Brent Strom, baseballs best pitching coach, takes on a new challenge: the Diamondbacks

One day last November, Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen walked into a Starbucks to meet his new pitching coach, Brent Strom.

This was to be an informal get-together, hastily arranged because Gallen happened to be in Strom’s hometown. The 73-year-old coach had been hired just weeks earlier, forgoing a semi-planned retirement after eight years with the juggernaut Astros, and Gallen assumed it would be a meeting of the get-to-know-you variety. “I’m thinking we’ll meet up and hang out,” Gallen explained. But, as he quickly learned, the best pitching coach in baseball doesn’t just hang out.

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Strom walked into the coffee shop prepared, Gallen remembered, toting “a binder full of information on me.” Instead of trading introductory niceties — Zach with an H? With a K? Neither? ­— the pair fell into a deep discussion about the art and science of pitching. Mere days into the job, Strom already had ideas for him. He and Gallen talked about pitch sequencing and how to disguise pitches and set up batters. They talked about landing breaking balls for strikes and getting ahead in the count.

The meeting lasted an hour, and even that felt too brief. “I could have sat there for three or four,” Gallen said. With Strom, one is only ever scratching the surface.

Still, the Diamondbacks are hoping to dive as deep as they possibly can. That they landed Strom at all was a coup. The septuagenarian coach was coming off a dominant run with the Astros, who owned the fifth-best ERA in the majors during his tenure. They’d won a title in 2017 and had appeared in two other World Series, including in 2021. As Diamondbacks pitcher Luke Weaver put it, “Success has been oozing from pitching staffs where he’s been.”

Diamondbacks pitchers, however, had been oozing something else. They are coming off a brutal year, and a good portion of the blame for their 52-110 record can be laid at the foot of the mound. In 2021, Arizona’s pitchers collectively were the worst in the National League by many metrics, including fWAR, batting average allowed, strikeout rate and WHIP. Their veterans got hurt and underperformed when they were healthy. Young pitchers hoping to adjust to the majors instead got their teeth kicked in. It was ugly.

How did this team lure this coach to Phoenix? Strom hasn’t addressed that directly. He’s said he felt it was time to move on from the Astros, although he thought that meant retirement at the time. He’s said that the Diamondbacks were the only team to call this offseason about a pitching coach job. He’s said that he liked the idea of working just an hour and a half from his Tucson home.

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Whatever the reason, Strom has thrown himself into the job with gusto. He has worked intimately with the team’s pitchers, famous and unheralded alike. He has pored over reams of pitching data and studied endless hours of video. He has set himself to the task of making his pitchers, every single one of them, better.

That’s what he did in Houston, joining a team that had lost 100 games in three consecutive years and turning them into a pitching force. Under his watch, young pitchers found their footing and past-their-prime veterans found another gear. In the process, he helped revolutionize pitching, building a regime that feasted on fastballs up in the zone and breaking pitches in the dirt.

“It really just took a spark,” Strom said.

Why did the best pitching coach in baseball join the lowly Diamondbacks? It may be that, even in his 70s, Brent Strom loves a challenge.

Standing at his locker one March afternoon, Madison Bumgarner classified the style of his new pitching coach. “He’s probably the first mixture I’ve seen of the old school and new school,” he said of Strom, and from the gruff star, that amounts to high praise. “Everybody claims to be,” Bumgarner added, “but I haven’t ran into anybody I thought was an actual mixture until now.”

If Strom is the authentic hybrid, it’s because he’s spent five decades bridging the divide between analytics and the old school. Many of his “new-school” philosophies can be traced far back into the old school’s heyday.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in the early 1970s — he was the second person to ever have it — he became interested in biomechanics and “optimal movement patterns.” “That’s been a driving force,” Strom said. While coaching in the Dodgers’ system for the entirety of the 1980s, Strom picked up nuggets from Hall of Fame left-hander Sandy Koufax. If the Astros succeeded so much with the four-seam at the top of the strike zone, it’s because Strom first learned that approach from The Left Arm of God.

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He has rapaciously educated himself on pitching over the years, picking up information from sources within and without Major League Baseball. By the time he reached the Cardinals as a minor-league pitching instructor in 2008 — after a series of stops with the Padres, Expos, Royals and a previous stint with Houston — that research had congealed into a general philosophy. He preached certain principles of velocity enhancement and “understanding the value of the top of the zone.” The problem was, the Cardinals were often preaching the exact opposite in the big leagues.

