Poor Toby's Almanac...A Dog and his Pitching Coach
After seeing the pitching coach discussion during Friday's Happy Hour, decided we need a dog's primer on pitching coaches.
* Manager Ron Washington, at the end of last season, was told he could replace any coaches. He wanted Mark Connor back. The two got off to a slow start but were working much better together at the end of the season. Washington gained a healthy respect for Connor's knowledge and worth ethic.
* Leo Mazzone? Not a good idea. He had issues at the end of his time in Atlanta and again in Baltimore. His resume is attractive but let's not go there.
* Simple lesson learned about pitching coaches in 20 years of covering baseball: every pitching coach reaches and improves some pitchers, but misses out on others. They connect with some, fail on others.
* Nolan Ryan loved Tom House, the Mad Scientist with the Ph.D who had a million different theories and tried them all out with the Rangers. Others found him to be be a bit over their heads.
* Kenny Rogers didn't flourish as a Major League pitcher until House was gone and Claude Osteen was named pitching coach.
* Osteen was the old-style pitching coach who brought relative simplicity and the Dodgers approach to his staff. The Rangers had a 4.28 ERA in 1993 and Osteen was regarded as an excellent pitching coach. The Rangers had a 5.45 ERA in 1994 and Osteen was out the door.
* Rick Peterson was considered a genius with the Athletics - Barry Zito loved him - and a flop with the Mets. Some said he was too much of a self-promoter. Obviously he knows Washington well from their days with the Athletics.
* Bobby Valentine really wanted Mel Stottlemyre as his pitching coach.
* The typical pitching coaches loves his pitchers in Spring Training then grumbles about them being "fifth starters at best" in August.
* The Rangers won three division titles in 1996 and 1998-99 with Dick Bosman as their pitching coach. He was joined to the hip with manager Johnny Oates. Everything was great until the Rangers fell to last place in 2000. Then his pitchers turned against him and Oates, despite great personal anguish, fired him at the end of the season.
* People don't realize how much Oates agonized over that decision but Bosman was never held in high esteem by general manager Doug Melvin. The GM allowed Oates to pick his own coaches - every single one of them - but lobbied against Bosman from the start.
* Bosman to a pitcher on a mound visit: "I don't know what you're doing out here but Johnny doesn't like it so you better try something else."
* Larry Hardy replaced Dick Bosman. The Rangers had the lowest ERA in Spring Training in 2001 and owner Tom Hicks told everybody in Spring Training what a great job Hardy was doing. By June, the Rangers pitching was a mess and Hardy stepped down.
* It's hard to measure how far back Rangers pitching was set just because Oscar Acosta was hired as pitching coach in 2002. But it was considerable. That may have been the single dumbest move made by the Rangers in 36 years in Arlington. Definitely in the last 20.
* Jerry Narron, by the way, wanted Lee Tunnell.
* Orel Hershiser knows pitching. Hershiser knows much about many things. Like House, he was probably way over some people's heads.
* Jim Bouton on Jim Turner, the Yankees pitching coach in the '60's: "If a batter struck out on a 3-and-2 change, Turner would nod sagely and say: '3-and-2 change, boys, one of the most effective pitches in baseball.' If two innings later the same hitter homered off the same pitch, Turner would shake his head and exclaim, 'you can't throw a 3-and-2 change to the hitter.' Not in this ballpark.'"
* Of you've been around, you remember in 1988 when Bobby Witt was demoted to Triple A Oklahoma and worked with pitching coach Ferguson Jenkins. When he returned, he ripped off like 11 straight victories or something and everybody talked about what a great job Jenkins did with Witt.
* Turns out it was Oklahoma City teammate Mike Jeffcoat who was the one who straightened out Witt. But Jenkins got all the credit.
* Pitching coaches may be the single biggest target of displaced aggression known to man.
* Most pitching coaches teach the same thing. Most of it comes down to how they teach it. Connor is simple, direct, honest. There is no self-promotion, hidden agendas or flapdoodle. Only knowledge, passion and work ethic.
If we where to go after a pitching coach, I'd be looking at that Rick Peterson guy who was just let go by the Mets. He was the one behind the Harden/Mulder/Zito big 3 in Oakland a few years ago.
I respect the Rangers loyalty to Mark Connor, but I really wish they'd replace him - our pitchers seem like the only ones in the league who constantly have problems throwing strikes and getting ahead, and that is something you have to lay at the feet of the pitching coach. The way our pitchers have performed the last couple years, it's really a miracle Connor has this job still - just about any other club would have fired him before the All-Star break last season.
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Thanks, T.R., that was a thoughtful analysis. I get the impression that your view is that Connor is as good as anyone else is likely to be. That's probably true. An argument can be made, though, that it doesn't really matter. At some point accountability for poor performance becomes the issue. The thing I've struggled with is that last year the bullpen was very good and the starters were awful. This year the starters haven't been all that bad, but the bullpen has been generally poor. Connor can't be half good and half bad -- or can he?
