Rick Peterson has arrived to fix Brewers hurlers

The Brewers have made a huge change to the dynamics of the organization and it has nothing to do with the roster.  Rick Peterson has signed a two-year deal to serve as the Brewers pitching coach.  The much publicized pitching coach will face a daunting task of fixing a team that with a 4.83 ERA which was 15th out of the 16 National League clubs. The starters 5.37 ERA, tied with Baltimore for the worst mark of all 30 Major League teams.  Peterson takes a very scientific approach to pitching.  He has a degree in psychology and was a pioneer in the utilization of biomechanics. 

During his time in New York he received a lot of heat for claiming to be able to fix Victor Zambrano in 10 minutes and that Scott Kazmir was three years away from being a major league pitcher.  One of the worst trades in recent memory as Kazmir went onto success with the Rays and Zambrano was out of baseball shortly afterwards.  Peterson still takes heat for that statement, but Kazmir went to him during the 2009 season to get fixed instead of dealing with his own pitching coach.  Padres all star closer Heath Bell has publicly criticized Peterson during his time with the Mets.   

Back in 1989, he was the first coach to use the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Al to study biomechanics.  Dr. James Andrews and Peterson tried the new technology using digital imaging to break down deliveries, and Peterson would prescribe drills to fix areas of concern.  Peterson runs a company 3P Sports, that offers the same biomechanics program to Little Leaguers.  Hopefully, the biomechanics will help as the Brewers have really struggled with injuries to pitchers throughout the minor leagues. 

Peterson worked with Ken Macha in Oakland and with Willie Randolph in New York.  There’s familiarity between the three men and I hope as a group they are able to have input with the front office as to what kinds of pitchers they want to make up the rotation and bullpen.  I think Macha was saddled with some of the coaches in his first season as Brewers manager.  Stan Kyles was relieved of his duties earlier this offseason but is back as the bullpen coach.  Chris Bosio will return to the organization in a role yet to be determined.  He could go back to Triple-A as the pitching coach or take a newly created advance scouting position. 

Peterson is a great pitching coach, but as an organization they have a lot of work to do to fix their pitching.  The Brewers rotation is terrible, the Triple-A rotation doesn’t bear much fruit either.  How long it will take for some of the Double and Single-A pitchers to mature remains to be seen.  This is a terrific start to what should be a very interesting offseason.  I would like to see the Brewers blow up most of their rotation and start from scratch.  I’ll address this as the offseason progresses.

Tags: Brewers, Rick Peterson