There are dumb ideas, and then there’s the “suggested innovative plan” that the Colorado Rockies are considering that would have new rookie pitching coach Alon Leichman calling pitches from the dugout this season.
Right up front: Word is that the Rockies’ new front office has made no decisions, but is considering the idea.
Let’s help them out. The idea of any coach calling pitches from the dugout is – pick an adjective – stupid, ridiculous, insane, whatever. It’s not innovation. It’s just wrong in every possible way an idea can be wrong, or stupid, or ridiculous. As if pitching at Coors Field isn’t already tough enough.
And before you say, “well, nothing else has worked,” ask yourself: Who knows best what any MLB pitcher feels confident in throwing in any particular situation – the guy on the mound with the ball in his hand, or the guy in the dugout with his laptop? And in this case, the guy with the laptop has never thrown a pitch in an American professional baseball game. He’s a novice.
But he knows better?
Come on…
This idiotic idea is just the latest way that the analytic extremist control freaks are trying to sink their non-tobacco stained teeth into the National Pastime. No, catchers don’t need this chore “taken off their plate,” no pun intended. Catchers have been suggesting what pitch a pitcher should throw for more than 100 years with no complaints about being overworked. And the guy truly deciding what pitch to throw is the guy who puts his name on it before it leaves his hand.
That name is not Leichman.
Experience tells you that the guy on the mound isn’t going to have his “best stuff” every night. Real MLB action is not a video game. All sliders aren’t created equal. And if the laptop says to throw a slider in a particular situation, but the guy on the mound with the ball in his hand doesn’t have a good feel for his slider that particular night, should he just throw it, anyway? You think things can’t get worse? Just watch a pitcher deliver a pitch he has no confidence or conviction in throwing. Those pitches end up traveling a very long way in the wrong direction.
And what if the guy on the mound – nine-year veteran Kyle Freeland for instance – wants to do what pitchers have always been able to do, and shake off a suggested pitch call that comes in from the bench? With the pitch clock winding down, all parties involved had better hurry. If they have to agree before the ball can be thrown, there will be a lot of pitch-clock violations.
Most importantly, who will get the blame when everything hits the fan? The guy who didn’t throw the pitch in time – or worse yet, threw a really bad and costly mistake pitch – or the guy with the laptop who actually called it?
Show me a box score (or a contract negotiation) that attaches blame to the coach rather than the guy who threw the pitch. I’ll wait.
At the end of the season, the only “L” Leichman will be stuck with is the one in his last name. The guy who had to throw a pitch because the laptop says so will have plenty more.
So yes, it can, and it will, get worse.
Fingers crossed that the Rockies’ front office realizes that not all “innovation” is a good idea.
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