Monday, February 27, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Poor Lloyd McClendon. He has been thrown under the bus so many times by the media and his former Pirates players that his features are barely distinguishable amid all the tread marks.
It started earlier this winter when, in an interview with Tim Benz of ESPN Radio, Zach Duke was critical of McClendon's communication skills. Say what? Duke was 8-2 with a 1.81 earned run average as a rookie last season. The only thing McClendon needed to say to him was this: "Here's the ball," which he did just about every five days.
The message coming out of Bradenton so far has been somewhat more subtle but nevertheless disparaging toward McClendon. Everything about spring training is better. The drills are crisper, the players happier, the teaching more passionate. With all the adulation being directed toward Jim Tracy, McClendon's replacement, and new pitching coach Jim Colborn it seems as if the only thing that stood between the Pirates and respectability was Mac.
Funny, I thought the reason the Pirates finished tied for the worst record in the National League was because they finished 12th or lower (out of 16) in the following offensive categories: runs, home runs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, walks and pinch-hitting batting average. I also thought it was because they finished 12th or lower in the following pitching categories: ERA, walks and hits per inning, strikeouts-to-walks ratio and opposing batting average.
Usually, when a team is so deficient in so many areas, it will find a way to the bottom without any help from the manager.
There is a fervent belief among the general public that the man in charge, manager or coach, can make a mighty difference. To the contrary, it long has been a theme of this column that coaches, in general, and baseball managers, in particular, don't have nearly the influence on their team's success as most people think.
Much of the belief that coaches and managers are vitally important has to do with television. Color analysts, who don't have anything else to say and who want to ingratiate themselves, will speak so glowingly of managers and coaches and, in football, offensive and defensive coordinators, that the public begins to believe those people border on the omnipotent.
That simply isn't so.
Take, for example, Colborn, the Pirates' pitching coach. He has been lavished with praise. I have no doubt he is good at what he does.
Let's suppose, for the sake of discussion, he's the best pitching coach in baseball. That makes him a 10. But that doesn't make the other pitching coaches 1s and 2s. They're all 8s and 9s or they wouldn't be working at the highest level of their professions. The difference between the best and the rest isn't so much as to make a significant difference.
If Colborn was a significant difference maker, he wouldn't be earning a low six-figure salary, he'd be taking home a seven-figure paycheck.
Spin Williams, Colborn's predecessor, has, like McClendon, taken some indirect hits from comments in the media. Toward that, here are some interesting statistics.
Last season, the Pirates were 13th in the majors in ERA. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom Colborn was the pitching coach, were 12th. In opposing slugging percentage, Pirates pitchers were 11th; Dodgers pitchers were 13th. In percentage of successful saves, the Pirates were second; the Dodgers were ninth.
Does this mean Williams was a better pitching coach than Colborn? Absolutely not. The numbers are presented only to show Williams, better or worse, is in the same league with Colborn.
The point is this: If the Pirates are to be a winning team this year, it will have considerably more to do with Duke and Paul Maholm continuing to pitch well with Oliver Perez regaining his 2004 form and with new acquisitions Sean Casey, Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa upgrading the offense than with anything Tracy and his staff do.
Smoke and mirrors don't work. Production does.
Bill Virdon has been going to spring training for more than 50 years and at least 25 of those with the Pirates. He has been to camps in Bradenton that were run by Danny Murtaugh, Jim Leyland, Gene Lamont, McClendon and now Tracy.
Here's what he said about the current camp. "To me, it doesn't look that much different than how it's been done here for years."
It's not about managers and pitching coaches and it's not about what happens in February and March. It's about players and their production or lack of it and what happens from April through September.
(Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.)
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