off years by either Ortiz, Pedey or WMB and any injury to Ortiz for any length of time likely sinks them even further in the East. Any injury to any combination of two of Ortiz, Pedey and WMB and they could easily be cellar bound even if they are getting decent starting pitching and even if the sign Napoli. There is not enough firepower in the existing lineup to make up and not enough behind those players to make it up either.

 

If you want to make the case that they can be "respectable" meaning something like 3rd place in the East...fine. But to now suggest they are are competing for a WC I think is pretty far fetched at least based on the team they have right now. Not only is the starting pitching a huge basket of question marks but this is neither a scary offense with all its pieces nor is it one that can sustain injury particularly to Ortiz or most particularly any combination of two of Pedey, WMB and Ortiz.

[a700hitter]

a700, the job at the big league level is harder than it is in the minors just because of what you are saying. These kids coming from the Dominican with horrid mechanics but 95mph arms need everything revamped. But when you have a guy whose mechanics look perfect but they're opening up a split second early or they are short-arming by a couple inches, then choosing the tinker is the art of the position. No matter how great the pitcher, someone familiar with their mechanics will help them, especially when little things are tipping them off kilter.

Jacko, I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I acknowledge that it is much more difficult to spot flaws at the ML level which is why the major league pitching coaches have less of an impact than coaches at lower levels. If I had a dollar for every time that I heard that coaches spotted something in the mechanics of a struggling pitcher only to have the guy continue to struggle. I don't buy into the pitching coach guru theory. Leo Mazone was nothing when he left the Braves. I remember that people thought that Joe Kerrigan was a guru because the Sox staff put up good numbers under him. Of course they were led by Pedro who was other-worldly. Kerrigan never found success again. He was no guru. I am not saying that pitching coaches add nothing at the ML level. They help with preparedness and philosophies on attacking hitters etc., but Farrell was no big whiz straightening out mechanics his first time around. He's not going to watch some video of Lester and solve his problems. Lester will be helped much much more by pitching to a catcher other than Salty IMO.

[a700hitter]

And besides the pitching I have recently begun focusing some attention on the offense because my position is that they cannot pitch with the competing teams and won't hit the teams with solid pitching good enough to win enough of those games either.

 

This to me is an incredibly thin offense. Take Ortiz with his Acilles out of it. Then where are you? When the Sox brought in Agons, all be it another wrong headed move, they were adding Agons to Pedey, Ortiz, Youk who they thought still had something left, Ells, JD Drew and then got Crawford. They at least thought they had a sustainable offense. That team turned out to be a house of cards on so many levels.

 

This team is not a house of cards but it does not appear to be headed toward anything like the offensive depth that the 2011 team had even with Napoli. You can think of offense two ways....who comes in to fill the spot for the injured player....or who in the existing lineup picks up the slack enough. To think of it in terms of an injury free season is more foolhardy than depending on 5 SP question marks all putting plus signs in their respective boxes.

 

If Ortiz as old as he is and with a known issue breaks down, I don't see any way this team replaces him or his offense or even part of same. With the exception possibly of catcher, everyplace around the diamond and the outfield finds this team with critical players that must both produce at close to career best numbers and must do it for an entire season because there is close to nothing behind them. If Ells goes down we have Victorino. But that moves Kalish to full time RF and brings us (sound the trumpets)...Nava platooning regularly....just like that. WMB goes down...where are you....Gomez??? If Pedey goes down where are you....Ciriaco????? If any two infielders are injured at the same time...then where is your offense??? We have already seen that the only way Ells hits for power is if he is perfectly healthy. Even if he sustains an injury he can play with, take any chance he has of generating power and throw that out the window. This is not something we have to guess at any longer. This is stuff we know.

 

This offense is not IMO going to be that great even with everybody in place. But now even more than 2011 if any combination of Ortiz with either Pedey or WMB is out for any period of time...they are sunk offensively. This time I would say even Ortiz by himself for a considerable period is a hole that the Sox won't be able to fill.

 

So while we are for good reason focused on the starting pitching as the weakest element of this team by far, it is also looking like the weakest offensive team they will have started a season with in a good long time. They simply do not have the offensive firepower to stand off years by either Ortiz, Pedey or WMB and any injury to Ortiz for any length of time likely sinks them even further in the East. Any injury to any combination of two of Ortiz, Pedey and WMB and they could easily be cellar bound even if they are getting decent starting pitching and even if the sign Napoli. There is not enough firepower in the existing lineup to make up and not enough behind those players to make it up either.

