Sox Minor League Coaching and Development Staff

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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Final thought: I usually agree with Ian on almost everything as it relates to the MLB side.

New thing: the Red Sox hired Justin Willard from the Twins as their Director of Pitching. He was a pitching coordinator for the Twins in Ft. Myers the last few years.

View: https://twitter.com/byJulianMack/status/1731712075078979928


https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-willard-463a7065
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/1731714281068974382


Willard, a 6'1 RH reliever, pitched like 35 innings at Concord University in Athens, WV over 3 years with an ERA over 11.
 

JM3

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Here are some quotes from that Podcast:

Tweetable Quotes:

“The people aspect is something that we as coaches often overlook. Helping people grow is a huge, huge aspect of coaching.” – Justin Willard (01:38)

“I’m going to put you in the best position to see the ball. That’s what we as humans do. We want to see.” – Justin Willard (09:07)

“If you can’t throw a change-up, it’s probably because you can’t get a proper extension of your arm. So, let’s work on the things that will help you get there.” – Justin Willard (20:55)

“You need to have all your information and your ability to communicate in one kind of central location.” – Justin Willard (22:09)

“I’m very big on restraint-based training, understanding and manipulating the organism, the task, and the environment.“ – Justin Willard (25:59)

“Throwing should be the easy part. Getting our body warm and ready and sweating, that happens before throwing.” – Justin Willard (36:41)

“I would rather have a guy with an 80-grade pitch and no command than a guy with a 40-50 grade pitch with phenomenal command.” – Justin Willard (40:07)

“If you boil down this whole player development process, you can’t just look at one sphere.”– Justin Willard (51:1)
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/justin-willard-milb-pitching-coach-minnesota-twins/id1256849644?i=1000444198090

I also thought this article was kind of interesting about how Justin Willard & other pitching people in the Twins org helped Ryan Jeffers become a better throwing catcher.

With the help of catching coach Hank Conger and a pair of pitching experts — bullpen coach Colby Suggs, who came to the Twins after working at the Driveline pitcher-development school, and Justin Willard, the Twins minor league pitching coordinator — Jeffers undertook a throwing program, including frequent use of weighted balls, that he still follows daily.

"Throwing from 60 feet. Then throwing from 120 feet. Throwing for velocity, then throwing for spin. Throwing to someone, then throwing into a net," Jeffers said of his pitcher-style workout routine. "I was at the indoor facility [at North Carolina-Wilmington, his alma mater] three days a week, four days, five days heading into camp. And I throw the weighted balls every day now."
https://www.startribune.com/ryan-jeffers-minnesota-twins-catcher-pitcher-stolen-bases/600284868/
 

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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It's a good thing Absinthe started this thread.

View: https://twitter.com/SPChrisHatfield/status/1731835065376662012


Zawadski has been with the Red Sox since 2018. He is 38 & was born in Framingham. He had 7 hits in his MLB career.

He is the most recent of the 9 MLB players from Framingham when he played in 2010.

All-Time Framingham hits leaders:

Pie Traynor 2,416
Mark Sweeney 464
Lou Merloni 294
Stan Benjamin 176
Lance Zawadski 7
 

JM3

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Apparently this was basically Breslow's job title in Chicago & Willard will be working from Boston.

“We’re really excited to bring him on board,” Breslow said of Willard. “Someone that comes with a pretty strong track record of pitching development. We’ve been mindful of what Minnesota’s done over the last few years in the development of some of their guys. We feel really lucky, really fortunate. He spent quite a bit of time with Andrew Bailey, so we feel like those two will be in lockstep. And pitching development is something that I feel comfortable kind of diving into. I feel like we’ve got the foundation for a really strong infrastructure and something that’s going to need to evolve and grow over time, but we’re off to a really good start.”
Minnesota has seen a number of young pitchers, including Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, impact their major league roster in recent years. Breslow hopes bringing Willard aboard will lead to similar results.
“There’s a solid track record of success and a number of pitchers in Minnesota have taken a step forward and are now impacting their major league team,” Breslow said, “but beyond that, we had a chance to spend quite a bit of time with him in person, had him connect with Andrew and (manager Alex Cora) and make sure that he was going to be able to impact our major league pitching group as well as the (player development) side. We feel really comfortable in his ability both in terms of technical and tactical skills and then also leadership and strategic thinking.”
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/12/craig-breslow-makes-first-big-executive-hire-as-red-sox-overhaul-pitching.html
 

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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WORK UPDATE

Extremely pumped to share that I've been promoted to the role of Hitting Coordinator at
@RedSox


Thank you to God, the Red Sox, our awesome leadership, and to all of my family/friends who support and encourage me every day

Cheers to Feeding the Monster for many more years to come!!
View: https://twitter.com/Joney93/status/1734009060075139196


I guess he was a roving complex hitting coach before. Driveline guy.
 

JM3

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The Red Sox have also added Eddie Cheong to the Player Development Department as a Korean translator.

