Indians name new bullpen coach
...and it's Chuck Hernandez, former pitching coach of the Detroit Tigers.
about 3 years ago
millionairesrow
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Most disturbing part of it:
The 48-year-old Hernandez spent the last three seasons as pitching coach of the Tigers and became a fall guy, of sorts, when Detroit’s pitching staff took a step backward in ’08.
by PatBordersHelmet on Nov 19, 2008 1:42 PM EST reply actions
Remember when the Yankees hired that manager that wasn’t even good enough for the St. Louis Cardinals? What was his name, Joe Torre? Or the Phillies…they were crazy for hiring that manager who wasn’t good enough for the Indians.
If he’s a good cheerleader, he’ll be fine.
The Cardinals have a pretty good manager who wasn’t good enough for the White Sox. And the Braves’ manager is pretty well-respected, even though he was originally not good enough for the Braves. Luckily for him, he was able to later re-hire himself.
by FredOx on Nov 19, 2008 4:44 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
His team’s ERA’s when he was pitching coach:
’92 Angels – 4.14
’93 Angels – 4.75
’94 Angels – 5.74
’95 Angels – 4.81
’96 Angels – 5.86
’04 Rays – 5.23
’05 Rays – 5.78
’06 Tigers – 4.17
’07 Tigers – 4.92
’08 Tigers – 5.29
Excluding the ‘95 Angels, does anyone else see a consistent pattern of pitchers having progressively higher ERA’s each year with him as pitching coach?
It is important to note that he is the bullpen coach, not the pitching coach. There is a difference.
by woodsmeister on Nov 19, 2008 2:22 PM EST up reply actions
It might be worth noting that he worked for a couple of managers not noted for their skillful handling of pitchers (Leyland and Piniella), which might have something to do with the pattern. The Angels had a half dozen managers while he was there, so that’s another story. I guess we should just say we’re glad he’s NOT the pitching coach, given this record.
I wonder what the numbers look like if we remove the 6 worst starts from each year?
by elsandito on Nov 19, 2008 3:36 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
wait a minute. was only hired to be bullpen coach?
whatever the reasons for the numbers put up by his pitching staffs, it provides at least a little frame of reference. it’s not pointing out that the tribe pitchers are doomed by his hiring, but it’s more than just “he was pitching coach in Detroit the past 3 years and took the fall for them keeping Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis in the rotation for more than a combined 6 hours.”
which then begs the question – how does one measure the success or failure of a bullpen coach?
time for my own J.P. Hayes move
The numbers I quoted above were actually R/G numbers, not ERA. I was looking at the wrong column in baseball-reference. These are the real team ERAs
’92 – 3.84
’93 – 4.34
’94 – 5.42
’95 – 4.52
’96 – 5.31
’04 – 4.81
’05 – 5.39
’06 – 3.84
’07 – 4.57
’08 – 4.91
Still not spectacular. And yes, he’s not the pitching coach. Again, how do you measure the failure or success of a bullpen coach?
Whatever. I’m sure it’s fine.
This is like hiring Larry Bowa to be your 3B coach. Sure, he was a lousy manager, but who cares?
I think many of us assumed there was some legit reason for cutting Luis, like making room for someone lower in the org that has shown some promise. This just makes it look like they blamed Luis for something.
How does it make it look like that?
This Chuck guy has been a big-league pitching coach for the past five years, and he was the Devil Rays minor league pitching coordinator for six years before that. It’s a good bet nobody ever offered Luis Isaac either position.
We’re getting this guy on the rebound. Maybe the Tigers’ pitching problems were his fault, maybe not, but he wouldn’t have been promoted twice by the Rays and then lured away by Leyland if he didn’t have something to offer. I daresay we won’t have him for more than one or two seasons before he gets another job offer to be a pitching coach.
If Luis had been removed and replaced by an internal candidate, the reason for Luis’ dismissal may have been that he was blocking someone else in the org from promotion and that Luis had his chance to produce, but that the org wanted to give someone who is deserving a chance. Now it seems that the FO was simply unhappy with Luis and discharged him without knowing who they would hire as his replacement. My comment has nothing to do with Hernandez’s qualifications.
wedge either didn’t get along with him or agree with him in some fashion or simply wanted to pick his own guy. you’re making it too conspiracy-theoryesque.
For all we know it was this. For all we know Carl Willis said “me or him.” For all we know he did something really improper.
But we don’t know. So I just shrug and move on.