St. Louis in the early 2010s was a sinker-slider organization, with pitching coach Dave Duncan instructing his pitchers to pound the bottom of the zone. Strom’s message clashed. “I may have gotten a little too far out on the gangplank,” Strom said. He’d been “maybe a skosh ahead” of everyone else in the game, and that “created some trauma for me.” He credits future Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, then the vice president of player development with St. Louis, and Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt with preventing his firing after one year.

It was Luhnow who hired Strom as Houston’s pitching coach in 2014 and made him, in the words of former Astro and current Diamondbacks pitcher Corbin Martin, the “head of the realm.” No longer the dissenting voice, the Astros chased spin rate and pounded the top of the zone with four-seam fastballs. In Strom’s eight-year tenure, Houston pitchers threw four-seamers with the fourth-highest average spin rate in the majors. Only four other teams threw more of them in the top third of the zone. The year he took over in Houston, less than 23 percent of four-seamers were thrown up in the zone league-wide. Last year, his final year with the Astros, that number was higher than 30 percent.

Strom demurs at the idea of being a trendsetter. “I’ve copied and stolen so much from everybody, that they’re more than welcome to steal whatever minor nuggets I might have,” he said. But his nuggets are neither minor nor few in number. Though the Diamondbacks will indeed be more aggressive up in the zone — in his introductory news conference, he pointed out that Arizona ranked dead last in four-seamers thrown up last year — he is not dogmatic about that. “If I had a Brandon Webb on this staff, the top of the zone would be immaterial,” he said.

If anything truly describes his philosophy of pitching, it’s that no two pitchers are completely alike. That means a good pitching coach should find a way to maximize what his pitchers do well rather than force them to do something they don’t. That’s easier said than done — who can give that kind of individualized attention to every pitcher? — but those who have worked with Strom before have seen him do it.

“When you talk to Brent Strom, it’s almost like he knows about you better than you do,” said Diamondbacks right-hander Dan Straily, who spent time with Strom earlier in his career. “But he also has this amazing ability that when he’s talking to you, it feels like you’re the only athlete he works with.”

Last week, Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen was asked what he’s learned about his new pitching coach a month into spring training. The GM didn’t need a moment to consider it. “He sends texts messages at midnight,” Hazen replied immediately. “And that’s during spring training days, when he’s here at 6 o’clock in the morning. So, I know he’s not sleeping very much.”

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It’s true that Strom rarely seems to rest — give him a drum and some shades and one might mistake him for the Energizer Bunny. He was hired two weeks before the lockout went into effect and he’d spoken to most of his pitchers before the work stoppage happened. “He said right when he took this job that he watched 30 hours of video, on top of what he already knew about me, trying to make up for lost time,” Bumgarner said. Others were similarly awed at the amount of research Strom had already conducted.

Strom also might just be the most entertaining pitching coach to watch in action. He is energetic and active, excitedly explaining grips and delivery components. In one post-bullpen chat with reliever Chris Devenski, Strom so enthusiastically demonstrated a certain arm and upper body motion that an uninitiated observer might have assumed he was rehearsing a dance. And neither is Strom content to wait until after a session to instruct. If he sees something he wants to address, he will stop the activity and intervene.

That’s something new assistant pitching coach Barry Enright saw during a live batting practice with left-hander Tyler Gilbert this spring. “Gilbert’s pulling fastballs, he jumped right in. ‘Batter, get out of the box real quick. I’m going to have him go arm-side fastball,’” Enright said. “Bang. He gets him back on. He doesn’t wait 10 or 15 pitches, especially when it’s in a practice setting, to let you just figure it out.” If Strom can help, he’ll do so now. “He’s not going to let you go down a dark path and be bad for that day,” Enright said.

Strom is certainly assertive, but he is not autocratic. He does not play favorites, and there is no player on the roster below his intensive attention. One minute, he’ll be interrupting Bumgarner to emphasize a certain move down the mound. The next, he’ll be standing alongside depth reliever Kyle Nelson during a flat-ground session, workshopping a breaking ball. Nor does Strom issue mandates from on high. He works collaboratively.