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Just like any other coach or manager: they are only as good as the players they are given to work with - unhappy with the pitching staff? That is the responsbility of the GM who put the team together.
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Connor would look a lot better IF he had Volquez, Danks, Young, and Gallaraga as the core group.....IF Mike JEFFCOAT is the guy who got WITT to 17 wins, then he is the guy we need to hire as pitching coach. Anyone that can get Witt to dominate like he did during that stretch is well a magician. That is what this team needs a magician....Alas what happened to WITT, where did he go? He got traded by none other than Doug Melvin. Bobby "chunk" Witt, because everytime he chunked the ball it ended up in the bleachers. But you got to love nepotism, Bobby takes care of his brother Doug. So there you are..... Maybe they could hire Bobby Witt and he could go out there and say hey don't do what i did, waste my talent. Anything i tell you do exactly the opposite..... Which leads me to this name one pitcher that we have drafted and developed that was really special? I say Kevin Brown is the only one. Some may say Kenny Rogers, but it really is a short list. The best one we traded for was Aaron Sele, and of course the free agent Nolan Ryan. Maybe Charlie Hough for a while, but again a short list for 36 years of existence...... I think you first have to realize that it is all about the pitching. Even with the excitement over this young team, the pitchers are still few and far between, we are always looking to the future 2 to 3 years away and once those 3 years are up the pitcher is traded. Darling, Nen, Righetti, Danks, Volquez, Gallarraga, it has to stop no matter who the pitching coach is. This one is evidently huge friends with the gray suited ghost......How about Busby????
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TR,what is going on with the Rangers web site? Mike Hindman's blog is moving to the Dallas morning News (did he jump or was he pushed?), and the daily minor league round-up has disappeared. I smell a conspiracy! I could be wrong, but I suspect it's all part of the Kennedy assasination cover-up.....
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So who decided that Armando Gallaraga was a throw-away?
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"He that complies against his will, is of the same opinion still" Samuel Butler (1612-1680). I rather doubt that Butler was referring to the interaction between pitchers and pitching coaches, but it's apt none the less. Top tennis players and golfers have coaches to detect and correct mechanial errors that creep into their strokes, and I'm sure that piichers are no different. Does Mark Connor interact well with the pitchers the Rangers have? Impossible for outsiders to know, and all of us posters here are way outside. For me to say that "It's all Connor's fault-sack him!", or "You can't blame Connor-give him a pay raise!", would be arrogant and foolish. (I'm both, but not all the time...). If Wash likes him, then that's good enough for me.
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Anthony good point. We all are on the outside dispite what certain people on this site says. They only know what they read. Went to Sundays game and it makes 4 straight that I have seen the Rangers win. I have been going to Ranger games since Fergie was pitching and have never had them win that many in a row. It is so exciting to go to a game now. The direction Nolan is going is the right way. Also there is nothing wrong with winning now. Winning will bring the people back. An observation is that I notice the fans are not leaving the game early. Staying to the end.
As I remember the Kevin Brown deal the Rangers did not even offer him any thing. Correct me on this TR. Brown was a disprution and that is not what a club needs. Looking forward to Wednesday to see Ponson pitch. I am sure that he is going to be on his game. Wonder if our team is going to step up? This is going to be an important series.
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If this statement is true "our pitchers seem like the only ones in the league who constantly have problems throwing strikes and getting ahead, and that is something you have to lay at the feet of the pitching coach" then is it the other teams' pitching coaches that should get credit for the large amount of walks the Rangers are working instead of Washington as we keep hearing from Josh and TAG?
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I too saw Fergie pitch, fb.although it's been all but 34 years since I saw a live Rangers game. Do you remember the the guy who used to work the crowd selling things and who had a top hat with a water spigot in it? I remember a game where this chap kept the crowd amused during a rain delay(which nobody objected too, as we had had about 6 weeks of dry, hot weather). Fergie came back on for the top of the fifth, and with the Rangers having a small lead, struck out the side to ensure a complete game. Then the heavens opened and we all went home very happy. Memories....
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Pitching coaches... I assume the PC also works with the catchers? That would make sense. That way everyone is working together (unless your name is Ivan Rodriguez and you don't work with the pitchers except during games).
But, I have noticed the two games that Max has caught, both the starter and the relievers were very successful. The games that Salty is catching? Not so much.
How much "success in the pitching" can be laid at the feet of the catcher as opposed to the Pitching Coach?
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Ok TR, I knew you were in Connor's corner. I based my opinion on performance of the staff and things I see that I lay at the Pitching coach's feet, deserved or otherwise. The talent does have a lot to do with it but a good coach should be able to get the most out of it. The Rangers and their dearth of ptiching (especially starters) has been the same broken record for years. Bottom line is that the staff is last in the league in just about every team pitching statistical category, again.
Performance like that, especially over a long period of time, for any group in business, sports or otherwise will usually get somebody fired and deservedly so. I know Mark doesn't throw the ball but I don't write the code my programmers write but that does not make me any less accountable nor should it be so for Mark Connor.
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