O's to name Kranitz pitching coach

[Sports Guy]

My thoughts on the current Kranitz lovefest:

I heard the same things here and a lot more when Mazzone was hired, all the talk about the "Mazzone factor" in lowering a team's ERA, the résumé filled with several Cy Young pitchers...Ray Miller was quickly forgotten.

No doubt...You are right about this.

[El Gordo]

How come no one has mentioned what happened to Marlin pitchers this year? Three of Kranitz's 2006 success stories broke down: Josh Johnson, Anibal Sanchez, and Ricky Nolasco. All were lost for the year and I believe Johnson won't be ready to start camp next year. Dontrelle Willis took a major step backwards as well. Were these guys overused in 2006, with that potentially contributing to their downfall in 2007? If so, did Kranitz have a hand in that overuse or can it ALL be pinned on Girardi? I think the PC usually has a lot of input into pitcher usage, although with a manager who is a recently retired catcher with a big ego, perhaps he didn't have that much input.

I'm in favor of Trembley bringing in guys he wants. But what happened to the Marlin staff this year does concern me when speculating on what type of PC Kranitz might be.

Johnson threw 157 IP in '06, Nolasco 140, and Sanchez 115. How is that over use?

[longflyball]

Cabrera has many problems, work ethic and personality are not among them.

Say you're a big league pitcher. A Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the most successful pitching coaches in baseball tells you that you should throw a changeup.

You don't. You get shelled.

What does that say about your work ethic and personality?

[El Gordo]

Say you're a big league pitcher. A Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the most successful pitching coaches in baseball tells you that you should throw a changeup.

You don't. You get shelled.

What does that say about your work ethic and personality?

DCab did throw changeups, just not with much success. Cabrera realy needs the year at AAA he never had to work out his mechanics problems under less pressure. This season he had Mazzone, Perlozzo, Trembley and Palmer all telling him how to fix this, that and the other, all the while he's trying to do that, he's trying to carry the rotation when 4 of the 5 SP's are on the DL and he's facing the best hitters in the ML. It's not his work ethic, it's the O's management that has screwed up a fine prospect by rushing him to the ML too soon.

[RShack]

Say you're a big league pitcher. A Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the most successful pitching coaches in baseball tells you that you should throw a changeup.

You don't. You get shelled.

What does that say about your work ethic and personality?

Given everything, I'd say "Not much". Or, at the very least, "We don't know".

Especially when Mazzone still believes in him. I was waiting for Mazzone to walk out to the mound one day, reach up, grab him by the throat, and yell, "Throw the change, Dummy!" But that's not what happened. Leo ain't an especially patient guy. Palmer was down on him, but he seemed to lighten up about him after he got asked to join into semi-coaching him. I don't think we'll really understand this unless somebody gets Leo to talk about it. Unless and until that happens, we're just on the outside, looking in and guessing...

[longflyball]

DCab did throw changeups, just not with much success. Cabrera realy needs the year at AAA he never had to work out his mechanics problems under less pressure. This season he had Mazzone, Perlozzo, Trembley and Palmer all telling him how to fix this, that and the other, all the while he's trying to do that, he's trying to carry the rotation when 4 of the 5 SP's are on the DL and he's facing the best hitters in the ML. It's not his work ethic, it's the O's management that has screwed up a fine prospect by rushing him to the ML too soon.

Time in AAA is not going to fix Daniel Cabrera. He's been in the big leagues for 4 years. Even if he was rushed, he's had plenty of time to figure it out.

[Frobby]

I like the Kranitz hire -- but only time will tell. Put it this way if we were going to replace Mazzone, Kranitz seemed to be the best option.

[El Gordo]

Time in AAA is not going to fix Daniel Cabrera. He's been in the big leagues for 4 years. Even if he was rushed, he's had plenty of time to figure it out.

You can't work on technique under game situations. He needs to iron these things out at a level where he can afford to fail.

[Boy Howdy]

Say you're a big league pitcher. A Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the most successful pitching coaches in baseball tells you that you should throw a changeup.

You don't. You get shelled.

What does that say about your work ethic and personality?

