Being the pitching coach of the Colorado Rockies is considered by many to be the worst job in professional baseball. It’s not a gig for the faint of heart.
For starters, you’re dealing with the mile high altitude, and the impact the elevation has on the flight of the pitch as it’s being thrown – AND after the ball has been hit. Pitchers have notoriously fragile psyches, and when balls that normally get caught continue to drop in for hits, it’s easy to lose your cool on the hill. First, the pitch doesn’t move right, and then every blooper drops in for a hit.
The pitching coach is the guy who has to talk even the game’s best off the ledge when they take the mound at Coors Field.
This is a job that calls for a savvy veteran…a “been there, done that” kind of guy. Good communication skills, a big shoulder to lean on, and a road map for fixing what’s gone wrong.
Rockies Opting for Something Different in Pitching Plan
However, the Rockies new front office tandem of Paul DePodesta and Josh Brynes have apparently decided to do something…completely different.
According to a report on MLB.com, the Rockies are set to hire 36-year-old Alon Leichman as their new big league pitching coach. Unlike almost every other pitching coach in baseball, he’s not a former professional pitcher. Leichman is an Israeli national, played collegiately at the University of San Diego and has been both a player and a coach for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic.
Leichman has been the Assistant Pitching Coach for the Cincinnati Reds, and most recently, the Miami Marlins.
The expectation is that by bringing in someone young, who could be more open to a new approach, DePodesta and Brynes are looking to use more analytics in their selection of pitchers to acquire for the roster and even in pitch selection. Pre-game scouting reports have been around the game forever, but in-game decision making based on analytic information would be a dramatic shift from the way pitchers have been working for a century.
Calling Pitches From the Dugout is on the Table
The Marlins, with Leichman involved, reportedly used the plan to call pitches from the dugout late in the year last season. There’s been no confirmation that they are planning to do so again for the upcoming season.
The idea of coaches and “numbers crunchers” dictating pitch selection is not an idea that will go over well with the game’s more established veteran pitchers. However, the number of those type of guys on the Colorado roster is very few. Perhaps only lefthander Kyle Freeland fits that description. Otherwise, the Rockies expect to have a very young – and perhaps more pliable – pitching staff.
If it works, the Rockies organization will be seen as trail blazers. If it doesn’t…a fourth consecutive 100+ loss season is likely.
The Rockies have tried something new on the mound before. Back in 2012, in the midst of a spat of injuries and a staff of very young pitchers, then-Colorado GM Dan O’Dowd and his front office and field staff implemented the use of a four-man rotation that included a designated “piggy backing” long reliever for every game. Starters were limited to 75 pitches per outing, and were then followed by the pre-determined “piggy back” reliever.
At the time, the move was ridiculed, and the Rockies on-field fortunes didn’t improve. However, in hindsight, the idea has more merit now than it did then. Several teams use “openers” now, which until the last decade was never taken seriously. Setting a pitching staff up with a starter and a designated piggy-backing reliever doesn’t sound farfetched anymore.
How seriously the Marlins – and now Rockies – plan to call pitches from the dugout is taken, especially by the pitchers themselves, we’ll play out over time.
Colorado Rockies Going Young at Unexpected Spot