LIFE UPDATE: I'm super stoked to announce my new journey with the
@RedSox
! I will be working as a Korean Language Translator and also be working closely with the Player Development Department. I'm thrilled to learn, grow, and be part of this incredible organization!! ..... Just 6 years ago, I moved to the U.S. from Korea without knowing how to say a word in English. I am grateful that I was able to meet people who supported my journey and became my guide. A huge thank you to everyone who inspired me every step of the way! LET'S GO RED SOX!!
View: https://twitter.com/eddie15091/status/1734279570512322905


Cheong has previously worked at the University of San Diego & in the Arizona Fall League.

The only Red Sox guy in the system that I know of at this time who speaks Korean is Chansol Lee. But maybe this will be a good opportunity to grow in that direction.
 

Chainsaw318

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Burned . . . Blacklisted
The Red Sox have also added Eddie Cheong to the Player Development Department as a Korean translator.



View: https://twitter.com/eddie15091/status/1734279570512322905


Cheong has previously worked at the University of San Diego & in the Arizona Fall League.

The only Red Sox guy in the system that I know of at this time who speaks Korean is Chansol Lee. But maybe this will be a good opportunity to grow in that direction.
Spark the theories about KBO OF Jung Hoo Lee?
 

JM3

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Spark the theories about KBO OF Jung Hoo Lee?
I've already heard theories on both him & Ha Seong Kim already lol

Seems unlikely it's tied to anything else specific with Chansol Lee already here after signing a $300k IFA deal, but it's a cool story considering he's only been in America for 6 years & opens up some opportunities/shows a commitment.
 

JM3

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JM3

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JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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Tyler Milliken did a piece on the Kyle Boddy hire:

For many baseball traditionalists, there was some serious hesitation to Boddy’s voice and methods gaining traction in the sport, since he lacked the classic player or coaching background. His first couple of careers weren’t even in sports, as he worked as a professional gambler and then at Microsoft as a software developer. There was no history of a blogger creating his own biomechanics lab and trying to reinvent the way pitchers evolved.
During Boddy’s time with Reds, their minor-league arms went from the 6th-worst xERA to the 6th-best out of 30 organizations in just two years time. That played a big part in their farm system skyrocketing from 28 to 8 in Baseball America’s rankings. Not to mention, 2020 was a tough hurdle for everyone in baseball, but especially for Boddy who was trying to get his feet wet in a brand new position.
Taking a step back, it’s no surprise that Breslow had his sights set on Boddy. Both heavily emphasize the importance of velocity, with Breslow himself saying his development process starts with maximizing those ticks on the radar gun. In 2023, Cubs minor-league arms averaged the highest velocity across the minors and the second-best Stuff+, which is the pitch model heavily used in Driveline’s analysis process.
https://985thesportshub.com/listicle/milliken-kyle-boddy-joins-red-sox-pitching-development-makeover/
 

JM3

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Going to borrow this post mostly just to say it's a good thread & well done.

There is a sense that the new CBO, director of pitching, and pitching coach have brought a new philosophy about pitching to the organization, but some of the descriptions we hear from the media don't seem to add up. Nor is it especially likely that the pitching philosophy is straightforward enough to be conveyed in a single sentence.

A lot was made early of the fact that several of our starting pitchers succeeded after shelving four-seam fastballs, but I'm pretty confident the philosophy is not "don't throw four-seam fastballs." For one thing, Bello's added his back in his last few starts and Giolito, their biggest off-season pitching acquisition, is a heavy four-seam guy (although we haven't yet seen what Bailey would do with him). But for another, many of the pitchers whom Breslow and Bailey worked with in Chicago and San Francisco respectively feature the four-seamer very prominently: Justin Steele throws his 60% of the time, for example; Kevin Gausman is basically a two-pitch pitcher between his four-seam and his split. Rather, I think a better account of the philosophy that drove Bailey's reinvention of our staff in Spring Training is "don't rely on any pitch that you need to throw out of the zone to avoid it being crushed." That's what he did with Gausman in San Francisco: recognizing that Gausman's slider and sinker were vulnerable to getting annihilated if he threw them close to the zone and thus unpersuasive as chase pitches, he pared down his repertoire to just his two plus pitches that could survive around the strike zone. This allowed Gausman to pitch ahead in the count more, which in turn meant that hitters (in protect mode) were more vulnerable to chasing the split in the dirt as an out pitch. Since his time with Bailey in SF, Gausman has quite persistently had lower HR rates and higher K rates than in his pre-SF seasons. That's a pretty great formula for success.

That's my take on repertoire, although I'll be *very* interested to read your opinions. But beyond that, the draft gives us our first real look at what kinds of pitchers they will try to acquire going forward.

Something Devin Pearson said to Alex Speier on a podcast episode the other day about what's been different prepping for a draft with Breslow and the new guys was really interesting: he said that Breslow wasn't giving them any specific marching orders, but that he (and Andrew Bailey and Justin Willard) had given them a better sense of which traits to prioritize in the draft—because the player dev people can't teach those traits—and which ones to worry less about—because they can.

I won't go back and transcribe it, but doing some googling I see he said something very similar to MLB.com, so I'll quote that here.