Cabrera's hardly alone when it comes to resisting incorporating a changeup. It's practically a baseball cliche for hard throwers that goes back as far as they've been writing about the game.

Zip, zilch, nada reflection on his work ethic or personality.

Every major league player is supremely talented, but confidence is a major factor that determines who succeeds and who fails. If Cabrera doesn't have confidence in the pitch (Mazzone said last spring Cabrera confessed to being afraid to throw it), then he -like hundreds of others pitchers- isn't going to risk getting beat on a pitch that isn't his best.

This is a natural part of the growing process for pitchers. Some guys get it faster than others & some never do, but pitchers with arms like Cabrera often resist the changeup until their velocity starts to diminish. (others just get sent to the bullpen). Doesn't make it right or smart, but it doesn't make him a bad guy or lazy.

A guy like Pedro Martinez at his peak had the top notch heater AND an incredible changeup. People keep trying to convince Daniel that he could approach that level of success by adding the pitch, but he has to believe it.

Hopefully 18 losses will give him a heightened sense of urgency about incorporating it more into his repertoire. Considering he's a very proud guy, and an intelligent hard worker from all insider accounts, I think 2007 will in fact go a long way towards teaching him this hard lesson of pitching.

[geschinger]

I like the Kranitz hire -- but only time will tell. Put it this way if we were going to replace Mazzone, Kranitz seemed to be the best option.

I agree. I would of preferred them to have stuck w/Mazzone but if for whatever reasons DT was unable to work well w/him Kranitz seems like a pretty good guy to settle for. Though I must say that I'm a bit worried about what happened in Florida this past season. Much like w/the 2007 Orioles the Marlins suffered from underperforming pitchers as well as a ton of injuries. There are many down here who blame the changes that Kranitz has made to Dontrelle Willis' mechanics for his regression from where he was in 2005.

[Tank]

I like it. Kranitz seemed like the best option out there and he was Trembley's choice. We got it done quickly, hard to argue.

[davearm]

Well FWIW, this O's outsider likes this hire. I like Kranitz and I think he'll do a good job with the young pitchers that are so critical to the O's future.

By my count the O's have now made three steps forward, and one step back:

forward:

Duq/Flan => MacPhail

Perlozzo => Trembley

Mazzone => Kranitz

back:

Crowley => Crowley

I think it's beyond time to admit that Mazzone wasn't the right guy for this situation. Kudos to the O's for moving decisively to improve the situation.

Now on to the even more important decisions -- the players.

[Mackus]

Cabrera has been said to work too hard. He always runs stairs, and really wants to succeed. Every quote I have seen from Mazzone says that Daniel was really working hard. Mazzone had to tell Cabrera to stop running stairs before he did his side work because he couldn't pitch then. Cabrera has many problems, work ethic and personality are not among them.

Great post. I get annoyed when people call Cabrera a "head case". He works incredibly hard, and everybody raves about his personality, its certainly not his head or his heart that are holding him back, its just his physical inability to harness any sort of command.

[DrungoHazewood]

Great post. I get annoyed when people call Cabrera a "head case". He works incredibly hard, and everybody raves about his personality, its certainly not his head or his heart that are holding him back, its just his physical inability to harness any sort of command.

People like to ascribe personality or character traits to on-field performance in the absence of any other evidence. It's about 90% of the reason folks think clutch hitting is a repeatable skill. It's why some players get tagged as playoff savvy. It's about 50% of the reason David Eckstein has been in the middle of a $10M contract, and part of the reason why Bill Ripken actually played long enough to be eligible for the Hall of Fame.

Ballplayers are just people, and on-field performances say almost nothing about a man's character as a person.

[SteveA]

Johnson threw 157 IP in '06, Nolasco 140, and Sanchez 115. How is that over use?

There's other ways of determining overuse. It's well known that many people blame being kept in the game after a long rain delay in September as a factor in Josh Johnson's serious injury for example. And are you looking at just major league innings or are you including minor leagues?

Anyway, I didn't claim that there WAS overuse. Just the fact that the three main success stories of one year ALL go down with major injuries the next year COULD be a cause for concern.