 

If you want to make the case that they can be "respectable" meaning something like 3rd place in the East...fine. But to now suggest they are are competing for a WC I think is pretty far fetched at least based on the team they have right now. Not only is the starting pitching a huge basket of question marks but this is neither a scary offense with all its pieces nor is it one that can sustain injury particularly to Ortiz or most particularly any combination of two of Pedey, WMB and Ortiz.

It worries me greatly that Ortiz is still not fully healed. Without a healthy Ortiz, the team will struggle to score.

[a700hitter]

That's one organization in the 1970's.

 

Toronto did not have good SP in Farrell's tenure. Romero had one decent year and got over hyped. That and for a stretch there it seemed every SP hit the DL with some major injury. Hard to blame that on Farrell. All I know is Boston's pitching was much better while he was around.

Check his stats. Romero had two very good seasons in a row topping more than 200 innings each of those seasons. His game fell apart with the great Guru Farrell at the helm.

 

You think TB, ATL, Miami, Oakland and SF all teams that produce solid P are all just learning from one another in the BP?

I think those teams have the best talent evaluators for pitching. They do a much better job of identifying pitching talent and drafting it. Their secret is not their pitching coach. We had Curt Young for a year. His results are much better in Oakland for reasons other than the climate.

[jung]

What do we hear about coaches in this era....they need to be able to build relationships with the players....if you are have power....if you have control...you don't need to build relationships worth dick.

 

I would want a pitching coach that had the ability to catalog all of the various idiosyncrasies of my pitchers so that they could spot a change in an individual pitcher's motion and assist him in returning to his successful motion. Combine that with the ability to gain each pitcher's trust that as a Coach he has each of their best interests at heart....and ya' got something for a pitching coach. Anything heavier handed than that and at least IMO you have a recipe for being irrelevant. That would be most critical I think for a Boston pitching coach in light of the Bard fiasco because at the end of the day, you cannot consider what they did with Bard as a legitimate effort to turn him into a starter. Had they been willing to truly make a legit effort, they would have had to send him down to a developmental level so that he could have learned something about being a professional starter, something he had not done at any time in his professional career to that point! I said it and posted it at the time. We saw it repeated over and over again that. Bard did not know how to get through individual hitters as a starter, how to get though innings as a starter, simply did not have the beginning of a clue or even the means to figure it out and even finally said so. I even commented in game threads that I could not much tolerate the way they were leaving him out there to just twist in the wind on his own. But in truth that should have been expected from a ML level coaching staff. They are not there to teach.

 

If I were looking at that situation as a pitcher I would fault Bard for being naive enough to think he would be able to pull that off to the extent apparently of asking to start but I would also be critical and very likely more critical of the Boston brass especially the FO for making that whole mess appear to be a legit effort for their own purposes. In retrospect, that sucked. It was a fiasco...they sacrificed that kid for their own purposes. Maybe it says more about how much talent they really thought Bard had to be willing to do what they did. Does not change what they did. If I were a pitcher, I would not trust that FO bunch as far as I could throw them. At least the Sox will benefit from Farrell being able to say, not on my watch.

[Bellhorn04]

I think those teams have the best talent evaluators for pitching. They do a much better job of identifying pitching talent and drafting it.

 

I was thinking about this, and I started thinking about the pitching staff of the 2004 champs. I went through all the starters and relievers, and holy crap, not a single member of this great staff was a home-grown product. Well, no, that's not quite true, we drafted Schilling but he only actually pitched for us his final few years. Crazy.

[Spitball]

By the time they reach the majors and certainly by the time they have reached Lester's level of experience and success in the majors they have mastered the fundamental mechanics. The refinement at the major league level is incredible as these guys have repeated their deliveries thousand upon thousands of times. The major league pitching coaches are doing far less tinkering with mechanics than coaches at lower levels. If pitching coaches made such a big difference, they would make a lot more money and they would be more valuable than the managers. The fact is that they make modest money and they show up in one organization after another like a game of musical chairs. They are very interchangeable. The teams with great pitching talent had the best talent evaluators who do a better job of identifying and drafting the talent. The organizations are not do ing such a great job developing the Matt Cains and Lincecums and so forth. They are doing a great job at finding them and drafting them.

 

As someone else said, pitching coaches are great, good, all right, and bad. Managers, GMs, and other components can also be measured as such...but you cannot declare without proof (in otherwords simply expressing an opinion) without some proof.

