The Arizona Diamondbacks fired pitching coach Brent Strom on Thursday.
“Appreciated the opportunity,” Strom said in a text to The Athletic. “Pitching held this team back this year. Did my best. End of story.” Strom deferred to the Diamondbacks to offer any further comments.
Considered baseball’s best pitching coach at one point, Strom found himself in the hot seat following a season in which Arizona comfortably scored the most runs in MLB and still fell short of the postseason with an 89-73 record. Only the 101-loss Rockies allowed a higher opponent batting average than the Diamondbacks (.262), who also ranked 27th in ERA (4.62) and WHIP (1.35). Injuries certainly played a role. Multiple starters, including Merrill Kelly and closer Paul Sewald, missed time. But general manager Mike Hazen said Tuesday that he felt as if the roster was well-equipped to overcome periodic injuries, particularly in a rotation that underwhelmed relative to expectations.
“I feel like we had accumulated enough starting pitching to withstand the injuries we took on earlier in the season, but then in the second half, it just didn’t come together the way it needed to come together,” Hazen said. “I think that we need to be better at getting these guys to where they need to go.”
Across Strom’s three seasons in Arizona, the highest his staff ranked in ERA was 20th in 2023. The former longtime Houston Astros pitching coach enjoyed a short retirement before he landed with the Diamondbacks, a development that was widely considered a coup for a rebuilding franchise.
His data-based approach, which especially emphasized the importance of swing-and-miss percentage, helped guide the Astros to the fifth-best cumulative ERA in MLB during his stint as pitching coach from 2014-21.
(Photo of A.J. Puk and Brent Strom: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
