Atlanta Braves: Sticky stuff pitchers and pitching coaches

Same teachers, different test scores

Wright, Newcomb, and the other young pitchers shared the same Atlanta Braves pitching development system. Max Fried, Mike Soroka, Ian Anderson have done well, haven’t they? The story’s the same but more dramatically noticeable in the bullpen.

When McDowell was still the golden boy of pitching coaches, he was asked how he could spend hours working with a pitcher in the bullpen before games, then see them go out and do the very thing they were trying to change.

Paraphrasing here because I can’t drag up the exact quote, he said he showed them things in the bullpen, and the pitcher showed him they could do it. However, the new idea vanished when called into a game, and muscle memory and habit took over.

That’s a wrap

I’m not defending Rick Kranitz’s style, techniques, or the staff’s results. Someone will ultimately bite the bullet for the pitcher’s poor performance this season, and Kranitz is the most likely candidate. According to David O’Brien in the first linked post on The Athletic, ”. . . pitchers rarely have anything but highly complimentary things to say about him, on or off the record.”

Player development is a front office task under the control of Atlanta Braves Assistant General Manager, Player Development, Ben Sestanovich. If players reach the majors without the skills to perform there, is that the fault of the major league coaches or player development?

I know ‘fire Sestanovich’ isn’t as easy to type, and it’s not directly his fault, but the way his staff develops the talent has far more to do with their initial success than the guy sitting in the dugout when they arrive.