Larry Rothschild struggled with “new school” duties of being a pitching coach

One of the first moves the Yankees organization made this off-season was to relieve long-time pitching coach Larry Rothschild of his duties (that’s the phrasing circulated at the time, which is a kind way of saying his ass was fired). They replaced Larry with Super Nerd, Matt Blake. I call him a Super Nerd with admiration, because that is the way the job is moving. Check out this excellent article by Rohan Arcot about what to expect from Blake.

This nugget about Rothschild from Andy Martino’s recent article about the Mets pitching coach hire is telling.

The Yankees exposed Rothschild to these tools - and the results were mixed at best. The team had to go around its pitching coach to help James Paxton throw more curveballs last year, and save his season, according to sources.

https://twitter.com/MaxWildstein/status/1197589811558830080

The "tools" Martino refers to are high-speed cameras that give real-time data on pitch depth, spin rates, and spin axis that help coaches guide pitchers to implement changes. When the source in that article reveals that the Yankees had Rothschild work with these tools but the results were mixed, and they had to go around him to help Paxton, it confirms to me that it was the nail in the coffin for Larry’s time in the Bronx. Was Larry bad at his job? Despite what Twitter said on a nightly basis, no. But he was not capable of taking the Yankees pitching department in the direction that Cashman wanted it to go.