67-year old pitching coach Larry Rothschild, was fired for the 2nd time in 3 years as the struggling San Diego Padres have fallen off a cliff and their pitchers have no idea how to throw baseballs anymore.
The Padres acquired Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrave during the offseason. Chris Paddack was supposed to be the young gun who was supposed to be the next great dealer in this league.
Blake Snell
2020 ERA (with Rays): 3.24
2021 ERA: 4.82
Yu Darvish
2020 ERA (with Cubs): 2.01
2021 ERA: 3.70
Chris Paddack
2020 ERA: 4.73
2021 ERA: 5.13
Yike.
The Padres have lost 9 of their last 11 games and sit outside of the 2nd Wild Card spot behind the Cincinnati Reds and their pitchers inability to keep balls from getting swatted into the parking lot is a big reason why they are 13 games out of first place in the NL West.
New York Yankees fans know firsthand just how ineffective Larry Rothschild is as a pitching coach prior to his firing after the 2019 season. In his last few seasons as Yankees pitching coach, we watched guys like Sonny Gray and Lance Lynn come in and lose all of their talents only to then join new teams the following season and immediately become all-stars and Cy Young candidates.
I will never forget Trevor Bauer and Sonny Gray appearing on CC Sabathia’s podcast bragging about all the information and resources the Reds organization provided for them while CC sat there looking visibly annoyed that the Yankees and Larry Rothschild didn’t embrace technology.
Perhaps baseball has evolved past old coaches limping up to the pitcher’s mound and telling their player to ‘just throw hard’ when they’re in a jam. There are so many metrics on hitters tendencies that the best teams in the league utilize.
For some reason, when there is a budding young team ready to become the next great dynasty, Larry Rothschild manifests himself in their dugout to ruin the pitching staff.
Whether it’s a team of Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton or now on the Padres with Fernando Tatis Jr, Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado, Rothschild exists exclusively to waste a once in a generation batting lineup by turning the pitchers into the worst versions of themselves.
But we all know how this world works. This old white dude has connections all over baseball. If he wants another job, he’ll have one by New Years regardless of how awful the last 3-4 years of his career have been.
See ya, bozo. Hopefully Slam Diego makes it into the playoffs. The world deserves to see Fernando Tatis Jr in action.
