Coach Class

The true measure of Marcel Lachemann as a pitching coach might come not from the testimonials of Angel pitchers, but from the effect he has apparently had on opposing pitchers.

“I’ve had guys from other teams ask me how to approach Lach for advice without ticking off their pitching coaches,” Angel left-hander Chuck Finley said. “That happens four or five times a year.”

Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi knows why.

“Who’s better?” Bavasi said. “Ask around. Look at the results. He’s the best. He can handle mechanics and the psychology of pitching. He has an infinite amount of patience and loves to teach. He has a way of getting through to young guys and veterans alike.”

Sure, Bavasi is a little biased, but how many general managers admit they actually base important personnel decisions on their pitching coach?

The Angels traded for struggling right-hander Ken Hill last season because Bavasi was confident Lachemann, 56, could correct Hill’s flaws.

This winter the Angels signed William VanLandingham and Omar Olivares, two right-handers who have not lived up to their potential, because Bavasi believed Lachemann, the Angel manager from 1994 to ‘96, could get more out of them.

“We’ll take a guy with good physical stuff who needs some help,” Bavasi said. “But we try to be real careful. It would be real easy to fall back on Lach as a crutch, but we have to be honest enough to not put him in a position where he’s always banging his head against the wall. If we [signed too many struggling pitchers] we might end up with a bunch of stiffs.”

After the Angels signed VanLandingham, Manager Terry Collins said Lachemann “would have to guru his tail off with this guy.” But Lachemann, beginning his 11th season as Angel pitching coach, is not very comfortable with his “savior” tag.

“I don’t think I have all the answers, that I can do something others can’t,” said Lachemann, who pitched seven years in the minor leagues and three in the big leagues. “But those challenges are always fun. They understand I’m not any smarter than other pitching coaches, it’s just a question of approach.”

Lachemann’s approach--he thoroughly evaluates a pitcher’s physical and mental capabilities before implementing a course of action--worked wonders for Hill last season.

The right-hander went 5-8 with a 5.19 earned-run average at Texas, and he walked 19 in his first four Angel starts. Lachemann studied tapes of when Hill pitched well and compared them to videos of his Angel appearances.

His diagnosis: Hill was flying open with his front shoulder, causing his arm angle to flatten out and his pitches to come up in the strike zone. Once corrected, Hill went on a tear, giving up only 10 earned runs in 52 innings over his last seven starts.

“I had a bad habit that felt normal to me,” Hill said. “He detected it and got me back to where I needed to be.”

Hill, who signed a four-year, $22-million contract over the winter, chose diplomacy when asked if Ranger coaches were aware of this flaw. “Well, I was doing it in Texas,” Hill said.

Finley was awful through last June, with a 3-6 record and 5.71 ERA, but several suggestions by Lachemann, who helped the 6-foot-6 Finley regain more of a downhill angle on his delivery, helped the left-hander reel off 10 consecutive victories before breaking a bone in his wrist Aug. 19.

“He’s a visionary type,” Finley said of Lachemann. “He sees where you are now and where he thinks you should be. He uses different camera angles with his video and watches how you react to a suggestion. And if it doesn’t work, he moves on to something else.”

Video is an integral part of Lachemann’s teaching process, but not only for his pitchers. He spends endless hours studying tapes of opposing hitters to help formulate plans for attack.

“The most important thing for any pitcher is to be able to relax, to feel he’s ready, and to have no fear of failure,” Lachemann said. “One of the biggest fears is the fear of the unknown. The more of the unknown we can eliminate, the less apprehension a pitcher has. When a pitcher is prepared, he feels he can handle any situation that arises.”

A pitcher’s motion is like a golf swing, in need of constant fine-tuning, and Lachemann uses both video and live observation to detect common flaws such as a lack of balance, a tendency to overuse the legs and improper grips.

Some of the more difficult-to-detect flaws involve arm action, positioning of the lead arm and head during delivery, and alignment on the rubber.

With pitchers such as Finley and Troy Percival, both longtime Angels, Lachemann has a large bank of information and experience at his disposal. But it’s Lachemann’s work renovating new Angel pitchers and developing young players that has earned him the reputation as one of baseball’s finest pitching coaches.

Lachemann helped cultivate several successful Angel rookies--Ron Romanick (12-12, 3.76 ERA in 1984), Kirk McCaskill (12-12, 4.70 in 1985), Willie Fraser (10-10, 3.92 in 1987), Jim Abbott (12-12, 3.92 in 1989), Percival (3-2, 1.95 ERA in 1995) and Jason Dickson (13-9, 4.29 in 1997).

The first step in dealing with new or young pitchers, Lachemann said, is to observe them--see how they do things, how they react to certain situations. Lachemann will also gather physical and personal background information by talking to a pitcher’s former coaches.

“Then you have to feel your way through it,” Lachemann said. “It’s not a bull-in-the-china-shop approach. You have to gain their trust and respect, and you’ll only do that by showing them they’re an individual, not just another number.”

Said Finley: “He treats everyone the same, whether you won 20 games last year or four. He’s not a front-runner, and he won’t lie to you. That’s all an athlete can ask for.”

When a pitcher is in need of a major overhaul, Lachemann starts with something simple, something that will provide an immediate result and give a pitcher a foundation to build on. And he’s careful not to saturate a pitcher such as VanLandingham, who has a history of control problems, with too much.

“Sometimes when you’re the recipient of a lot of help, like he has been over the years, you just have to pick out what’s good for you and ignore the rest,” Lachemann said. “If you try to use too much, things can get out of control. You need to go step by step.”

Sometimes, as hard as it is, Lachemann will simply let a pitcher work through a problem by himself.

“Too many guys in the business, players and coaches, have a tendency to try to re-invent the wheel every time something goes wrong,” Lachemann said. “You can’t do that. Some people want to justify their existence by trying to fix something, but if the proper thing to do is nothing, that’s OK. Don’t look for change just for the sake of change.”