CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Indians lost three key players, first baseman Carlos Santana, outfielder Jay Bruce and reliever Bryan Shaw, in free agency, but there was another departure that affected the team, and that came when pitching coach Mickey Callaway left to become the new manager of the New York Mets.
When Callaway left for the Mets, the Indians went searching for a new pitching coach, and they went back to one of their former assistants, Carl Willis, which brought a sense of relief and comfort to the pitchers.
“When you have a year like that last year, the natural tendency is you want to keep everyone together,” starter Trevor Bauer said. “We had a great year, and it didn’t work out how we wanted it to, so there’s a little bit of maybe apprehension when you have someone leave the staff.
“When I heard it was Carl, knowing that he’s been with the organization before we all kind of met him a couple years back, we know he’s very experienced, a very good pitching coach and just a good guy in general. When we heard that he was hired, everyone kind of breathed a sigh of relief like, ‘You know? This is going to be good. Everything’s going to be okay.’ We’re excited to get to work with him.”
Willis served as the Indians’ pitching coach from 2003 to 2009. In 2015, Willis returned to the Indians’ organization briefly to coach the pitchers at Triple-A Columbus before taking a job with the Boston Red Sox.
During that first stint with the Indians, Willis mentored back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winners, CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Also, with the Indians dealing Sabathia and Lee to the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies, respectively, Willis had plenty of experience rebuilding a rotation on the fly.
However, in this tenure with the Indians, Willis is inheriting a rotation that featured a pair of 18-game winners, Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber, a 17-game winner in Bauer and two players, Mike Clevinger and Josh Tomlin, who finished with 12 and 10 victories in 2017.
“(Before TribeFest) I threw my first bullpen, and I just talked to him, asked if I did something wrong,” starter Danny Salazar said. “I just want to get better. In spring training, if I just want to work something in my mechanics, he’ll be available to help me. Sometimes, those guys bring a lot of stuff to help us, and that’s what I want.”
Although there was the change in coaches, Clevinger believes the Indians’ pitching staff is “not going to miss a beat with” Willis heading into the 2018 season.
“Mickey had a good laid out and we were following the right path, especially when it came to throwing your best pitch,” Clevinger said.
“It was really just us figuring out we need to throw our best pitch more often, and it led to success. I know Carl’s going to come in and he knows the blueprint’s already laid there. We had the best pitching staff last year, so the blueprint’s there, we’ve just got to keep it rolling.”