 

I can point to Johnny Sain (a friend of mine) who turned numerous journeymen and good pitchers into team aces. Look them up yourself, but Jim Bouton, Ralph Terry, Mudcat Grant, Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Jim Kaat, Earl Wilson (a personal favorite), Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain, Wilber Wood, and Stan Bahnsen all became 20 game winners with Sain.

 

Orel Hershiser credits Dave Wallace with his turn around from a good to great pitcher. Nolan Ryan credits Billy Muffett with his teaching him to control his fastball, and Tom House for prolonging his career. Steve Carlton has credited Ray Ripplemeyer for his slider. Historians credit Norm Sherry with controlling Sandy Koufax incredible stuff. Larry Rothchild developed average major leaguer starters Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, and Robb Nen into star pitchers. Roger craig taught Jack Morris and others the split finger. Art Fowler turned fifth starter Ron Guidry into a 25 game winner. Dave Duncan turned several pitchers' careers around.

 

And there are lots of others..what proof have you got???

[jung]

Look at how far back you are having to go to find these guys. Even then you are not talking about roles that allowed coaches to dictate what the player would do based on some authority passed on to them through the FO to the Manager and down to them. When you go back as far as Koufax...yes.... you are really going back to the era where the player had far far less control over his future, his present his anything. You are going back to the era when most of them held down other jobs in the off season just to make ends meet.

 

Once you get up to the Al Leiters and even Jack Morris, coaches don't have the authority to do more than assist the player. He may offer much assistance or little assistance but it won't be by dictate. It will be because the pitcher seeks it out and wants the aid of the pitching coach. The point is still the same as far as i am concerned. In the contemporary game anointing pro ML baseball coaches as major contributors from the perspective of teaching is simply unrealistic and really saddles them with more responsible than they have. It is unfair as much as anything else as they are as powerless as pro basketball assistant coaches. If they have some knowledge to pass onto the player it will be because the player is open and accepting and if the player does not want it the coach can stamp his little feat and stammer till hell freezes over.

[User Name]

There are plenty of examples of guys in the current era who've found success after being journeymen or having a rough period and credit their pitching coach with fixing their mechanics/teaching them a new pitch/ changing the way they attack hitters.

 

Guys like Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Joel Pineiro, Kyle Lohse, Chris Carpenter (notice a trend for Dave Duncan?) among others are all guys who were heavily influenced at one point or another by the teachings of their pitching coach.

 

I don't understand the inclination to try to dismiss the usefulness or acumen of people who do this for a living. A lot of fans are very knowledgeable about the game, but watching and experiencing it are different things. If pitching coaches were as useless as some believe them to be, they'd be out of a job.

[Spitball]

There are plenty of examples of guys in the current era who've found success after being journeymen or having a rough period and credit their pitching coach with fixing their mechanics/teaching them a new pitch/ changing the way they attack hitters.

 

Guys like Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Joel Pineiro, Kyle Lohse, Chris Carpenter (notice a trend for Dave Duncan?) among others are all guys who were heavily influenced at one point or another by the teachings of their pitching coach.

 

I don't understand the inclination to try to dismiss the usefulness or acumen of people who do this for a living. A lot of fans are very knowledgeable about the game, but watching and experiencing it are different things. If pitching coaches were as useless as some believe them to be, they'd be out of a job.

 

Well said.

[a700hitter]

As someone else said, pitching coaches are great, good, all right, and bad. Managers, GMs, and other components can also be measured as such...but you cannot declare without proof (in otherwords simply expressing an opinion) without some proof.

 

I can point to Johnny Sain (a friend of mine) who turned numerous journeymen and good pitchers into team aces. Look them up yourself, but Jim Bouton, Ralph Terry, Mudcat Grant, Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Jim Kaat, Earl Wilson (a personal favorite), Mickey Lolich, Denny McLain, Wilber Wood, and Stan Bahnsen all became 20 game winners with Sain.

 

Orel Hershiser credits Dave Wallace with his turn around from a good to great pitcher. Nolan Ryan credits Billy Muffett with his teaching him to control his fastball, and Tom House for prolonging his career. Steve Carlton has credited Ray Ripplemeyer for his slider. Historians credit Norm Sherry with controlling Sandy Koufax incredible stuff. Larry Rothchild developed average major leaguer starters Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, and Robb Nen into star pitchers. Roger craig taught Jack Morris and others the split finger. Art Fowler turned fifth starter Ron Guidry into a 25 game winner. Dave Duncan turned several pitchers' careers around.

 

And there are lots of others..what proof have you got???

