Rangers continue search for pitching coach

ARLINGTON -- Just five years removed from his last time pitching in the big leagues, Rangers general manager Chris Young isn’t at all shocked by the evolution of the game in that short time. But evaluating those changes now plays a huge role in his process of hiring the Rangers’ new big league pitching coach alongside newly hired manager Bruce Bochy.

Young said the club is past the “initial phase” of the search process following Bochy’s hire, and the group has contacted a variety of candidates in the past week.

“We hope to have something finalized in the coming weeks,” Young said. “I can't say specifically whether that's next week, the following week, or even three weeks from now. I think the most important part is that we make the right hire. We have to take our time with the process and fully vet the candidates and make sure we feel good about it.”

The Rangers parted ways with pitching coach Doug Mathis at the conclusion of the 2022 season, when the pitching staff finished 22nd in MLB with a 4.22 team ERA. It was only a slight improvement from 23rd (4.79 ERA) in ‘21. The staff in 2022 was largely carried by American League All-Star Martín Pérez (2.89 ERA) and Jon Gray, who posted a 3.96 ERA despite struggling with injuries. No other Texas starter had an ERA under 4.00.

The Rangers also finished 15-35 in one-run games in 2022, largely due to struggles by the bullpen down the stretch. Texas relievers ranked 12th in MLB in ERA (3.72) and 22nd in BB/9 (3.70).

When evaluating how best to operate the pitching staff going forward, Young emphasized building a “pitching department” in order to execute the different aspects of coaching to the best of their abilities.

“There's so many specializations in coaches now, whether it's the biomechanical aspect, the analytics component, the psychological component, the competitiveness, the preparation, the workload management, strength and conditioning,” Young said. “It's really hard for any one coach to dominate all aspects. So how do you build the right team to execute on all of them? That's what we're going through right now. It's a complicated hire. There's a lot of good candidates out there, but it's not just about any one aspect, it's about the collective sum of all of those parts and that's what we're looking to achieve here.”

Even though pitching has developed to a more analytical and biomechanical approach since Young’s last time on the mound, he doesn’t see that as the be-all and end-all of this hire.

Mathis and his co-pitching coach Brendan Sagara -- who has since been reassigned to a new role within the organization on the player development side -- split duties in a way that lent itself to the different aspects of pitching. Mathis mainly worked with the starters and had a more traditional role with the staff, and Sagara focused on pitch design, mechanics and analytics.

“One of the things for me is I really don't label [jobs] traditional or old school or progressive or new school or anything like that,” Young explained. “It's really just evaluating everybody's strengths and weaknesses, and then deciding what criteria are most important for those specific positions and then how you supplement or support around some of the limitations. None of us, no person in this industry dominates all aspects of the job. So I think understanding exactly what is necessary is what's most important.

“I'm not old school or new school. It's just really about the right school.”

As Young and Bochy continue to fill out the staff, all coaches who were offered the opportunity to return have decided to do so, including bench coach/offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker, hitting coaches Tim Hyers and Seth Connor, fielding coaches Corey Ragsdale and Tony Beasley, catching coordinator Bobby Wilson and bullpen coach Brett Hayes.

Texas could potentially add another coach to the staff in addition to pitching coach, Young added.

“There are key criteria that are just essential to being a good leader, the communicator, the ability to connect with people, the accountability, the presence, the credibility, stuff like that,” Young said of finding the right staff. “I think that those are really, really important attributes. I think it's applicable to really all successful coaches. I don't think that makes you old school or modern or anything like that. Those are just unique [traits] that have withstood the test of time.”