Steel Nick
Maybe my point is a bit subtle, but now I’ll expand. The Indians finished a season where hopes were high and then crushed. The entire coaching staff is returning intact except for the lowly bullpen coach, a guy who has been around a very long time. It would have been easy to do nothing about him and have him back. It also would have been easy to replace him with someone deserving of a chance from within. The FO felt that it was important to expend energy in replacing Luis and to interview at least one external candidate. I am not implying conspiracy, just scratching my head.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that anyone, not Shapiro, not Wedge, not the players, not the fans, nobody thought that it was Luis Isaac’s fault that our bullpen was bad this year. I don’t see them making him the fall guy for a bad bullpen. There must have been something else going on that we don’t know about.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Nov 20, 2008 1:11 PM EST up reply actions
The Indians finished a season where hopes were high and then crushed. The entire coaching staff is returning intact except for the lowly bullpen coach, a guy who has been around a very long time. It would have been easy to do nothing about him and have him back. It also would have been easy to replace him with someone deserving of a chance from within.
It doesn’t need to have anything to do with “a season where hopes were high and then crushed” — that’s just you, superimposing a sweeping, dramatic narrative that isn’t really there.
Why can’t this be simple? They were unsatisfied with Isaac’s performance and felt that they could do better. Where’s the head-scratcher in that?
“It would have been easy” to have him back, yes. So give them credit for not just doing the easy thing, but rather doing what they felt was best for the club.
Not every move (or lack of one) is a total judgment on the 2008 season. That’s fanboy talk, not serious management.
It’s Nick saying that it may be a reflection on the bullpen situation of 2008, not me. And I’m not superimposing anything to anything else. I wrote that we had a disappointing season followed by only one coaching replacement. And I’m not saying that Luis’ dismissal is punishment for the team’s performance.
I think it’s funny that, in a situation where many teams panic and overhaul their staffs, Cleveland chose to fire the bullpen coach. You could write a pretty good sitcom episode about something like this.
I’ll believe it when I see the script…. :-)
by Logodaedalus on Nov 20, 2008 4:26 PM EST up reply actions
I’m sure Hoynes will have that covered.
"It's hard to win when you don't score." Cliff Lee, 9/28/05.
by Harry Doyle on Nov 19, 2008 10:33 PM EST up reply actions
“Scott had a great interview,” said GM Mark Shapiro. “It was a very tough call for Eric and Carl.”
The PD says only Radinsky and Hernandez were interviewed. Assuming Hernandez is in fact of Hispanic descent I think they probably weighed that, no? If two candidates are as close to equal as you’re going to get in a not-too significant position, wouldn’t you lean towards the bilingual one?
Steel Nick
First thing is, we don’t know if either guy necessarily is bilingual, but I would bet good money that both of them are.
Second thing is, by hiring Hernandez, the Indians probably still get to keep Radinsky in a valuable role, and they probably will give him a small bump in compensation to show their appreciation, something like the Antonetti situation.
Seriously, I would consider our AAA pitching coach to be just as important as the parent club bullpen coach anyway with the parade of 4th/5th starters we have on hand.
That’s weird… this comment is doubly indented from the one above it…
by Logodaedalus on Nov 20, 2008 4:29 PM EST up reply actions
Look harder. He’s only invisible the way Wonder Woman’s invisible plane was invisible on the old Super Friends show.
On topic, can anyone actually name another bullpen coach? I actually looked it up, and the only name I recognized was Norm Charlton.
Wasn’t that Guevara guy going to be Seattle’s bullpen coach at one point?
/obscure reference to an August game thread
by Logodaedalus on Nov 20, 2008 4:56 PM EST up reply actions
Fail based on the combination of obviousness and being second.
by Logodaedalus on Nov 20, 2008 4:54 PM EST up reply actions
I have to say, the whole bullpen coach drama of this offseason just strikes me as spectacularly odd. It’s a bullpen coach. Of the components of the team, the bullpen is arguably the most marginal. And the bullpen coach doesn’t even make the call of who gets used when. Have there ever been so many words written about a bullpen coach?
And you’ve just added to that total. And so have I. And now I’ve added more. This could go on forever . . .
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Nov 20, 2008 8:05 PM EST up reply actions
…and they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.
by fleerdon on Nov 20, 2008 8:22 PM EST up reply actions
Royal Tennenbaums. Owen Wilson’s character, a writer, had a massive inferiority complex from having grown up next door to geniuses, so his writing was grandiose to the point of meaninglessness. He finishes a reading with the line I quoted.
So I guess I’m saying that the real motivation for all the Luis Isaac armchair management consulting is that people just want to feel important and hear themselves talk, or that they’re projecting their own insecurities onto the situation.
…Look, it’s not a Princess Bride reference, okay?
by fleerdon on Nov 21, 2008 9:24 AM EST up reply actions
FWIW, Wedge mentioned about three times that Hernandez’s knowledge of the division was an important factor. So maybe we just want to get some inside info on how to hit Verlander (not that we need it).
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