Teaching

I watch the White Sox not hit—one run in 41 innings—and not pitch—“closer” David Robertson give up a three-run walk-off homerun in Seattle last night—and wonder about coaching.  Does it happen on the major-league level?  It should.

With Clare, I was forever hitting her groundballs and pitching batting practice.  If she booted a ball or swung and missed at a slider, I stopped to tell her what she was doing wrong.  I also knew to tell her what she was doing right.  It was the same for when she played—talk about the mistakes and the progress.  My biggest thrill as the parent of a jock was when my daughter motioned to me from the dugout in college to talk about what she was doing at the plate.  She trusted me.

I’m not saying I did anything special; far from it.  Something like this takes place in sports all the time through college and, in baseball, the minor leagues, for other teams if not the White Sox.  But once players reach the big time?  Hardly.  I can’t count the number of times a coach will say he doesn’t go up to a player to tell him he has to change his approach, to which I say, Why not?  Sorry, but a batting average under .250—I’m talking about you, Todd Frazier—or an ERA over 4—hello, David Robertson and Matt Albers—merits a talking to.

Sox second baseman Brett Lawrie has absolutely no sense of the strike zone; he consistently takes pitches down the middle of the plate while swinging at sliders down and away and pitches up and in.  This translates into a .252 BA with a team-high 105 strikeouts in 341 at-bats.  If I’m the hitting coach, I pull Lawrie aside and show him video of his at-bats, again and again, until he changes or the front office smartens up and gets rid of him.  The same goes for the pitching.  I’m tired of hearing acts of contrition.  Pitchers need to see what they threw and then explain why they did.

But I’m not the White Sox hitting or pitching coach.  Those guys just sit there in the dugout, although Don Cooper does visit the mound on occasion.  I don’t know why.  It sure hasn’t helped.