Righetti: A re occuring problem

[klaiggeb]

This is a quote from "Giants Extra"

"-----The Giants entered the day tied for the N.L. lead in giving away walks to lead off an inning-----"

With the euphoria of winning 2 world series titles in three years, everyone has forgotten, or has seemed to have forgotten, one of THE biggest complaints we had about Righetti prior to winning;
His pitchers struggled to throw strikes.

And once again, well, here we are.

I, for one, have never, EVER been on the Righetti bandwagon.

I don't care what he's done, or supposedly done, for some of our pitchers.

These are the facts:

1-We lead the league in giving up walks to open up an inning

2-Going back to BEFORE the titles, other than Batista, our pitchers struggled throwing strikes. It was a constant and bitter complaint on this board

Does anyone see this problem in San Diego with Balsley (sp?) I never have.

Did we see it in Atlanta with what's his name BEFORE Maddox and Glavine and Smoltz became big stars?

Nope.

Do we see this on other teams?

Only the ones pepertually at the bottom of the league.


My points are these:

1-Righetti is part of the problem, not the solution. Yes, he's helped some pitchers, most notably, Santiago Casilla. But that doesn't altar that there are many more he hasn't helped.

2-We won two titles IN SPITE of Rags, not because of him.

3-In the last 10 years it can no longer be called a "coincidence" that so many Giant pitchers struggle (not including Timmy) with the strike zone.

It can't be.

4-He's not just an "over rated" pitching coach... he's an OVER RATED pitching coach!

I want Balsley when BoTchy came over. I still do.

I wanted Rightti replaced, and still do. Even during the championships I was never sold. And I'm still not.

But it won't happen.

It won't.

Rags is an average coach at best... at best.

And I believe he's below average.

boly

[dk]

I'm not a Rags fan, but the Giants gave up fewer walks than SD as well as 8 other teams, last year...I do think that Rags just doesn't jump into field quick enough hen it looks as the pitcher is having a problem.....it looks as if Bochy has to give him the sign before he heads out of the dugout....

[sharksrog]

Boly -- Righetti is part of the problem, not the solution. Yes, he's helped some pitchers, most notably, Santiago Casilla. But that doesn't altar that there are many more he hasn't helped.

Rog -- How about we go back five years through 2009?

2013 -- Chad Gaudin (2.64), Jean Machi (3.44), Sandy Rosario 2.45, Jake Dunning (2.84)

2012 -- Clay Hensley (4.62), George Kontos (2.70), Jose Mijares (2.55)

2011 -- Ryan Vogelsong (2.71)

2010 -- Jonathan Sanchez (3.07), Madison Bumgarner (3.00), Sergio Romo 2.18, Santiago Casilla (1.95), Denny Bautista (3.74), Dan Runzler (3.03), Guillermo Mota (4.43), Ramon Ramirez (0.67), Chris Ray (4.13), Javier Lopez (1.42)

2009 -- Brian Wilson (2.74), Brandon Medders (3.03), Bobby Howry (3.39), Jeremy Affeldt (1.74), Justin Miller (3.18), Brad Penny (2.59), Ryan Sadowski (4.45)

For some of those guys, it was their first success. For a lot of them, it was the last time they would pitch effectively in the major leagues.

How in the world would we know if a pitching coach is a good one or a bad one? The one thing about Righetti is that he's gotten some nice results from areas one wouldn't have expected those results.


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[sharksrog]

Boly -- Rags is an average coach at best... at best.

And I believe he's below average

Rog -- About the only evidence I can see of that is the high number of walks. But the overall performance seems to be pretty good. And often from unexpected sources.

Working backward from 2013 through 2009, the Giants have ranked 12, 5, 2, 1, and 2 in ERA. Looking at the names Gaudin, Machi, Rosario, Dunning, Vogelsong, Hensley, Kontos, Mijares, Casilla, Bautista, Runzler, Ramirez, Mota, Ray, Lopez, Medders, Howry, Miller, Penny and Sadowski, that seems pretty good.

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[klaiggeb]

Boly -- Rags is an average coach at best... at best.

And I believe he's below average

Rog -- About the only evidence I can see of that is the high number of walks.

---boly says---

THAT is exactly my point, Rog.

Yeah, his staffs perfromed well... but I say in spite of him, not because of him.

It's like my school district. We succeed and are ranked high nation wide NOT because of leadership, but inspite of it.

This command problem has been plagueing Giant hurlers since he's been here.

boly

[allenreed]

Walks to lead off innings and hits to pitchers have been two of our biggest problems this year. Neither should happen with anywhere near the frequency they've happened to us this year.

