Is he a pitching wizard? A hurler whisperer? Let’s look."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Houston Astros NewsGame ThreadsHouston Astros Minor LeaguesAstros Game DayPodcastsBrent Strom: The Wizard of Stros
Lou Brock Jersey , Revisited. Baseball America’s Coach of the Year.New,55commentsBrent Strom just won a Coach of the Year award. Is he a pitching wizard? A hurler whisperer? Let’s look.ByWilliam Metzger (bilbos)Dec 30, 2018, 11:33pm CSTShareTweetShareShareBrent Strom: The Wizard of Stros, Revisited. Baseball America’s Coach of the Year.Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY SportsC’mon, just because the Astros in 2018 had the lowest ERA in baseball, 3.11, the eighth lowest ERA+ since WWII,* gave up the fewest runs, and had the most strikeouts in the entire history of baseball while allowing the third fewest walks this year, there’s no reason to call Brent Strom a wizard. Didn’t Baseball America know when they named Strom Coach of the Year, that any team with talent like Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers et al is bound to make their coach look like a genius. Is he really?Yeah he is.Let’s take a look at some of the remarkable before and after transformations since Strom began waving his magic pitching wand.OK, back to business.This article is a re-visitation of a Fanpost I wrote last year called Gerrit Cole and the Wizard of Stros. In it, I examined the number of remarkable before and after transformations already accomplished by the Master before 2018
Ken Boyer Jersey , and then asked: “can we expect the Strom sorcery to resurrect Gerrit Cole?”In that article I did not discuss the improvement of Justin Verlander during the small sample under Strom in late 2017, but the answer is now clear: On top of all of the transformations of relatively unknown pitchers already under his belt, Brent Strom took both of these great but declining players and made them All Stars once again. His legend is now complete. Let’s look at some of his miracles.Before and After Strom Pitching ChartPITCHERERAFIPWHIPHits/9BB/9SO/9HR/9PITCHERERAFIPWHIPHits/9BB/9SO/9HR/9For every pitcher in this chart, ERA, FIP, WHIP and almost everything else are considerably lower post Strom compared to pre-Strom. For all of the pitchers on this chart the average drop was 2.36 in ERA.