“He’s not the kind of guy who is like, ‘I want you to do this and you’re going to do it my way or I’m washing my hands of you and you’re on your own,’” Bumgarner said. “He’s not that kind of guy like some people are. It’s great. So far, I love working with him.”

Strom pushes certain ideas strongly, but players buy in because he wins their trust and comes prepared. “Brent never comes to me and says, ‘Hey, scrap this.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t know,’” Straily said. He has indeed told pitchers to scrap things, but he backs that suggestion with data. Straily hearkens back to the spring of 2016, when he was with the Astros. Straily was done throwing a two-seamer, Strom told the right-hander. The data showed it wasn’t an effective pitch. But Straily’s four-seamer was, and all spring Strom prodded the righty to throw it more and higher in the zone.

Straily didn’t make that team out of camp, but he was claimed off waivers by Cincinnati and went on to post a 4.03 ERA in nearly 500 innings over three years with the Reds and Marlins. How? On the back of his lively (if not particularly fast) four-seamer. Strom had helped him go from a has-been stuck in Triple A to a dependable rotation piece. “It really changed the trajectory of my career,” Straily said.

It’s a pretty simple philosophy: Take what’s working, use it in the most effective way possible, and dump the rest. Reliever J.B. Bukauskas spent a spring with Strom in 2019 before he was traded to Arizona, and though he doesn’t think the pitching coach said it, Strom brings an analogy to his mind. A man goes to the doctor and says his head hurts. Why? Because he keeps banging it against a wall.

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The solution suggests itself.

“It’s the same concept,” Bukauskas said. “I keep throwing this pitch, but it’s not that good. Well, why do you keep throwing it?”

So, what can Strom do for the Diamondbacks? He’s wasted no time digging in over the past month.

Three of his most prominent pitchers will make interesting case studies. Throughout his time in Houston, Strom successfully rejuvenated older pitchers (Justin Verlander, Charlie Morton), helped wayward aces reach another level (Gerrit Cole) and made effective starters out of pitchers with great stuff but little track record (Lance McCullers Jr.). His current pitching staff features all three prototypes. Bumgarner, Gallen and Weaver all posted ERAs in the mid-four range last year, and each is capable of better.

With more than 2,100 innings logged between the regular season and his many playoff runs, Bumgarner might have the oldest 32-year-old left arm in baseball, which is why it’s hardly surprising his performance has slipped since he signed with the Diamondbacks prior to the 2020 season. “It’s wear and tear,” Strom said. “Age waits for nobody.” Yet, Strom has helped other players rediscover old velocity. This spring, he and Bumgarner have worked on getting the left-hander down the mound with more momentum “because momentum is a force multiplier,” the coach said. “It’s not major changes, but maybe as he goes down the hill, there are certain things that may enhance the life of his fastball.” Notably, Bumgarner hit 92 and 93 mph more often in his first two spring starts compared to recent years, although he sat 90-91 mph in his most recent outing.

Gallen would fit the Cole category as a prime-aged pitcher looking to recapture his ace-like performance, and Strom is already enamored. Gallen is “(Zack) Greinke with more stuff right now,” the coach said. If the right-hander is healthy — a not insignificant if, given Gallen’s injury history — “I think this guy can be a top-10 pitcher in the big leagues.” Strom didn’t reveal any secrets of his work with Gallen, nor did the righty, but the coach noted that Gallen’s pitches “enter the strike zone at a unique angle,” which lends him deception.

“Talking to the analysts in Houston, they firmly believe Gallen is a Cy Young Award candidate,” Strom said. “They tell me I should be fired if he doesn’t win a Cy Young Award.”

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Weaver makes an especially intriguing project, one that has bedeviled the Diamondbacks ever since his breakout half-season in 2019. On Monday, manager Torey Lovullo announced the right-hander would be demoted to the bullpen, but Weaver has long possessed attractive qualities as a pitcher. His four-seamer spun at a higher rate than 91 percent of fastballs across the majors last year, and he throws a particularly effective changeup, but a breaking ball has been his white whale. The 28-year-old righty has adopted and scrapped several throughout the years.

But Strom has helped open his eyes to another option. A good curveball doesn’t necessarily have to feature a 12-6 motion. “That’s how I always thought a curveball was thrown, trying to get over it,” Weaver said. “It just becomes difficult for me and it just pops and it’s really poo-poo.” But if his delivery prevents him from getting on top of the ball to impart that downward break, then he should focus on making the ball break differently. A slurvey curve is OK if the break is tight.

