Leo Mazzone and his replacement, Roger McDowell received much attention over the winter, but the Arizona Diamondbacks hired a new pitching coach also. Bryan Price is getting rave reviews:
All of them have said Price has already helped them in one way or another, from isolating a problem with their mechanics to just being a positive influence and making sure they stay prepared and focused.
“He just makes you feel important,” Halsey said. “It doesn’t take long for you to realize that his goals are the same as your goals. As much as we want to become better pitchers, he’s trying to make us better pitchers.
“That’s what you want, somebody who’s there to diagnose anything that might be going wrong, a guy that wants to help you improve yourself because that only helps the entire team.”
We’ll wait to see if it translates to better performance.
Update: Lookout Landing talks about Seattle’s new coach, Rafael Chaves fixing Dave Burba’s mechanics. It makes you wonder if Price is really that good.
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BP sure did great things with the pitching staff in Seattle the last two years…
I’m not saying it’s possible to fix pitchers who aren’t good enough, but BP sure didn’t go out of his way to prove it was.
Dave Burba’s still pitching? That’s the biggest shock.
Of course, while it’s nice Halsey, et al are happy in March (that’d be a terrible sign if they weren’t), July might be a different story.
As a Yankees fan, I wish he was still bumming around their spring training camp. Oh well, can’t have everything.