Slide steps

Very, very interesting piece by Colin Dunlap in the PG today dealing with the Pirates’ pitchers  holding runners on base. Apparently, Ray Searage has made working on slide steps a big emphasis this spring. Dejan Kovacevic wrote last May that the previous coaching staff, presumably John Russel and Joe Kerrigan, was actually afraid to work on pickoff moves with the pitchers. Charlie Morton, who you may recall spending what seemed like hours upon hours of actual gametime throwing the ball to first base once anyone got there, was one guy that they apparently let get away with everything.

Beyond the chicken/egg question of whether the pitchers/coaching staff or Ryan Doumit should bear the brunt of the blame for last year’s basepath debacle (Doumit threw out just 12% of runners attempting to steal on him, which was well, well below the team average of 22% that was good for 15th in the NL; Chris Snyder threw out 30% of runners stealing against him in Pittsburgh and Jason Jaramillo threw out 36%, but then Snyder came to the team after Searage took over for Kerrigan and it’s possible that more focus was put on the slide steps by then), it kind of blows my mind that no one would work with Charlie Morton on a slidestep last year. The guy was obviously drowning out there any time someone reached base and I get that maybe they wanted to work on mechanics (though working on mechanics isn’t exactly Joe Kerrigan’s MO, as we all now know) or to find some kind of consistency with his normal delivery before working on a sidestep, but given the way that runners basically got a get home free card just by reaching first base early in the season, it’s just seems flat out stupid that no one would diagnose that as a problem that needs fixed.

Which is to say that reading a piece like today’s is a reminder of why people like Joe Kerrigan and John Russell are no longer coaching for the Pirates.