 

I was expressing an opinion based on conversations with pitchers who I have met. I said that this wasn't a scientific survey, and yes it is based merely on anectdotal first hand information. Your evidence is also anecdotal and none of it seems to be first hand information. Yes, you knew Sain, but how many pitchers told you that Sain straightened out their mechanical flaws. I was not making a blanket attack on the usefulness of MLB pitching coaches contrary to what you may be thinking. Yes, there are good, bad and average pitching coaches just like with everything else. However, it is my opinion that their value lies in areas other than spotting and correcting mechanical flaws, which at the MLB level is very hard to do especially with veterans. I don't buy into the notion of pitching gurus who can turn around pitchers careers. Yes, it happens at times, but not as often as people think IMO. Again, this is my opinion as I have stated over and over. I believe they make suggestions and try to help pitchers tinker all the the time, but rarely do they spot a mechanical flaw that turns a guy around. If there was a pitching coach who could do that, he'd be worth his weight in gold considering the importance of pitching and the Yankees would be collecting them like Free agents. There is no bidding war over pitching coaches.

 

As for Farrell, I do not think he is a very good pitching coach. I didn't see the results when he was with us nor at Toronto. Of recent Sox pitching coaches, I think Wallace was the bet. Again, just my opinion, but I have as much proof of my opinion as you do.

 

Edit: BTW, Norm Sherry was the backup catcher for the Dodgers when he helped out Koufax.

[Palodios]

I think those teams have the best talent evaluators for pitching. They do a much better job of identifying pitching talent and drafting it. Their secret is not their pitching coach. We had Curt Young for a year. His results are much better in Oakland for reasons other than the climate.

 

The reality is that the teams with the best pitchers like Seattle, Tampa, Oakland, St Louis, San Francisco... all have pitcher friendly parks. It is turning into a huge problem for the rest of the league because they end up trading away elite pitchers who turn into a pumpkin somewhere else or vice versa.

 

We see it all the time in Boston. A guy leaves Boston and he turns into a superstar pitcher. A superstar comes in and he falls apart. It has less to do about pitching coaches, and more about the places that balls can land.

[User Name]

The Rangers, Reds and Detroit all have had very good/great pitching staffs the last couple of years and they play in horrendous ballparks. The ballpark is less important than the ability of the pitcher IMO.

[jung]

Near as I can tell, agents have more to say about what their players do or don't do these days than coaches or for basketball, assistant coaches. If you want to really have an impact you have to be directly attached to the money as in:

- I make a cut of what you make

or

- I am paid by you to provide you a specific service like help do thus and so in the off season.

 

Heck I can get nostalgic with the best of them when it comes to baseball and while I would not want to see players back at the level of indentured servants they once were, I would love to go at least far enough back where the money had not corrupted the sport so.

 

How often did we hear that one of the major issues that Tito had his last year was how much the players noted that he did not have a deal from the Sox beyond that last season. There was a time when it was not at all about the money (you just could not make enough). There was an era when it was partially about the money and one where it was mostly about the money. Now it is just about all about the money with players noting who makes what and making judgements about whether they will blow a guy off completely or not based on where he is in the hierarchy of pay scale. That is how much it has become all about the money.

 

All it really took for Tito to lose his players was for his pay in the hierarchy of money to fall to the level of dog meat as in "Tito has no contract for next season". That is all it took for a guy that cut his players every possible break to turn into a piece of garbage attached to the bottom of their shoes.

 

That is why I commented that I would want a pitching coach today that was an informational wiz...who could catalog opposing hitters and his own pitchers in a way that was useful and relevant. Graft that guy onto a guy that can earn the trust of the staff pitchers in the sense of making each of them feel like his main interest is in them as individual pitchers with individual goals and aspirations that he as a coach is willing to subjugate himself to and ya' got something.

 

I don't think a Manager at the ML level any longer tells a coach to go help pitcher X to do thus and so. I think a Manager MIGHT tell his pitching coach to go ASK player X if he can help him do thus and so. That is an entirely different perspective from which to approach the job and it effects everything including who is willing to take that sort of a job.

[Lucienbel]

Near as I can tell, agents have more to say about what their players do or don't do these days than coaches or for basketball, assistant coaches. If you want to really have an impact you have to be directly attached to the money as in:

- I make a cut of what you make

or

- I am paid by you to provide you a specific service like help do thus and so in the off season.

 

Heck I can get nostalgic with the best of them when it comes to baseball and while I would not want to see players back at the level of indentured servants they once were, I would love to go at least far enough back where the money had not corrupted the sport so.

