The White Sox are expected to announce new manager Tony La Russa's full coaching staff sometime this week, but sources are saying Ethan Katz will be the new pitching coach.
Katz, who will replace Don Cooper, was most recently the assistant pitching coach for the San Francisco Giants. However, most Sox fans will recognize the 37-year-old as Lucas Giolito's high school coach.
Three major leaguers -- Giolito, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty -- played for Katz at Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles.
That said, Katz has a lot more experience than just coaching star high school pitchers. The Los Angeles Angels hired him in 2013 to coach pitchers in rookie ball, and Katz was moved up to be the pitching coach at the Angels' Midwest League affiliate in Low-A the next season.
Later, Katz worked in the Seattle Mariners organization, where he won 2016 Coach of the Year in the California League. He made the jump to coaching big leaguers last year, when the Giants promoted him to the aforementioned position of assistant pitching coach.
When Giolito struggled in 2018 -- going 10-13 with a 6.13 ERA -- he turned to Katz in the offseason to help him refine his mechanics. We're all familiar with the story from there. Giolito is now the undisputed ace of the Sox's pitching staff. He's finished in the top 10 of the Cy Young voting in the American League in each of the past two seasons. He was a 2019 American League All-Star, and assuredly would have been an All-Star in 2020, as well, had an All-Star Game been played.
But this is more than just a hire to cater to Giolito. Katz obviously has a track record of success. He keeps getting promoted everywhere he coaches. And as a 37-year-old, the hope is he will be a better communicator when working with young pitchers than Cooper, whose best success stories are now several years in the past.
Can Katz unlock the talent of Dylan Cease, Reynaldo Lopez, Dane Dunning, Michael Kopech and Jonathan Stiever? That's what he's being brought in to do.
Both Cease and Lopez have regressed over the past year, much to the frustration of everyone associated with the Sox, and that regression is one reason the Sox are in the market for more starting pitching this offseason.
If the Sox can do a better job of developing their own pitchers, owner Jerry Reinsdorf's unwillingness to spend and cries of poverty become less of an issue.
Katz obviously helped Giolito secure his spot in the Sox's rotation for both the short and long term. Now we'll find out whether he can do the same for some of the other young pitchers listed above.
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