[dk]

one of the problems I have with Rags is what I have wrote about before when I said that Posey and the pitchers never seem to be on the same page with a game plan based on the constant shaking off of Posey's sign. The worse example was the time Vogey came out on the first pitch of the game and shook off 4 signs ...today they said that things have changed and the Tim and Posey now meet before the game and establish a game plan....to me, this should have included Rags from day 1...and he should be part of it...let's see if many of the other pitchers get involved...

[sharksrog]

Boly -- This command problem has been plagueing Giant hurlers since he's been here.

Let's look at the Giants' starting pitchers:

Bumgarner -- 2.1 BB/9 in his first season has risen to 2.6 -- yet he's having the best season of his career, the first one in which his ERA (2.69) has been below three.

Lincecum -- Tim's 3.5 BB/9 is half a walk below his first season's 4.0.

Cain -- Matt's 3.0 BB/9 is down 1.1 from his 4.1 in his first season as a Giant.

Zito -- Barry's walks per nine shot up to 5.1 during his second season with the Giants, but this season are down to his career average of 3.7.

Vogelsong -- Ryan came to the Giants with a BB rate over four. In his final season in AAA, it was 5.9. With the Giants he's gone 3.1, 2.9 and 3.5.

Gaudin -- Chad's 3.4 BB/9 this season is well below his 4.1 career mark.

So every Giants starter has either improved his control under Righetti and /or is having the best season of his career.

To the extent that a pitching coach can help his pitchers improve their walk rate, Righetti has done a very good job with his starters.






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[klaiggeb]

So every Giants starter has either improved his control under Righetti and /or is having the best season of his career.

To the extent that a pitching coach can help his pitchers improve their walk rate, Righetti has done a very good job with his starters.

---boly says---

But not counting Tim... it's not the starters that, 'generally,' I've been concerned about.

It's the bullpen, mostly.

boly

[sharksrog]

Boly -- But not counting Tim... it's not the starters that, 'generally,' I've been concerned about.

It's the bullpen, mostly.

Rog -- And most of the pitchers on the list I showed here of pitchers who came more or less out of nowhere were relievers. Let's look at this season:

Sergio Romo -- Sergio came to the majors with great control and has maintained it. In 2009, he walked less than one batter per nine innings, a rare feat.

Santiago Casilla -- Casilla's control hasn't improved as a Giant, but his pitching certainly has. His career ERA dropped from 5.11 with the A's to 2.09 with the Giants.

George Kontos -- No improvement control-wise, but under Righetti, the guy acquired for catcher Chris Stewart had a 2.70 ERA in 2012. This season it's at 5.05. But I think the Giants have already gotten more from Kontos than they expected.

Jose Mijares -- No control improvement, but the guy the Giants claimed off waivers has posted a 2.77 ERA in the equivalent of one full season with the team.

Jeremy Afffeldt -- Again, no control improvment, but after coming to the Giants with a career ERA of about 4.50, he's gone 2.83 with the Giants.

Javier Lopez -- Improved from 4.0 walks career to 3.5 with the Giants. More importantly, has posted a 2.20 ERA with the Giants after coming to them with a career ERA twice that. After yielding 18 previous homers, Javier -- who has now pitched about a third of his career innings as a Giant -- has yielded only one in an SF uniform.

Jean Machi -- Has cut 4.0 minor league BB/9 to just 1.9 in limited duty with the Giants. Has outpitched his 3.76 minor league career, going 3.34 for the Giants this season.

Sandy Rosario -- Walk rate has fallen off, but his 2.37 ERA this season is more than a run better than his 3.42 career mark in the minors.

Chad Gaudin has already been discussed among the starters.

So we now see that EVERY one of the Giants' pitchers with more than 20 innings pitched this season has improved his ERA and/or walk rate under Righetti's tutelage.

How many pitching coaches can show such a consistent record of improving their pitchers? I have no idea if Dave is THE best pitching coach, but the facts don't seem to support his being a poor one.

The primary arguments against him have been that his pitchers walk a lot of guys and that he doesn't visit the mound enough.

With the latter, I agree. I would like to see almost EVERY pitching coach visit the mound more frequently, although I suppose the counter argument would be diminishing returns. But the primary reason his pitchers seem to walk a fair amount of batters appears to that as a group they didn't have very good control when he got them.

There are two things we can demonstrate with Dave:

. A lot of pitchers have gotten better under his tutelage.

. He's taken a large number of nobodies and gotten at least one good season out of them.


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