 

How often did we hear that one of the major issues that Tito had his last year was how much the players noted that he did not have a deal from the Sox beyond that last season. There was a time when it was not at all about the money (you just could not make enough). There was an era when it was partially about the money and one where it was mostly about the money. Now it is just about all about the money with players noting who makes what and making judgements about whether they will blow a guy off completely or not based on where he is in the hierarchy of pay scale. That is how much it has become all about the money.

 

All it really took for Tito to lose his players was for his pay in the hierarchy of money to fall to the level of dog meat as in "Tito has no contract for next season". That is all it took for a guy that cut his players every possible break to turn into a piece of garbage attached to the bottom of their shoes.

 

That is why I commented that I would want a pitching coach today that was an informational wiz...who could catalog opposing hitters and his own pitchers in a way that was useful and relevant. Graft that guy onto a guy that can earn the trust of the staff pitchers in the sense of making each of them feel like his main interest is in them as individual pitchers with individual goals and aspirations that he as a coach is willing to subjugate himself to and ya' got something.

 

I don't think a Manager at the ML level any longer tells a coach to go help pitcher X to do thus and so. I think a Manager MIGHT tell his pitching coach to go ASK player X if he can help him do thus and so. That is an entirely different perspective from which to approach the job and it effects everything including who is willing to take that sort of a job.

 

I like this analysis and a large part of this argument from each side seems to supports it.

 

I have no doubt pitching coaches do have an impact on the team, but the pitcher also has to be willing to listen..... And I agree that money and agents probably have an impact in the way that some guys feel they really don't need to listen.

 

When pitchers like Halladay, Lee, Carpenter and Lohse are mentioned it seems that they were all guys willing to listen, and Duncan was in a position to gain these guys attention as well..... In turn they did end up listening and look what happened.

 

I also think the Curt Young argument also seems to sort of support this. From what I saw on TV and at games, which is of course limited to what you can see with your eyes, he was out on the mound less than any pitching coach I've seen in Boston. This very well could be because our pitchers didn't really listen to him. He could also have more success in Oakland because they're almost always young pitchers coming up through the system for the first time, which likely would have them more willing to listen. Of course, this is totally hypothetical but it makes sense.

 

At the end of the day, it does seem that the money people make in baseball now and the way that contracts and other things on the more bureaucratic side of the game work entitle some players to not listen and really not catch any flak for not listening.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Hey a700 - You should go listen to the WEEI Hot Stove report on 1/3/12. They interview Theo, and he talks about how Webster and De La Rosa were bigger returns to the Sox than the salary relief because they are such good prospects. The Cubs did a lot of scouting of them because they were in talks regarding a few trades (Dempster) at the deadline.

 

Also, in Keith Law's chat yesterday, here's what he was asked and said:

 

Ryan (MA)

 

After watching his 2011 age-22 starts on mlb do com, I think Rubby De La Rosa has been massively underplayed as part of The Trade as has his future impact on the Red Sox. I've seen people say he is going to end up in the bullpen. There is absolutely no way. Where do you see him settling in, middle of a rotation guy?

Klaw (1:52 PM)

 

I see him as a starter too. I wonder if he's been undersold because he's not on prospect lists, so it's harder to say that "he was the Nth best prospect in LA's system" to summarize his value in a few words.

 

Basically, he's being undersold because he's got too much MLB time to be on prospect lists, so people don't recognize the talent he's got.

[a700hitter]

The reality is that the teams with the best pitchers like Seattle, Tampa, Oakland, St Louis, San Francisco... all have pitcher friendly parks. It is turning into a huge problem for the rest of the league because they end up trading away elite pitchers who turn into a pumpkin somewhere else or vice versa.

 

We see it all the time in Boston. A guy leaves Boston and he turns into a superstar pitcher. A superstar comes in and he falls apart. It has less to do about pitching coaches, and more about the places that balls can land.

Yes, that is a huge factor.

[a700hitter]

Hey a700 - You should go listen to the WEEI Hot Stove report on 1/3/12. They interview Theo, and he talks about how Webster and De La Rosa were bigger returns to the Sox than the salary relief because they are such good prospects. The Cubs did a lot of scouting of them because they were in talks regarding a few trades (Dempster) at the deadline.

 

Also, in Keith Law's chat yesterday, here's what he was asked and said:

 

 

 

Basically, he's being undersold because he's got too much MLB time to be on prospect lists, so people don't recognize the talent he's got.

I read about Theo's remarks. He also predicted that 2012 would be a big year for the Red Sox. While I respect your research with regard to prospects, I have not held Theo in high regard for some time with regard to his ability at evaluating pitching talent.