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The Rothschild Files

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According to John Lowe, the Tigers have asked for permission to interview Larry Rothschild for pitching coach. Rothschild has been the pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs for the last 4 seasons. And let’s look at his track record.

During that time the Cubs have lost Kerry Wood and Mark Prior for a significant amount of time due to inury. In 2005, Cubs pitchers Carlos Zambrano and Mark Prior ranked 2nd and 3rd in all of baseball in pitcher abuse points. Prior and Zambrano combined had 8 outings in which they threw more than 122 pitches. Zambrano has been in the top 10 in pitcher abuse points each of the last 3 years – he’s 25 years old. Prior was 4th in the league in PAP in 2003, as a rookie.

I don’t know if this is Rothschild’s fault or Dusty Baker’s, but considering the Tigers are trying to build a young pitching staff, this stuff scares me. Especially combined with Jim Leyland’s use of young pitchers in 1998. But in all fairness, Mark Prior thinks highly enough of him that he would like Rothschild back next year.

Also, in an interview with Baseball Prospectus, pitching mechanics guru Tom House had this to say when asked about the best pitching coaches in the game:

(Larry) Rothschild is in the middle of new- and old-school, and gives a bit of the best of both worlds. Some of these guys just get more publicity than others, but there are more good ones now than there have been in the past.

Other information I found about Rothschild is that he is a proponent of the change-up, much like Bob Cluck. It was something he stressed heavily during a managing stint in Tampa.

It’s nice to see some positive comments. However, given that the Tigers are staking a large part of our hopes to Bonderman/Verlander/Zumaya, I still find myself apprehensive.

Other Stuff
-David Espinosa is off to a strong start in the Arizona Fall League. In his first two games he’s gone 5 for 9 with 3 doubles and a stolen base. Other Tigers in the AFL are Don Kelly (0 for 4), Kody Kirkland (no action), Mark Woodyard, Adam Peterson (allowed 2 homers in 1 1/3), and Humberto Sanchez.

9 thoughts on “The Rothschild Files”

  1. Interesting article on Rothschild and the change-up… Tony Saunders: “When I work with younger kids I tell them not to mess with breaking balls because they’ll do damage to their arm. You can’t throw a changeup the wrong way. You can’t hurt your arm with it.” Yet didn’t we hear pretty definitively that the change-up was what was wrong with Bonderman’s elbow late this year?

    I wouldn’t hold Rothschild’s Cubs record against him… Dusty Baker is a known pitcher abuser. I’d be more worried about his record with Leyland and how he did when he was the manager in TB.

    Let’s also remember that the pitcher abuse landscape is night and day compared to Leyland’s Florida/Colorado years.

  2. I’m not sure if I hold the Cubs’ recent pitcher abuse problems on Rothschild, but I think it is interesting to note that starters Wilson Alvarez and Ryan Rupe finished 8th and 9th overall in pitcher abuse points for the 1999 Devil Rays team that LR managed. Not far behind these two on that list sits Esteban Yan at 11th. That seems to be the only year where there was a high rate of abuse among Rothschild’s pitchers. In 1998 the highest PAP of any of his pitchers was Tony Saunders at 30. No pitcher really ranks that high up on the chart in 2000, so I don’t know if you can call him a “systematic abuser” based on this data. At the very least, he isn’t as bad as Dusty Baker.

  3. oops I hit submit too soon. 1999 is rather alarming though since both Rupe and Yan were under the age of 24 and pitching heavily. It was Yan’s first season of frequent use and it was Rupe’s rookie year.

  5. And look what happened to Rupe after that season. He only made 18 starts due to injury the subsequent season. His rookie year showed some promise, but he was awful after that.

  7. Rothschild had one pitcher in 3+ years go over 200 IP. Arrojo in 1999. I don’t think you can call that abuse. PAP concentrates on pitch counts almost exclusively and I’ve yet to see any convincing data that PAP really does correllate with pitcher injuries. Dusty is notorious for leaving guys out there for 140+ pitches. But remember that Wood and Prior both got injured before Baker/Rothschild got there. These guys know that the best thing the Tigers have going for them is these young pitchers. I expect they will be careful.

  8. I agree Tim.

    This is the first I’ve heard of PAP and it sounds intriguing, but I wonder how valid it is. It’s generally accepted that there is a correlation between high pitch counts and arm injuries, but this stat seems fairly arbitrary. (n-100)^3?? Are they really implying that someone who averages 102 pitches per game is 8 times more likely to have an injury as someone who averages 101 pitches? Zambrano has thrown an average of 3 more pitches per game than Prior and his PAP is 60% higher. Is he 60% more likely to have an injury than a guy that throws 3 fewer pitches?

    There’s no doubt that this stat gives you a quick view of which pitchers are throwing the most, but why not just sort on the number of pitches or the average pitches per start?

    There’s also a HUGE correlation between PAP and the pitcher’s skill. I’m sure Schilling and Johnson racked up a huge number of PAP points in ’01. Does that mean they were “abused”?

    The stat isn’t irrelevant, but its formula needs to be justified and it needs to have other factors added. Tying the phrase “Pitcher Abuse” solely to pitch counts is misleading.

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