Tuesday, May 6, 2014

When Do We Start To Hold Rothschild Responsible?


I know I am not alone when I say that I am growing pretty darn tired of CC Sabathia struggling almost every single time out, at least for an inning or two a game. CC was brought in to be the workhorse and the ace and the stopper and for the past few seasons he has not been that, not by a long shot. Are we really chalking up Sabathia's struggles to weight loss, which is conceivable, or is it something more? Could it possibly be that Larry Rothschild could be to blame? Maybe...

Rothschild was hired before the 2011 season and enjoyed two great seasons from Sabathia, see below for his stats: 
Year Age W L W-L% ERA GS IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA+ FIP WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9
2011 30 19 8 .704 3.00 33 237.1 230 87 79 17 61 230 143 2.88 1.226 8.7 0.6 2.3 8.7
2012 31 15 6 .714 3.38 28 200.0 184 89 75 22 44 197 125 3.34 1.140 8.3 1.0 2.0 8.9
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/5/2014.

While I understand that CC has lost a bunch of weight and had what we were led to believe was a minor and clean up type elbow surgery we have seen CC struggle over the past two seasons to the tune of: 
Year Age Tm W L W-L% ERA GS IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA+ FIP WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9 SO/W
2013 32 NYY 14 13 .519 4.78 32 211.0 224 122 112 28 65 175 85 4.10 1.370 9.6 1.2 2.8 7.5 2.69
2014 33 NYY 3 4 .429 5.75 7 40.2 50 27 26 7 9 44 74 4.16 1.451 11.1 1.5 2.0 9.7 4.89
Generated 5/5/2014.

Rothschild is the pitching coach and if CC is having to learn how to pitch with reduced velocity or reduced this or reduced that then when does some of the blame go to the pitching coach? Plenty of pitchers have learned how to pitch with reduced velocity and lengthened their careers, see Andy Pettitte for example, but CC is 33 years old. We're not talking about an aging veteran here on a one year deal like Hiroki Kuroda. We have CC for a long time and owe him a lot of money and something needs to be done, sooner rather than later.

I'm not saying pull a George Steinbrenner and fire Rothschild but he needs to start being held responsible for the Yankees pitching struggles and woes and it starts at the top. CC is struggling, Kuroda is struggling, Ivan Nova is gone (nobody can help Tommy John surgery), Michael Pineda is suspended for using pine tar again, Vidal Nuno is struggling, and the revolving door in the bullpen is getting rather old. It's time to do something and do something now. Cashman, your move. 

4 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more. I think both Rothschild and Long should be held accountable. Girardi 's job is to "manage", not develop. That falls on the shoulders of your coaching staff. Rothschild has been unable to help anybody when they struggle, or develop any young pitcher beyond a 5 inning starter. And Long can't seem to do anything but increase a player's strikeout rate. We can't bunt and we can't hit with risp. All we do is hope for that 3 run home run while our opponent singles us to death! Sorry for the rant, but it frustrates me to watch. Fire them both!

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    1. I begged for the Yankees to fire Kevin Long and hire Tino Martinez this offseason. Brian Cashman doesn't read my stuff as much as I like to joke about apparently.

      Rothschild is not a good pitching coach. Outside of Hiroki Kuroda we have not seen great consistent pitching in the last two plus seasons and it's concerning.

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  2. I agree with you on Rothschild. I however don't agree with people who want to fire Kevin Long. Say what you will about RISP failing, but he turned Hurtis Handerson into a 40 HR hitter, and this year Tex is on fire due to a simple mechanical change.

    Pitching wise, depends on what you want to focus on. Don't you think Nova's resurgence last year was in part due to Rothschild?

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    1. For every Curtis Granderson, who was not a 200 K a season guy either before coming to Kevin Long's House, there are a ton more "failure" stories. Mark Teixeira was a .300 hitter before working extensively with Long and is now more of a .265 hitter. I don't buy decline either, he's too young to be declining THAT much when A Rod could hit that at age 40 with two bum hips.

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