Cole Sands

[ScottyB]

All I can say is I hope immediately after the second game that Kitty ran down to the locker room and spoke to Wes Johnson about Sands. He was clearly itching to talk to someone about Sands delivery and a glitch that was easily correctable. I just hope that Johnson and Sands were informed after the game so it can be corrected ASAP and worked on with the Saints.

[Seth Stohs]

1 hour ago, ScottyB said:

All I can say is I hope immediately after the second game that Kitty ran down to the locker room and spoke to Wes Johnson about Sands. He was clearly itching to talk to someone about Sands delivery and a glitch that was easily correctable. I just hope that Johnson and Sands were informed after the game so it can be corrected ASAP and worked on with the Saints.

It would be interesting to know if they would hear about something like that and talk to Johnson/Ramirez/Maki about it, and then with Sands (and the Saints pitching staff)... 

That said, there's a reason that Kaat wasn't a pitching coach more than one year... 

[ScottyB]

He wasn’t a pitching coach for long, but he pitched for 25 years and won 16 gold gloves. The glitch he saw was in the way Sands was facing the plate at an angle and because of that, landing awkwardly for fielding purposes and having the ball sail on him. It can’t hurt to try the change because Sands didn’t look great.

[Linus]

He’s gonna have to throw more strikes to be in the big leagues. His stuff seemed ok but nothing special- I think the ceiling here is pretty low. 

[USAFChief]

Small sample size and everything, but Sands was pretty unimpressive IMO. Lackluster stuff.

[nicksaviking]

I didn't get to watch him throw so I'm not sure how his command, velocity or breaking pitches looked.

What was it that Kaat thought he saw? Like tipping pitches? Seems to me that is one thing that has been caught in the booth before. Maybe because of the straight on angle.

[CRF]

Hasn't really shown anything in the minors, or certainly up here. Reminds me of Kohl Stewart. Very average velo and average stuff. Just another run of the mill guy. Unfortunately, he probably won't have a long shelf life in the bigs. I heard Kitty talking about tweaking his delivery and follow through. If that was an issue, I would think that some pitching coach along the way would have noticed that and worked with Sands on it. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. 

[jorgenswest]

6 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

That said, there's a reason that Kaat wasn't a pitching coach more than one year... 

What was the reason?

The way it is written I get the implication he did a poor job as pitching coach.  Is that what you intended?

This is from his article at SABR

Quote

In August 1984 Kaat joined the Cincinnati Reds as their pitching coach. The Reds were then managed by Pete Rose, a teammate of Kaat’s in Philadelphia. During his one full season as a pitching coach, the Reds staff improved its ERA from 4.16 to 3.71 but Kaat chose not to return to coaching in 1986.

From UPI

[ashbury]

2 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

What was the reason?

The way it is written I get the implication he did a poor job as pitching coach.  Is that what you intended?

This is from his article at SABR

 

I'd caution that SABR bios, while generally excellent in their limited scope, are not investigative reporting and will not dig into the whys and wherefores of a decision like this.  The team might have allowed a coach to keep a fig leaf of respect in his departure, even if they might have been dissatisfied with some aspect of his work.  Or, not - I don't think we can infer, although if the ERA got better under his tutelage it's hardly a black mark against him.

[jorgenswest]

OK. Take a look at the article from UPI that was in the moment. 
 

Also the drop in ERA is significantly. It went up after he left.

[CRF]

5 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

What was the reason?

The way it is written I get the implication he did a poor job as pitching coach.  Is that what you intended?

This is from his article at SABR

 

Kaat apparently just decided to go into broadcasting instead of remaining a coach. Here's an excerpt from a radio interview he did recently, with the question, and Kaat's answer:

Part of your story is about the time when you were a pitching coach for Pete Rose, and you didn't spend a lot of time as a pitching coach.  How come you didn't like to how come you didn't want to stay with coaching?

Oh, it isn't that I didn't like it. But Pete had always told me when we when we competed against each other, I found out, that if he got a manager's job, he wanted me to be his pitching coach. And I was honored by that. So when he got the Reds job in late ’84, I went in there and did all of ’85. And then in in my era, if there was a rain delay, they would call a player up to the booth to kind of kill time and tell stories. And I had a lot of producers of TV and radio and said, Boy, you ought to get into this when you're done playing. So suddenly, I began to get calls from different agents and producers, for example of the Yankee games, Don Carney that said you should consider getting into broadcasting. So I found out that could be a very long career if I was able to do it well, so I decided to leave coaching after ’85 and was able to get the Yankee broadcast job in 1986. And got some great training. I worked with Bill White and Phil Rizzuto, Scooter. And Bill to this day is still my broadcast mentor who taught me more about broadcasting in those early days, that really helped me.

 

[Trov]

Sands stuff was not great, but he was not terrible, however, the Tigers lineup is terrible so if he faced a real lineup it may have been much much worse.  The two run HR was not a terrible pitch, just did not get below the zone, it was low and in.  The two runs later could have been 0 if Polonco made the play.  There was a lot of soft contact against him.  His biggest issue was when he got ahead he could not finish guys off. I again point out the lack of offense the Tigers line up has.  Do not see Sands as a guy we will count on this year. 

[dex8425]

25 minutes ago, Trov said:

Sands stuff was not great, but he was not terrible, however, the Tigers lineup is terrible so if he faced a real lineup it may have been much much worse.  The two run HR was not a terrible pitch, just did not get below the zone, it was low and in.  The two runs later could have been 0 if Polonco made the play.  There was a lot of soft contact against him.  His biggest issue was when he got ahead he could not finish guys off. I again point out the lack of offense the Tigers line up has.  Do not see Sands as a guy we will count on this year. 

Also, Smeltzer doesn't have good stuff either. Look at what he did against the same lineup. All Smeltzer has is better control, which is definitely playing at the MLB level currently. 

[chpettit19]

Sands has a pretty decent breaking ball (6 inches more horizontal break than the average curveball in the majors) and it gets a higher whiff rate than any Joe Ryan pitch. His fastball is hit hard about the same as Ryan's (39.3% for Ryan, 40.0% for Sands). His "expected" numbers (xBA, xSLG, xwOBA) on his fastball and curveball are better than Ryan on his fastball and slider. But the actual results against his curve (on 41 pitches and 12 PAs that ended in curves) are far worse.

First inning he gives up an 84 MPH single through an open left side for a single. Bummer, but it happens. Hangs a curve that gets pounded by Schoop. 2-0 quick. 2nd he gives up a 2 out "single" that was hit right at Polanco at 71.8 MPH. Should've been out of that mess. Giving up 2 instead of 4 would look much better. Facing 2 fewer hitters in the 2nd would've save him pitches and maybe he gets through an extra inning. Better control definitely would've made his life easier, though. Throws far too many completely noncompetitive pitches.

Now before anybody yells at me, I'm not suggesting he was great or should even stay up. He needs to go back down and has more work to do. I'm not sold that Kaat has some miracle answer that the Twins staff and technology haven't picked up on, but it never hurts to have an outside pair of eyes give you a little info in case it helps. But there are some promising signs in some of his pitch data that suggests he's not a lost cause. Just a guy who isn't ready yet. Needs to tighten up his control in the minors, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him have some nice outings at some point in his career.

[Linus]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

I didn't get to watch him throw so I'm not sure how his command, velocity or breaking pitches looked.

What was it that Kaat thought he saw? Like tipping pitches? Seems to me that is one thing that has been caught in the booth before. Maybe because of the straight on angle.

Kaat didn’t like that he started his delivery at an angle on the rubber. Said it prevented him from getting square to the target at release and caused command issues.