Philadelphia Phillies: Bryan Price will positively impact team pitching

Once we finally get around to playing baseball, new Philadelphia Phillies pitching coach Bryan Price will be able to get better results out of the team’s arms.

After what we just went though, we should all be excited to have Bryan Price.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that the Philadelphia Phillies realized that they had made a terrible mistake after the 2018 MLB season by letting pitching coach Rick Kranitz go so that they could promote Chris Young, fearing that they’d lose Young to another club if they didn’t elevate him. But, a mistake it was. A huge one. If you recall, Kranitz signed with the Atlanta Braves and helped their staff have an excellent season, while the Phillies took a turn for the worse in every respect under Young.

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Swapping Young in for Kranitz may have been the single biggest blunder that doomed the 2019 Phils to mediocrity, more than having Gabe Kapler around and more than any single player personnel decision. Thankfully, the team didn’t let the problem fester, as they dismissed Young and brought in Bryan Price to help get these pitchers either back to where they had been in 2018 or discover a new level of their game.

I don’t think they can get any worse than they were last year. Their 4.53 team ERA placed 11th in the National League, with the Marlins and Rockies constituting half of the teams who finished below them. Compared to 2018, even when you take the juiced ball into account, essentially everyone on the pitching staff was worse in 2019 outside of Zach Eflin and Hector Neris. Young can hardly be blamed for the rash of injuries that hit Phillies pitching last year, but his message just didn’t get through to the players he had available to him.

Young’s analytical approach and supposed “game-planning” acumen didn’t work, clearly not cutting the the mustard with the pitchers on the team. As a result, it seemed he was tuned out. Kranitz, meanwhile, was well-liked, and he probably only was let go because the Phillies were deathly afraid of Young being poached by another team. Then again, that could have been a smokescreen by the Braves or any number of clubs in an attempt to pry Kranitz loose. If it was, high marks to the Braves for pantsing the Phillies on that one.

Thankfully, Young’s tenure is over, and the Phils’ staff looks to be back in good hands once again with Bryan Price. His experience, both as a pitching coach previously and as manager of the Reds, will be a big key in dealing with the Phillies’ mostly young group of hurlers. He even has a seal of approval from Pat Gillick himself, who hired him back in Seattle and then briefly as a minor league consultant with the Phillies in 2006.

From ace Aaron Nola to manager Joe Girardi, everyone is fully on board with Price (they had better be), because he’s a known commodity with a proven approach who can get the most out of these Phillies pitchers. Let’s just hope that his impact is felt soon as we all cross our fingers for some baseball in 2020. We didn’t know how hard up the Phillies’ pitching was going to be last year because of the mistake they had made. But now that they’ve rectified it, we should anticipate an uptick in results.