He obviously didn't say what those traits were, and I don't have a real firm sense; maybe others on the board have a better one. But I have read people confidently assert that the new philosophy was that you need guys with elite pitch characteristics and you can teach them command, and others, just as confidently, that we can now add velocity with plyoball workouts and such, so we need to acquire pitchers who can repeat their deliveries and command the ball, and we can add stuff later. Those probably can't both be right — but what if they are? Maybe the philosophy is something less coherent, a bundle of desirable traits of a finer grain than "stuff" or "command": like, get us guys with one from a whole shopping list of traits, from 3000 rpm curveball to 19+ inches of IVB on the fastball to 7'+ of extension, and we'll work on a repertoire from there.

I'm eager to try to extrapolate from these draft picks and assorted acquisitions what those traits might be.

The Pitching Side of the 2024 Red Sox Draft
  • 2nd round: Payton Tolle seems to be a giant dude (hard to teach) who throws from the left side (hard to teach) with huge extension (hard to teach) but a low 90s fastball (can we teach velo?) and two so-so secondary pitches (can we teach better secondaries?).
  • 3rd round: Brandon Neely was a RH reliever in college, but has four pitches, suggesting the potential to start as a professional. Fastball around 96; slider that people seem to like; "a curve he doesn't use, but some think could be very effective" (can we teach that?); and a "solid average" changeup.
  • 5th round: Brandon Clarke is a LHP who sits 94, touches 97, but "isn't thrown with a ton of life right now" (can we teach "life"?); the MLB writeup really liked the curve and says the changeup needs work. His control has been "intermittent."
  • 8th round: Conrad Cason might be a pitcher, an infielder, or both as a pro. Four-seam touches 98, a sinker, a plus change, and a slider that needs work.
  • 10th round: Devin Futrell doesn't have an MLB writeup, but he's a LHP out of Vandy. 10th rounders are usually signed for the minimum under the present rules.
Now, clearly they've taken many more pitchers in the first ten rounds than in recent drafts, and I wonder if it's as simple as being more confident that they will pick the right guys. It's not hard to see how rolling the dice with a high pick on a high school pitcher might be unappealing when weighed against a shortstop or outfielder you're way more confident will actually work out.

Pitchers Acquired Otherwise
  • Lucas Giolito
  • Cooper Criswell
  • Justin Slaten
  • Nicholas Judice
  • Greg Weissert
  • Richard Fitts
  • David Sandlin
  • Naoyuki Uwasawa
  • Isaiah Campbell
  • Chase Alexander
  • Alex Speas
  • Liam Hendriks
  • Trey Wingenter
  • Bailey Horn
  • Brad Keller
  • Jason Alexander
  • Sal Romano
  • Probably some more I missed.
I really don't see a ton of patterns, but I guess if it were obvious, it wouldn't be hard.

What do you all think? What have you read? What have you heard? What patterns have you observed?
Blake Aita (6th round) also belongs there, but the real reason I borrowed it is to post this chart I saw earlier which I think is really instructive of this & goes to a lot of the very good points you made...

View: https://twitter.com/QuinnRileyBB/status/1786052556398969139
 

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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Biomechanist sounds suspiciously scientifical.
& he's the lead one at that so they're trying to assemble a whole team of them.

View: https://twitter.com/fangraphs/status/1842198064242573726


The jobs they are hiring for here are...

Baseball Scientist

https://jobs.lever.co/redsox/f50b82a3-1df4-4434-811c-32ee7fb4c445

Senior Analyst, Baseball Analytics

https://jobs.lever.co/redsox/5999a03b-0920-4062-ae12-9cd9131753e9

Analyst, Baseball Analytics

https://jobs.lever.co/redsox/fc194adb-0ff4-4d68-a365-cb84ef04a2e5
 

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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View: https://twitter.com/drivelinekyle/status/1847751672195670191


Saw my new position with the #RedSox is out there. I was studying for and playing chess all day Friday; played my first 1. e4 game in OTB classical (GIF related).

It's an honor to stay with Boston; I'll indeed be the Interim Director of Baseball Sciences. To answer some questions...

⁉ What are Baseball Sciences? ⁉
Mostly it's about setting up the Sports Science, Biomechanics, and related divisions.

⁉ Why Interim Director? Is Boston cheap? Kyle hates Boston? ⁉
This one's pretty easy: I am not in a place in life where I can take a full time job in baseball given family commitments and leadership of Driveline Baseball.

Life's a lot different than it was in 2019 when I did it with the Cincinnati Reds.

My job is to help stand up the department and step aside by the end of the year for the permanent Director.

⁉ What are your plans for 2025? ⁉
I plan on returning to Boston as a Special Advisor in a similar role to the one I was in before this transition.

Anyway, enjoy the chess game. I sure did.
 

JM3

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Dec 14, 2019
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I won't bore y'all with the big picture restructure stuff - already a wonderful thread on the main board to complain about how we have too many employees to be a .500 team.

View: https://twitter.com/midzee4/status/1851746620163162335


This guy was doing draft boards & such for Baseball Prospectus prior to this. Seems like a sharp guy from a quick perusal of his Twitter.