Is there hope for Nick Pivetta?
At one point with the Phillies, this wasn't even a question. Reeling in the pitcher from Washington in the 2015 trade for Jonathan Papelbon seemed like a steal but by the time Pivetta was dropped into the starting rotation almost two years later.
Pivetta would hold the Dodgers to two runs over five hits in that first big-league start, at which time the former Red Sox closer was out of baseball.
Since then the righty has had his moments including last June 8 against the Reds in which he allowed one run over nine innings. But by and large the optimism has been absent for some time now, leading to Pivetta's trade to the Red Sox.
But one familiar face believes he has at least somewhat of an explanation for the downturn.
Former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, who also served as the Red Sox' first-base coach for a season, was on the Phillies Talk podcast when the subject of Pivetta came up. Amaro surmised that the lack of development by both the newest Red Sox and former top Phillies pitching prospect Vince Velasquez could be traced back to a switch in coaches.
"Their progression was stalled in a lot of ways by the last pitching coach that they’ve had," Amaro said. "I think that they were progressing really well with Rick Kranitz and I think Chris Young didn’t do either one of those guys a service. (It was a) disservice in some ways."
Young served as the Phillies' assistant pitching coach for 2018 and then the team's pitching coach for 2019. He is now the bullpen coach with the Cubs.
The case of Pivetta's lack of production with the Phillies had clearly baffled those in that organization over the past few years, as was evident in the response from GM Matt Klentak when asked about what went wrong with the pitcher.
"I don’t know,” Klentak said Friday night after the trade. "We have a lot of people in this organization that has tried to answer that very question who have worked with Nick and tried a lot of different things."