‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Caleb Cotham on Zack Wheeler’s edge, Cristopher Sánchez’s ‘dude quality’, and more
The Phillies have perhaps the best rotation in baseball, and Cotham oversees them all. Here is what he’s seen so far this spring.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Of all the reasons the Phillies commonly cite for believing they can win the World Series, one looms above the rest.
“Most of our confidence,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said, “comes from the starting [pitching] staff.“
It might be the best rotation in baseball. There’s a dominant ace (Zack Wheeler), metronomic reliability (Aaron Nola), excellence with upside (Cristopher Sánchez), and mid-rotation lefties with top-of-the-rotation stuff (Ranger Suárez and newcomer Jesús Luzardo).
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Oh, and there’s a top prospect (Andrew Painter) at the doorstep.
Caleb Cotham oversees them all. Entering his fifth season as pitching coach, he joined us on the latest episode of Phillies Extra. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, which has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Watch the entire interview here.
Q: Zack Wheeler has gone from very good to great over the last five years. What makes him if not the best, one of the top two or three in the game?
A: Yeah, he’s a pitcher. It can come across a little in jest, but I think a lot of guys are doing pitching in some ways. It’s something we talk about with the guys. He is a pitcher. He embodies a pitcher. He’s in the game. He cares about the run game. He won a Gold Glove. If you watch a [pitcher fielding practice] station in spring training, he’s doing it. It’s very important. So I think he’s layered all those things on top of that. He’s just a fantastic pitcher in the game. His stuff’s great. His command’s great. … I’ve learned a lot from him. At the end of the day, I want to build in our guys world-class competitors with curiosity. And that’s Zack to a T.
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He’s the ultimate competitor. He cares about getting them out. When it comes down to it, he’s not worried about this or that with his delivery. He has checkpoints. He knows how to make adjustments. He knows where he might trip himself up in his delivery. He knows how to go through that checklist, but he is a competitor at its core, and he will not back down. He will keep coming after you, and that’s not just because he has good stuff. There’s plenty of guys that have great stuff and similar stuff to Zack that I say aren’t all the way there yet from a competitor standpoint. And then he’s curious.
So you can see kind of how he’s evolved his arsenal. He’s open-minded, but he guards what he is at its core. Like, he’s going to throw fastballs. He’s going to throw two [variations of] fastballs. He’s going to come at you. But [he has] the curiosity of, how do I get a little bit better and find an edge every year? And that, to me, is the “fearlessly attack hitters” mantra or mindset. Yeah, we can slap it on a T-shirt, but Zack lives it. So I think that’s the secret, if there is a secret, that he’s always in that mode and trying to find an edge to compete and get a guy out.
Q: With Jesús Luzardo, how involved were you in conversations with the pro scouting staff and the front office before the trade came together? And is there something from watching him up close that you didn’t realize when you saw him across the field with the Marlins?
A: Yeah, sometimes I’m more involved. [Phillies president of baseball operations] Dave [Dombrowski] runs a really well-run pro scout meeting in the offseason that I’m fortunate to be a part of, to listen to a lot of our pro scouts and how they see guys. And I’ve learned a ton from those meetings. Jesús is always the guy we kind of talked about, but I’ve admired him from afar. I loved how he just always comes across as a bulldog and he’s coming at you. … [The trade] happened quick and there’s a phone call and we talked about it a little bit. Didn’t do some huge dive because I’ve already been such a big fan, so it was an exciting, exciting thing for a pitching coach to hear that we’ve got a really good pitcher. And I know he dealt with some injuries and he had a tough year last year, just from the physical perspective. But I think that what stuck out to me or what has stuck out to me the most is on top of that bulldog, there’s a ton of feel in there. There’s a lot of skill, of command. There’s a lot of skill of manipulating the baseball. And he’s as curious as they come. But he’s done a phenomenal job.
It’s been very impressive watching him kind of operate in that curiosity side of this practice and testing things, but also flipping the switch when he’s in a game or throwing. We do some bullpens where we do a first half where it’s, we call it “over the rubber,” where we’re working on something. Then “over the plate,” we’re facing hitters and you can almost see the mindset shift in him, in live BPs and for sure in his game. I think that’s what stuck out. I had an assumption that he’s a great pitcher. He probably can do things with the baseball, but sometimes those guys that are maybe a little more come at you, they don’t have as much kind of hand talent in a way where they can manipulate the ball and try things and it works. But he’s very good there.
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His bullpens have been incredibly impressive. It fits right in. We got a bunch of those guys. So he does bring an element to our team that is a little more of a bulldog-type guy, but he’s not a thrower. He definitely is a pitcher. And when he puts on the glasses, he becomes someone different. So he’s been really impressive. It’s just fun to be around. He’s a cool dude. He knows who he is. There’s not a lot of panic in anything he does. And he’s a stud. It’s been really fun getting to know him and just seeing where we can fit in and add to his game.
Q: One of my favorite conversations that we had last season was about the best pitches thrown by each of your starters. We spent a lot of time on Cristopher Sánchez’s changeup. And the thing that strikes me about watching Sánchez in spring training so far is that, for as much of a jump as he made last year, maybe there’s still another level that he can reach. What’s the ceiling for Sánchez?
A: I don’t know if there is one. I mean, I think inherently there is a ceiling, but he’s not going to throw 200 mph. … It’s easy to have a lot of success and be like, I just want to get back [to that level]. … The secret in the big leagues is you always have to get better because the league is getting better. The guy that’s coming up is better. The hitters get better to you. So he didn’t rest on it. And I think it’s one of those offseason things where you have plans and you kind of see how guys come in, but there was no worry. I knew Sánchy was going to get after it, but it was still kind of jarring that he’s even more physical. … Watching him work through a bullpen this spring, even compared to last year compared to the year before, it’s incredible. The assertiveness, the consistency, just hearing him talk through a pen and talk to his catcher and hearing him think through something, how clean and clear it is in his head on what he wants to do.
That, to me, is one of the biggest jumps he’s made. So obviously he’s gotten even more physical. He’s understanding his delivery even more. And the beauty is with such a simple plan with good pitches, there’s not a whole lot of planning with them. It’s a lot of mixed planning, like when we throw pitches vs. where. He’s just solidified a foundation that now he can kind of add a lot of different tricks and locations because the strike-zone threat is there.
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He gets guys to swing out of the zone on pitches as good as anyone in baseball. So now when we focus on, “Hey, we’re going to really get particular and try to really dot up and into a righty,” he knows exactly where that fits into his game. And he did it [the other day] a couple of times, and it’s making a decision to do something and then going and doing it. And if he doesn’t do it, we can kind of iterate. It’s like, “Well, that didn’t work, so let’s try this.” Just a simple process for a pre-pitch plan, but it’s layered on top of a guy that’s about as hungry a pitcher that I’ve ever been around.
And there’s also this relaxation. There’s this dude quality about him this year that’s like, “I can have some fun.” There’s a little bit more, even more joy, which he’s a blast to be around. But he’s come out of the gates really good. So there is an element of just, let’s keep him there a little bit. But he’s insatiable. So he wants to be really good and he wants to win.