That’s according to Ken Rosenthal anyway.
Peterson is one of those famous, name brand pitching coaches. He became a name brand by landing a job with the A’s just before Zito, Hudson and Mulder came up, and talent like that has a funny way of making a pitching coach look good. He’s famous for allegedly saying that he could “fix Victor Zambrano in ten minutes” and slagging on Scott Kazmir when he was with the Mets, which led to New York trading the latter for the former in 2004. Maybe Steve Phillips Jim Duquette shouldn’t have listened to Peterson, but it’s hard to fathom how an alleged genius pitching coach could get such an assessment so damn wrong.
No matter what you think of Peterson, however — and based on the pic to the right you have to respect any man who rocked the perm-mullet as late as 2007 — the bottom line in Milwaukee is that the Brewers’ 2009 staff suffered from an acute Sabathia and Sheets deficit disorder, and was afflicted with chronic Dave Bush syndrome and a virulent strain of Suppanitis. Bringing in a new pitching coach to treat the symptoms may have some sort of placebo effect, but it’s likely going to take a multiple pitcher transplant for the patient to get healthy again.
