Red Sox hire Dave Bush as new pitching coach

Dave Bush has been hired as the Red Sox’ new pitching coach, a source confirmed to the Herald on Wednesday night.

Multiple reports Wednesday indicated that the Sox made Bush their pitching coach. The Boston Globe first reported earlier this week that Bush had become a frontrunner for the position.

Bush will replace Dana LeVangie, who served as the Red Sox’ pitching coach the last two seasons before being reassigned as a pro scout for the organization earlier this month.

Bush, who turns 40 in November, joined the Red Sox as a pitching development analyst in 2016. He was promoted as the organization’s minor league pitching coordinator in 2019.

A former MLB pitcher who played nine seasons, including stints with the Blue Jays, Brewers and Rangers, Bush has a heavy background in analytics and data-driven information. He has worked closely with pitching staffs and coaches in the Sox’ minor-league system, responsible for helping them process his research and data to make them better.

Bush has completely embraced the analytics movement in baseball, and that’s likely a big reason the Red Sox wanted to give him a bigger role. In a 2017 interview with the Herald, Bush explained his stance with analytics in that he simply wants them to be used to aid a pitcher’s performance, not define it.

“The game hasn’t moved off the field,” Bush said in 2017. “It’s just that we have more information at our fingertips and we can make more precise adjustments.

“A lot of people fear that players will become robots. I don’t want that to happen. The goal with analytics and pitch data is not to script development or script what happens in games. It’s to try to help the player do what he can do even better.

“What I try to remind people is that, you’re still pitching, you’re still the one in charge. We’re just trying to help.”

Bush is the second known addition to Alex Cora’s staff this offseason after Peter Fatse was hired as an assistant hitting coach. It’s possible the Red Sox hire an assistant pitching coach to Bush after Brian Bannister was reassigned as the team’s vice president of pitching development earlier this month.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2BZRavv