To workshop that last aspect, Strom has had Weaver throw curveballs from 55 feet instead of 60, telling him the ball shouldn’t break at all at that distance. “Gravity is going to break it when it needs to break,” Weaver said. “If it’s breaking too early, that probably means you’re doing too much.” Weaver already has found comfort with his new curveball. It may never become a true out pitch for the right-hander, but it will be more than a show pitch.

One at-bat this spring provides an example. At Strom’s behest, Weaver threw a full-count curveball to Padres catcher Jorge Alfaro. The pitch was serviceable at best, and Alfaro fouled it back, but it was now an option the Padre had to take into account. Not coincidentally, Alfaro swung right through the next pitch, a 92 mph fastball atop the zone, for strike three. A few days later, Strom could be heard giddily reliving the at-bat with a few other pitchers.

Despite Weaver’s demotion to the bullpen, Strom thinks the right-hander is only now “starting to understand how good he can be.”

Of course, Strom is not a miracle worker. Even if he coaxes rebounds out of Bumgarner and Gallen, and even if he’s the first to put Weaver together, the Diamondbacks lost 58 more games than they won last year. That’s too much ground for one team with largely the same players to make up. It will take years to build the next contender in Arizona.

Strom is here for that purpose, too. The Diamondbacks have struggled in recent years to acclimate their best pitching prospects to the majors. Prospects including Jon Duplantier, Taylor Clarke and Braden Shipley have debuted, flopped and been discarded. Converting minor-league studs into big-league starters is “probably the hardest thing we have to do,” Hazen said, but that makes it all the more necessary. Especially as the Diamondbacks have a bumper crop of young pitchers nearing the majors.

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“It’s going to be imperative,” Hazen said, “… that there is a certain percentage of them that transition effectively into a starting pitcher role for us to be successful.”

Enter the Diamondbacks’ new coaching model, atop which sits Strom. Arizona retained bullpen coach Mike Fetters this winter, but also hired two new pitching coaches from within the organization — Enright and Dan Carlson — who will be Strom’s assistants. Throughout camp, they’ve served in administrative roles to allow Strom to focus his energy on individual players. But once the season begins, they will rotate throughout the organization’s minor-league affiliates to preach Strom’s gospel.

That continuity is important, Strom said. “What you think is working because it’s working in the minor leagues, it doesn’t work in the big leagues,” Strom said, citing his own extensive experience as a minor-league pitching coach. Through his emissaries, Strom will enforce major-league standards. “Throwing 55-foot curveballs and getting swings in A-ball and thinking that’s good because you’re striking people out, that doesn’t play at the major-league level,” he said.

Strom had a somewhat similar coaching structure last year in Houston, working with two assistants in William Murphy and Josh Miller. The Astros also blazed a path to the World Series behind a rotation of young, unproven pitchers, particularly Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, José Urquidy and Luis Garcia. Their success provides a hopeful blueprint for Arizona’s own exciting youngsters, including top 100 prospects Drey Jameson, Ryne Nelson and Brandon Pfaadt.

“A lot of guys, when they first get called up, they’re trying to figure out if their stuff plays at the big-league level. They’re trying do everything. They’re trying to throw pitches that they might not be very confident in because they want to show they have certain things,” catcher Carson Kelly said. He sees Strom as the antidote, helping those young pitchers focus on what they do best. “He’s going to bring that fire, that energy for our guys,” Kelly said, “because sometimes we get a little timid.”

It should be obvious given his title, but Strom is in Arizona to teach the Diamondbacks how to pitch. “I think you can take us to the next level,” Lovullo told him upon his hire, and it should be a familiar mandate. Eight years ago, he was tasked by the Astros with doing the same thing, helping a down-and-out organization find a foothold on the climb back to relevancy.

And that ascent can happen quickly. The Astros lost only 92 games in Strom’s first year — down from 111 the year before — and claimed a wild-card spot a season after that behind a Cy Young year from Dallas Keuchel. Two years later, in 2017, they won 101 games and the World Series. “It was like a match was lit,” Strom said. “I’m hoping that happens here.”

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After all, that’s why he is.

(Top photo: Jill Weisleder / Arizona Diamondbacks)

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