SBNation story about Leo Mazzone

[Ori-Al]

With the latest injured Oriole pitcher sparking fear of TJ surgery, I thought this article about former O's and Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone would be of interest. Maybe his program of more throwing with less intensity might actually be better for pitchers. The way they're babied now in the minors and majors doesn't seem to be reducing injuries.

https://www.sbnation.com/longform/2015/5/13/8585249/leo-mazzone-profile-feature

[ADZ23]

Well it probably all starts with how they throw in little league/high school/college.

Anything that minor and major league coaches do to try to thwart potential injury off at the past by correcting said pitcher's flawed mechanics is often just delaying the inevitable trip to Dr. Andrews.

[Barnaby Graves]

But even though the [Orioles] organization had been dogged in their pursuit of Mazzone (Perlozzo says his connection to Mazzone helped him land the manager job in the first place: ?At the time, I thought they were more interested in getting Leo than getting me.?), they questioned his methods almost from the beginning, when the medical staff suddenly canceled Camp Leo. ?The doctors and trainers said I couldn?t have anyone on the mound until they passed a physical,? says Mazzone. ?In Atlanta we did everything we could to keep the players on the field. In Baltimore, they did everything they could to keep them off.?

Oh boy. There's some interesting tidbits in there.

[Ohfan67]

Too bad his career ended on a down note. He sounds like a complex guy.

[LayzieDES]

Too bad his career ended on a down note. He sounds like a complex guy.

I don't know if complex is exactly how I would describe him. Some (maybe many) players these days can't take the direct, in-your-face coaching style. Many players just aren't used to his type of approach anymore. I don't know if that is the reason he hasn't been employed in so long or not but there certainly has to be some connection to it.

[sportsfan8703]

We tarnished his career. Maybe cost him the HOF. He just couldn't make chicken salad.

[25 Nuggets]

Oh boy. There's some interesting tidbits in there.

I kept telling people the lean years in Baltimore had less to do with the talent (though we had problems there too) and more to do with horrible management / development. The warehouse was a terrible work environment then.

Perlozzo introduced Mazzone to the team at spring training by essentially reciting the coach’s Atlanta r?sum?, and Mazzone could already sense the eye rolling that only worsened as time went on. “Nobody wanted to listen to our philosophy from Atlanta,” Mazzone says. “Other coaches were like ‘I’m tired of you talking about the Braves.’ It was a good ol’ boys club and these good ol’ boys had been losing for a long time. They didn’t particularly care for me coming in there with the contract that the Orioles gave me. They didn’t like it at all. They were scared to death.” Mazzone remembers driving up to the ballpark one day to find the orange cone Perlozzo had put out to mark Mazzone’s special parking spot crushed to bits — he suspects at the hands of another coach.

Jeez.

[25 Nuggets]

Mazzone believes the modern game’s infatuation with velocity is one of, if not the primary reason for the recent plague of Tommy John elbow-ligament replacement surgeries. “Now everybody seems to be getting a pass on all the sore arms,” he says. “I don’t get it. If we’d have had all the breakdowns that are happening now, there would have been a lot of pitching coaches fired.

Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about how Dylan Bundy is hitting the radar gun during his rehab??

[DrungoHazewood]

Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about how Dylan Bundy is hitting the radar gun during his rehab??

The issue is that the genie is out of the bottle. Some pitchers can dial it back a notch or two and still be effective. Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine probably fit in that mold. But I think a lot more pitchers are like Tommy Hunter. When pacing themselves to go 6 or 7 innings they're 5.00 ERA guys. If they paced themselves to go 9 in today's environment they'd be 6.00+ ERA guys. If you tell them to air it out and only face a limited set of batters they're much, much more effective. When Mazzone told Daniel Cabrera to dial it back all that happened was he was a guy with poor control and an average fastball. Tell Kurt Birkins and Brian Burres to throw at 80% and you get shelled like the 2007 Orioles. If baseball truly thought this tactic was going to lead to fewer injuries and a better game they'd incentivize it - they'd change some rules like limiting the number of pitchers on the roster, expanding the strike zone, deadening the ball, making bats thicker and heavier. It worked in the 60s because the strike zone was knees-to-shoulders, nobody worked out, teams had a lot of defensive specialists, parks were bigger, and a lot of hitters sacrificed power for contact.

[Tx Oriole]

I kept telling people the lean years in Baltimore had less to do with the talent (though we had problems there too) and more to do with horrible management / development. The warehouse was a terrible work environment then

Jeez.

If that happened that's being very petty.

[Barnaby Graves]

I don't know why you'd even sign this guy if you weren't willing to give him full control of pitching development in the organization, including the health of the players. The Orioles spent a lot of money getting him of all pitching coaches and then kind of hamstrung him with regards to the throwing program. How on Earth could they let the health staff cancel the throwing programs. That kind of stuff is the exact reason he was hired, basically to provide his own opinion and expertise on working out and training pitchers.

One of endless examples of bad-decision making during the 00's.