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What exactly is a pitching coach worth?
The question is a tease, of course. There is no method that I’ve seen to answer it with any degree of certainty. I’ve come to feel that pitching and hitting coaches in baseball have less of an impact than offensive and defensive coordinators in football, but nevertheless, they have a much greater impact than for which they are generally given credit.
There have been star pitching coaches around for a long time, gurus like Ray Miller, Roger Craig, Leo Mazzone, Johnny Sain and Rick Peterson.
The reputation of rockin’ Mazzone is still so strong from his time with the Braves, some think he might become the first pitching coach to make the Hall of Fame. This week, the Royals will go up against perhaps the best pitching coach of them all, the guy who might beat Mazzone to Cooperstown — the Cardinals’ Dave Duncan.
St. Louis manager Tony La Russa has won 2,417 games, five pennants and two World Series during his 30 seasons as a big-league skipper. For all but the first four of those seasons, Duncan has been by his side.
Duncan’s status as one of the game’s all-time best pitching coaches has been in place for a long time now. Still, casual baseball fans probably still are not aware of Duncan’s amazing track record.
This is the guy who suggested to La Russa that fading starter Dennis Eckersley might make a good reliever. He oversaw the career turnarounds of Dave Stewart, Bob Welch, Storm Davis and Steve Ontiveros — and that’s just from the Oakland years.
During the last few seasons with the Cardinals, Duncan has become to baseball what Bob Vila is to home improvement. He’s the ultimate reclamation man.
The Cardinals haven’t developed a lot of pitchers out of their system over the last few years, nor have they made much of a splash in the free-agent market. Nevertheless, St. Louis has churned out a solid starting rotation almost every season.
Chris Carpenter went from something of an underachiever during his time with Toronto to a Cy Young winner in St. Louis. Jeff Weaver was barely hanging on to a big-league job when he came to the Cardinals in the middle of the 2006 season but was a star in the playoffs that year.
Duncan is still at it this season. Journeyman Kyle Lohse is 8-2 with a 3.77 ERA, nearly a full run under his career mark. Perhaps most remarkable, especially to Royals fans, Todd Wellemeyer — he of the 10.34 ERA for the Royals before being waived last season — is 7-2 with a 3.67 ERA.
Duncan’s persistent ability to turn chicken you-know-what into chicken salad has helped the Cardinals stay competitive on the run-prevention side of the game without throwing away large sums of cash in the risky free-agent game.
The Royals’ Bob McClure is developing a solid reputation. Gil Meche has been better with Kansas City than he ever was in Seattle. Brian Bannister may fall into a similar category. Odalis Perez and Scott Elarton didn’t turn out so well, but McClure seems to work well with young pitchers.
If McClure can prove to be as valuable to KC as Duncan has been to his teams, he’ll be worth more than any free-agent Dayton Moore could bring in.
La Russa is headed to the Hall of Fame someday. If there’s any justice, Duncan will get there as well — his plaque preferably right next to La Russa’s.
| Pitcher | Bef. | Aft. |
| Chris Carpenter | 4.10 | 3.14 |
| Todd Wellemeyer | 5.65 | 3.43 |
| Kyle Lohse | 4.82 | 3.77 |
| Jeff Suppan | 4.57 | 3.95 |
| Joel Pineiro | 4.50 | 4.15 |
Aft: career ERA with Duncan
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