Don Cooper was recently interviewed on WSCR.
He basically said that young pitchers earn their first paycheck with their velocity in high school or college. But he said major league pitchers make their living "hitting the glove."
"Location and change of speed" is the key to professional success, Cooper said. Great pitchers like Hall of Famers Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux were not "stuff" guys, but pitchers who had movement on their pitches and who could consistently hit the catcher's glove.
A pitcher with "stuff" but no location is pretty much worthless, Cooper said.
But he understood the fascination with speed. Everyone around us, people gauge success by speed: race cars, internet broadband, hockey slap shots, etc. It is probably because the average person cannot reach those levels of performance.
Cooper said that even throwers at 84 MPH like Mark Buerhle consistently throw more than 200 innings a year, which is important component to build a starting rotation and pitching staff. If a coach can count on consistent pitchers with location and movement, then the team has a great shot at winning.
Pitching, like hitting, is a game of adjustments. During the game, a pitcher will have to adjust to the situation. Even during an at-bat, a pitcher may need to adjust his philosophy to second guess the hitter's second guess on the next pitch. Sometimes you have to challenge a hitter's "strong" plate zone in order to keep him honest. How one goes about doing it is the million dollar question. A straight fastball in a hitter's comfort zone will fly a country mile out of the park. An off-speed cutter that floats into that same zone is less likely to be hit.
Cooper does not know what other pitching coaches tell their players. He just counsels each pitcher individually, with the goal of getting him the best opportunity to succeed. Perhaps that is why Cooper is one of the best pitching coaches in the game; he is not a mechanics tinker, but a coach who tries to get the best out of each of his players' current abilities.
