Jim Wright, Bo McLaughlin Fired By Colorado Rockies

The Colorado Rockies fired their two pitching coaches on Thursday.

Jim Wright and BoMcLaughlin are out as the pitching coaches in Colorado. The Rockies announced the move themselves.

Pitching coaches Jim Wright & Bo McLaughlin will not return in 2015. #Rockies will conduct a search to replace both positions
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) October 23, 2014

Presumably this signals a commitment on the part of new general manager Jeff Bridich to conduct the type of external search that was so sorely lacking when he was hired for his position earlier this month.

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Please, for goodness sake, pursue outside candidates to fill their positions.

Figuring out how much to blame coaches for the failures of their players can be a fickle business. It would hardly be fair to say that the Rockies’ pitchers were bad because of Wright and McLaughlin, but when a pitching staff fails as spectacularly as it did for the Rockies in 2014, it’s awfully hard to justify moving forward with the status quo.

Recall that both of these coaches were promoted to their positions after Bob Apodaca‘s reassignment in 2012. For far too long, the Rockies have told themselves that they need their pitching coaches to come from within the organization because of the importance of familiarity with pitching at altitude.

That is nonsense.

That philosophy needs to stop this time around. Hopefully Bridich approaches the search for a new pitching coach with that in mind. Here is what Bridich said about the team’s approach to finding a new coach (via the Denver Post):

"“We will try to utilize everything at our dispoal to find people we think will be right fo the job,” Bridich said. “That includes internal and external evaluations.”Bridich said the Rockies are looking for “good baseball men, responsible, accountable adults who will bring a passion and energy to the collective process of coaching pitchers.”But, Bridich said, those criteria are “not a comment on Bo or Jim at all.”"

This is not change for change’s sake. This is change because it was the right decision and because the Rockies need to break the mold as they try to build a competent pitching staff.

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