The latest on the A’s and the Giants from Arizona
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. >> Every spring, Curt Young is faced with a familiar challenge: Turn prospects into professionals and throwers into thinkers.
The youthful arms Young works with ooze with potential, but his task is turning that promise into a finished product.
Huston Street and Andrew Bailey both won Rookie of the Year Awards under his watch, and he counts Sean Doolittle and Sonny Gray among his many protégés. Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson all earned All-Star nods with Young leading their meetings.
After spending more than a decade molding the next generation of A’s pitchers in Oakland, the first-year Giants’ pitching coach inherits a staff led by Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, a trio that’s combined for nearly 4,700 innings in 29 seasons.
For a coach who held the hands of prospects as they took their first steps on big league mounds, the change of scenery isn’t as stark as you might imagine.
“You love it both ways,” Young said. “You love the veterans that, they know their game, they know how to pitch, they’ve experienced
a lot of things at this major league level. Now young guys, obviously when they make it to the major leagues, they have great arms, great stuff. Now do they know what to do with that stuff? I think that’s the No. 1 teaching point.”
The Giants hired Young to replace Dave Righetti, the only pitching coach the franchise has known since it opened AT&T Park in 2000.
“You look across the other side and he’s (Righetti) definitely one of the guys you respect and you know them being competitive every year and winning three World Series,” Young said. “When I did get the job, I talked to him and he went over every one of the pitchers, very
helpful. He’s just a class individual as a human and he brings class to the game of baseball from what he did as a player to what he did as a coach.”
Many of the pitchers Righetti reviewed with Young will battle for the final two spots in the Giants’ rotation this spring. Chris Stratton and Ty Blach are considered front-runners to slot in behind Samardzija, but the franchise is hopeful prospects Tyler Beede and Andrew Suarez as well as non-roster invitee Derek Holland enhance the competition during Cactus League play.
As the battle for the last two starting jobs heats up, the Giants will rely on Young’s ability to shape the next crop of reliable arms.
“I think when you look at a resume, (developing pitching prospects) is an area that you do look at,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “Of course, when you’re replacing such an iconic, I think, pitching coach that’s done such a great job, you want to make sure the guy that’s coming in is an outstanding pitching coach with experience and that type of experience in working with young pitchers. It’s great to have that to draw on.”
Young explained that having “confidence in stuff” is the No. 1 element he’ll attempt to build in his pitching staff.
“Being able to get as many innings as I did in the big leagues last year and being able to learn from the guys, learn from what it takes to succeed and to fail here at the big league level definitely gave me some motivation going into the offseason,” Blach said. “It gave me some things to work on, things I wanted to fine-tune and taught me what I needed to do to have success up here.”
Regardless of how the competition unfolds, Young expects the club will need more than just five starting pitchers for the regular season. That’s why the sense of uncertainty surrounding the final rotation jobs isn’t a concern for Young, but rather a reminder of how important the time is for molding young arms.