Mr. B, Sweeney sounds like an exciting hire. So will Paul Gibson remain Director Pitching for the minors and report directly to Sweeney, or would Sweeney have a say re: how the organization is structured?
I am really excited about these changes. I realize that Picollo was a DM student, but what I'm seeing from him isn't DM. He's moving. He's making changes. This is what we need. And Sherman and Picollo showed us they aren't afraid to make the changes that needed to be made. Bravo! I think more people will be excited this upcoming season.
Great article! I recently read an interview JJ did with David Laurila at fangraphs. He mentioned how the pitching coach they hire and the "manager in the pitching department we'll put together" will be key to each pitcher taking the next step. Any thoughts on who the pitching department manager is/will be? Is that Gibson? Or possibly Bannister/outside hire? Keep up the good work! What an exciting offseason!
Expanding upon my earlier comment…I continue to be mystified by the unfounded assertion that Greinke will automatically be a great pitching coach. It seems to me that "Ted Williams syndrome" is much more likely.
Williams failed as a hitting coach and a manager primarily because he couldn't understand how other people were unable to do what came so easily and naturally to him. I have no trouble picturing that same thing happening with Greinke. Williams was a unicorn, an utterly unique talent. In his own way so is Zack. The stage has been set for more Ted Williams syndrome.
I also offer into evidence Babe Ruth's managerial "career." The more unique and uber-talented a player is, the less likely it is that he'll be able to understand or help players who only have "normal" levels of ability by MLB standards.
Over the years Greinke has developed an amazingly huge arsenal of pitches. Sometimes it looks as if he's out there on the mound conducting physics experiments involving a baseball. Does anybody really think there are (or will be) other pitchers in the Royals organization who are both able and willing to do the same….successfully? Nobody else in MLB has been able to do it Zack's way for at least 20 years now.
Managers who have been successful recently (Kevin Cash, Terry Francona, Joe Maddon and even Ned Yost) were fringe MLB ballplayers at best, and thus better equipped to understand and help players who were struggling i.e., those who weren't uber-talented as Greinke is (meaning the vast majority of MLB players.) Maddon never advanced beyond A ball. Cash had a career MLB batting average of .183. Yost was slightly better at .212. Francona had a career OPS+ of just 81.
Yes, Dusty Baker was more than a fringe ballplayer but he was hardly the equivalent of Greinke, let alone Ted Williams. I'll also point out that it took him 3 full decades to finally win a World Series as a manager. The law of averages finally worked in his favor.
I'm fairly optimistic about Brian Sweeney (read his bio) because he had to fight and scratch and claw for every minute he's gotten to spend in professional baseball. I prefer that resume to those of Randy Johnson and Pedro and Schilling and Verlander and Kershaw. And Zack Greinke.
It's journeyman pitcher Mike Maddux, not his HOF brother Greg, who turned out to be a pretty decent pitching coach.
….and another thing: how often during last year's telecasts did we see or hear about the young starters gathered around Zack as he dispensed his pearls of wisdom?
Even with Brady Singer starting to look like a legit MLB pitcher, the overall numbers among the pitchers - especially the starters, with whom Zach had most of his conversations - were abysmal. Whether you looked at BB:K ratio or ERA or ERA+ or WHIP or BB/9IP or OPS allowed, all of those numbers told the same story and it was horrifying.
Perhaps those pearls of wisdom from Zack aren't quite as valuable as some folks seem to imagine. They certainly produced very little in terms of tangible results.
I'm not ashamed of the noises I made reading this article.
Mr. B, Sweeney sounds like an exciting hire. So will Paul Gibson remain Director Pitching for the minors and report directly to Sweeney, or would Sweeney have a say re: how the organization is structured?
I am really excited about these changes. I realize that Picollo was a DM student, but what I'm seeing from him isn't DM. He's moving. He's making changes. This is what we need. And Sherman and Picollo showed us they aren't afraid to make the changes that needed to be made. Bravo! I think more people will be excited this upcoming season.
Great article! I recently read an interview JJ did with David Laurila at fangraphs. He mentioned how the pitching coach they hire and the "manager in the pitching department we'll put together" will be key to each pitcher taking the next step. Any thoughts on who the pitching department manager is/will be? Is that Gibson? Or possibly Bannister/outside hire? Keep up the good work! What an exciting offseason!
Expanding upon my earlier comment…I continue to be mystified by the unfounded assertion that Greinke will automatically be a great pitching coach. It seems to me that "Ted Williams syndrome" is much more likely.
Williams failed as a hitting coach and a manager primarily because he couldn't understand how other people were unable to do what came so easily and naturally to him. I have no trouble picturing that same thing happening with Greinke. Williams was a unicorn, an utterly unique talent. In his own way so is Zack. The stage has been set for more Ted Williams syndrome.
I also offer into evidence Babe Ruth's managerial "career." The more unique and uber-talented a player is, the less likely it is that he'll be able to understand or help players who only have "normal" levels of ability by MLB standards.
Over the years Greinke has developed an amazingly huge arsenal of pitches. Sometimes it looks as if he's out there on the mound conducting physics experiments involving a baseball. Does anybody really think there are (or will be) other pitchers in the Royals organization who are both able and willing to do the same….successfully? Nobody else in MLB has been able to do it Zack's way for at least 20 years now.
Managers who have been successful recently (Kevin Cash, Terry Francona, Joe Maddon and even Ned Yost) were fringe MLB ballplayers at best, and thus better equipped to understand and help players who were struggling i.e., those who weren't uber-talented as Greinke is (meaning the vast majority of MLB players.) Maddon never advanced beyond A ball. Cash had a career MLB batting average of .183. Yost was slightly better at .212. Francona had a career OPS+ of just 81.
Yes, Dusty Baker was more than a fringe ballplayer but he was hardly the equivalent of Greinke, let alone Ted Williams. I'll also point out that it took him 3 full decades to finally win a World Series as a manager. The law of averages finally worked in his favor.
I'm fairly optimistic about Brian Sweeney (read his bio) because he had to fight and scratch and claw for every minute he's gotten to spend in professional baseball. I prefer that resume to those of Randy Johnson and Pedro and Schilling and Verlander and Kershaw. And Zack Greinke.
It's journeyman pitcher Mike Maddux, not his HOF brother Greg, who turned out to be a pretty decent pitching coach.
….and another thing: how often during last year's telecasts did we see or hear about the young starters gathered around Zack as he dispensed his pearls of wisdom?
Even with Brady Singer starting to look like a legit MLB pitcher, the overall numbers among the pitchers - especially the starters, with whom Zach had most of his conversations - were abysmal. Whether you looked at BB:K ratio or ERA or ERA+ or WHIP or BB/9IP or OPS allowed, all of those numbers told the same story and it was horrifying.
Perhaps those pearls of wisdom from Zack aren't quite as valuable as some folks seem to imagine. They certainly produced very little in terms of tangible results.