Padres fire Larry Rothschild
In a desperate move to try and save their season, the San Diego Padres have fired pitching coach Larry Rothschild. What now?
Hi! It’s me. Before we dig into the news of the day, which is that the San Diego Padres have fired pitching coach Larry Rothschild, I’d like to point you in the direction of a thing that I wrote five days ago titled It’s not all Preller’s fault:
I’m placing the blame at the feet of pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who was let go by the Yankees for this exact reason. He has earned a reputation as a coach that gets a lot out of his pitchers but burns them out quickly, resulting in a number of injuries to the staff and a team scrambling to find starting pitchers.
Hilariously, the 2019 Yankees had a trade deadline very similar to the 2021 Padres (whiffing on the starting pitching help that they desperately needed) and then fired Rothschild anyway after winning 103 games.
As A.J. Preller is wont to do, he bought high on something that could easily flame out. He got Rothschild on a gamble that it was the Yankees’ fault, and not Rothschild’s, that their pitching staff fell apart. He bet that the Yankees were wrong in their reasoning for firing Rothschild.
I believe that bet is now a lost one. This is two seasons in a row where the Padres’ pitching staff has physically fallen apart before reaching the playoffs, dooming any chances of making it to the World Series.
It’s time to find a pitching coach that can keep these pitchers, with their long track records of excellence, healthy and performing at a high level.
So, yeah, you could say I was happy to hear that the Padres felt the same way. As happy as someone can be when someone is getting fired and the team you’re rooting for is in a tailspin, anyway.
Craig Elsten and I discussed Rothschild’s firing on this week’s episode of Padres Hot Tub, which you can subscribe to here:
For today, I’d like to answer two questions. One, what does this move do now? And two, who should be the next pitching coach of the Padres?
What now?
Well, for one, bullpen coach Ben Fritz is taking over as interim pitching coach. I have no idea who Ben Fritz is (that’s him up above), but I doubt anyone could have an immediate impact in the final weeks of a season with a veteran staff, so let’s assume that he’s just maintenance and not a candidate to take over the role long term.
Firing Rothschild doesn’t fix the now deep-seeded issues that have been built into these guys. It doesn’t make Darvish and Paddack (and Weathers) healthy, but it does open up the possibility that they could be mildly more effective when they return from injury. Fingers crossed!
And, sitting one game out of a wild card spot, the Padres goal is still to make it to the postseason. The only way they will do that is if the above happens and the Padres end up with a strong 4-man staff (Darvish-Snell-Musgrove-Paddack) the rest of the way.
Going forward, the Padres are hoping that a new pitching coach will be more effective and (more importantly) will do a better job of keeping these guys healthy.
Who should be the next pitching coach?
This is a question that will be tackled in the offseason, and it’ll be easier for me to break down specific candidates once we hear who the team is targeting, but I’m looking for these types of qualifications:
Youth. Rothschild was pushing 70 years old. The best pitching coaches around MLB these days seem to be in their 40s. Which makes sense because…
Analytics. I want someone who understands how to take all of the incredible information we now have on pitchers and pitches, and can turn that information into teaching moments that help to make every pitcher on the staff better (and stay healthier).
Flexibility. There are really two types of coaches in baseball, if I can generalize for a second. There are the ones that work to get the best out of every player they meet by tapping into each individual’s strengths and avoiding each individual’s weaknesses. And then there are the ones that believe every player would be best doing one specific thing. Pitching coaches that believe that everyone should be throwing sliders (or sinkers), even if that’s not the strength of the player. We’ve tried the latter, I’d prefer the former, although those guys are usually harder to find.
The spark
The Padres welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers to Petco Park tonight in what has to be a terrifying experience for the players.
Hey, we know you guys can’t figure out how to pitch or hit and your swagger is in the toilet, but the champs are here after stealing Scherzer and Turner away from us and they’re red hot. Have fun!
There’s about a 25% chance that the Padres make it to the postseason now, after a truly disastrous summer of losing lots of baseball games to lesser opponents, and that percentage will go down unless they can find something (anything) that can topple the Dodgers in this series.
The Padres need a spark, and probably an offensive one. Firing the guy who is obviously doing a bad job mid-season is a desperation move, and it’s an attempt to try and find a spark. Now the team knows what the expectations are. They know that the front office isn’t ready to settle for what the results have been lately.
If things continue to go really, really bad….Jayce Tingler could lose his job at the end of this season. Especially now that Rothschild is gone, supposedly at Tingler’s request.
If the guys want him around, they can try and find the spark to save him. If they don’t, they can continue spiraling and probably start next season with a new face as their leader.
Padres fire Larry Rothschild
Great takes John. I am completely in agreement that LR needed to go immediately. As previously stated, I trust most of Prellers moves to improve the club, but this was the lone hiring (in combination of the demotion of Balsley) I was not a fan of. Regardless of how long LR has been around and how much baseball he has experienced as both a manager and a pitching coach, todays game has simply passed him. We cannot blame injuries and performance on LR solely, however, as someone who has seen what kind of impact bad coaching can have on all other facets of a team, I am expecting a huge turnaround and that "SPARK" to take shape immediately. I also believe that both Tingler and Preller are safe and no heads will roll. There are too many built in excuses for this season and ownership will give them at least one more shot at it. As for the next full time pitching coach? If Preller doesn't have the ability to drive to Poway and apologize to Darren Balsley personally, give him a raise, and ask him to add to long list of turning guys around, then I believe they will go hard after Greg Maddux. I've heard him speak a few times over the last year and in combo with his family ties to San Diego, I would love this move. Thoughts?