The Don Cooper Program

When you watch the White Sox play, you are apt to see things like Juan Pierre leading off, Mark Kotsay at DH and Omar Vizquel at third base, and yet Chicago has continued to play winning baseball despite some curious lineup changes and some offensive black holes and sits 4½ games behind the Twins in the AL Central. The Sox’s secret weapon? Don Cooper, perhaps the most underrated pitching coach in the game.

Everyone has heard about Dave Duncan’s prowess for fixing pitchers in St. Louis, and Leo Mazzone got a lot of credit for the Braves’ epic run during the 1990s, but Cooper has flown under the radar as a pitching guru. However, he’s been instrumental in helping the White Sox get top-notch performances out of guys who were deemed not good enough for another major league organization. In fact, the cast-off label could be applied to nearly every member of the White Sox’s bullpen.

Bobby Jenks was claimed off waivers after the 2004 season, in which he had posted a 10.24 ERA in the minor leagues. In 2005, with some mechanical adjustments from Cooper, Jenks was throwing strikes and blowing away major league hitters. He took over as the White Sox closer in 2006 and has been one of the game’s best ninth-inning stoppers since, posting 8.5 wins above replacement in his career.

He isn’t even Cooper’s biggest success story, however. That would be Matt Thornton, the game’s premier left-handed reliever. The White Sox picked him up in the spring of 2006, sending busted prospect Joe Borchard to Seattle to acquire him. Thornton threw hard, but that was the only thing he could do. His command was dreadful, he didn’t have any good off-speed stuff and hitters would just wait for Thornton to fall behind in the count before sitting on his fastball.

Another mechanical tweak from Cooper and Thornton immediately cut his walk rate nearly in half in 2006, going from 6.6 BB/9 to 3.5 BB/9. He’s continued to improve his command while in Chicago and has actually seen his strikeout rate increase every year since joining the White Sox. Over the last three years, Thornton has an xFIP of 2.75, just behind some guy named Mariano Rivera for the best mark of any AL reliever.

Cooper has continued to work his magic this season, helping get J.J. Putz back on track after a disastrous stint with the Mets, as well as getting high-quality performances out of rookie Sergio Santos, a converted infielder who began the season with just 29 innings pitched in his professional career. Even though it is a collection of guys that no one wanted, the White Sox once again have the best bullpen in the AL.

Cooper doesn’t just specialize in relievers. The White Sox’s rotation also shows just how much the organization has benefited from their pitching coach.

When the White Sox acquired Gavin Floyd from the Phillies before the 2007 season, he had a 6.96 ERA in the big leagues and had shown little of the stuff that had made him a good minor league prospect. His K/BB ratio was a terrible 75/64 in 108 major league innings and he’d given up an alarming 20 home runs. He was basically a two-pitch guy, relying mainly on his fastball/curveball combination, and hitters had no problem teeing off on both.

Once arriving in Chicago, Cooper persuaded Floyd to start throwing a slider, which has become his more frequently used breaking ball and has allowed him to significantly cut back on fastballs. His ability to mix pitches and keep hitters off balance paid off immediately, as he also cut his walk rate dramatically upon joining the White Sox, and he has continued to improve each year he’s been a member of the staff. This year, he’s even added more groundballs to the mix while maintaining his excellent K/BB ratio.

Cooper’s influence can also be seen in Freddy Garcia, whom the team picked up off the scrap heap after years of injuries and has given the team effective innings at the back of the rotation. And, while it’s only a handful of starts, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Edwin Jackson is throwing his best baseball of the season since being traded to Chicago. Cooper has spent years fixing pitchers like Jackson.

Since Cooper took over as Chicago’s pitching coach midway through the 2002 season, the team has consistently had one of the best pitching staffs in the league in spite of playing in a park that is one of the best places for hitters in all of baseball. By rehabilitating arms that were discarded by other organizations, the White Sox have been able to build quality pitching staffs without expending a lot of resources. The work Cooper has done in Chicago should not go unnoticed.