CLEVELAND, Ohio — When the Indians promoted Ruben Niebla to the big-league coaching staff after last season, their concern wasn’t how he would relate to big league pitchers because he’d worked with most over them over the last seven years as organization’s minor league pitching coordinator.
“To be honest, our biggest worry wasn’t about how he’d do with us, it was replacing him in the minor leagues,” said manager Terry Francona. “That’s what we were worried about. But when it’s all said and done we feel his skill set can really help our major league staff.”
Niebla headed a pitching development program that has touched the majority of pitchers on the Indians’ 40-man roster. That goes from Corey Kluber, just traded to Texas, to Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale, who arrived as rookies last season to help save a rotation battered by injury and illness.
Matt Blake was another key to that program as the Indians assistant director of player development for the last four years. In November, Blake, who had never coached professionally, was hired as the Yankees big-league pitching coach.
The promotion of Niebla and the loss of Blake left a void in the Tribe’s development structure that has seen Shane Bieber, Mike Clevinger, Adam Plutko, Plesac and Civale make significant contributions at the big league level in the last three or four years.
The Indians felt it would be difficult to find two coaches as uniquely qualified as Niebla and Blake to replace them. The alternative was to spread the responsibility among more people.
Here’s what the new pitching development braintrust looks like at the minor league level: Joe Torres has been promoted to minor league pitching coordinator. He’ll be joined by Cody Buckel, Joel Mangrum and Stephen Osterer.
Torres was the pitching coach at Class A Lynchburg last season. He’s been with the Indians for three years serving as the pitching coach at Class A Lake County in 2018 and in the Arizona Rookie League in 2017.
He was a 10th round pick of the Angels in 200 and spent 13 years in the minors. He reached Class AAA with the Rockies in 2012.
Buckle spent last season as the Indians pitching resource coordinator. In 2018, he was Seattle’s organizational pitching coach. The Rangers drafted him in the second round in 2010 and he pitched eight years in the minors with the Rangers and Angels.
Mangrum just finished his second season as the Tribe’s Arizona Rookie League pitching coach. He coached at various colleges from 2006 through 2017 before joining the Indians.
Osterer was hired this offseason as a pitcher performance coach. He pitched at Cornell University and received a doctorate from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 2014. While working toward his degree, he co-founded the Baseball Development Group in Toronto where he became the Director of High Performance with an emphasis on pitching.
“Our organization has done an unbelievable job of developing pitchers,” said Francona. “A lot of people go into that equation. It’s the player development people. It’s the scouting department. It’s the guys in the front office all putting their heads together and because of that we keep churning out pitchers.
“We’ve gotten guys that are ultra competitive who don’t back down from challenges. It allows us to be competitive with another wave of guys coming.”
This season the Indians will have three pitching coaches at the big league level for the first time — Carl Willis, Niebla and first-year bullpen coach Brian Sweeney.
“Carl, obviously, leads the pitching group, but he does such a good job of delegating and listening and guiding,” said Francona. “Ruben has been such a big part of our younger pitchers coming up and being successful at the major leagues. To have him on board we really think can help us a ton.”
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