Around a decade ago, when Erick Abreu first became a coach following his career as a pitcher, he assumed he would need to be the regular, old-school coach – the one that had existed for decades in this game. He soon realized this would not be the case.
Baseball was changing. As a minor-league pitching coach in the Astros organization, he found himself in the middle of that.
“It was a matter of looking around and seeing the direction baseball was going, and also common sense: What things were going to help the pitchers the most?” Abreu told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He began studying biomechanics because learning how the body moved would allow him to help pitchers with their deliveries.
He dug into pitch design and spin direction – how the ball spins, how it comes out of the hand – because he wanted to teach pitchers how to improve the movement on their pitches.
When he progressed to coaching in the higher levels of the minors, he learned about pitch sequencing and game-calling.
As he gained experience as a coach, he became adept at communicating with pitchers during games to aid them in making instant adjustments.
All of this led Abreu to the Braves, where he’s in his first season as the bullpen coach. Well, actually, he’s now sort of the pitching coach, too.
In early July, Braves pitching coach Rick Kranitz left the team to deal with a family matter. Manager Brian Snitker recently said the Braves don’t know when Kranitz will return. Abreu took over those duties. He works with the starting pitchers in addition to the relievers. He’s in the dugout with Snitker and the other coaches. He does the mound visits. (Eddie Pérez has been with the relievers in the bullpen.)
Was it scary to have to try to replace Kranitz?
“Yeah, of course,” Abreu said. “Scary, of course, because I wanted to do a good job, and I wanted to help the team to win. But I was also blessed that the group is such a good group – talented on the field, and also like I say about the relievers, the starters are also good people. Good communication within us has been key, and they’re such a good group.”
Those with whom Abreu works complimented him.
“I think he’s done a great job,” Snitker said. “It’s kind of a crash course here for him. But I think he’s stepped in, and I think the time he’s had with Kranny before he had to leave benefited him, with spring training and then kind of seeing how we do things (on) game day. He’s done about as good a job as you can do under the circumstances.”
“Filling Kranny’s shoes is some big shoes to fill,” reliever Pierce Johnson said. “Coming from Triple-A, it’s, everybody’s kind of on a schedule, right? And when you get to the big leagues, it’s a win every day (mentality). And then you got certain guys down, now you’re playing chess. And I feel like there’s been some growing pains, but he’s done a phenomenal job of going with every swing (during the game), he’s done a great job of managing our workload in the ‘pen, to helping guys adjust – young guys like (Spencer) Schwellenbach coming up to start. I mean, it helps when you have super veterans in your rotation too, guys that have done a phenomenal job.”
Over the offseason, Abreu interviewed with Snitker and Braves president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos for the bullpen coach gig after Drew French left to be Baltimore’s pitching coach. Abreu did one interview with Anthopoulos, and another with Snitker.
Something stood out to him about the process.
“One thing that I liked is they were very interested in knowing the person first – my family, where I’m coming from, how it was when I was a kid, or my career as a pitcher,” Abreu said. “And then they got more into the technical aspect, like asking (about) my experience with pitchers, failure with pitchers, pitchers that I helped improve, also pitchers that caused me a little bit more to get to them and improve their pitching.”
This – the fact the Braves wanted to know so much about who he was – told Abreu a lot about what they value.
“That’s where I started to notice that the organization is very picky about who they bring,” he said. “Of course they want you to have the knowledge of baseball, but they also want you to be a good person, so we keep a good environment. And I think that has been key in this organization, in this year, because that’s what I have seen.”
Abreu has a wife and three kids ages 16, 11 and 6. They live in Florida, where Abreu resides in the offseason.
He did well enough during the interview process to make it to Atlanta, where he’s working his first major-league coaching job.
“He was prepared, knowledgeable, had answers to everything,” said Snitker, who spoke to Abreu over Zoom during the winter meetings. “His experience. You look at him, he had all those young arms that the Astros brought up in Triple-A, so he knows what they look like. His experience as a coach, player, the whole thing, he was a very attractive candidate.”
Before becoming a coach, Abreu spent nine seasons as a minor-league pitcher – first in the Yankees system, then in the Astros organization. He reached Triple-A. Then he coached for Houston.
Abreu was the pitching coach for Houston’s Triple-A affiliate, Sugar Land, from 2021-23. He helped with the development of Hunter Brown, Bryan Abreu and JP France, who are all major-league pitchers. In 2022, Abreu led Sugar Land to the second-lowest team ERA in the Pacific Coast League. In 2021, the affiliate logged the seventh-best ERA of any Triple-A team.
Two of his mentors: Brent Strom and Bill Murphy. Strom, Houston’s former pitching coach, is now the Diamondbacks’ pitching coach. And Murphy is a pitching coach for the Astros.
Throughout his coaching journey, Abreu has learned a big lesson.
“I would say the most important one has been that the players are human beings,” he said. “Yeah, they’re players and we want them to do good on the field. But getting to know them and gaining their confidence goes a long way when it’s time to coach them. So, I start with that – getting to know the player, their family, if they have kids. How they’re doing. And I think that’s helped me a lot.”
And when it comes time to help them, his knowledge brings credibility. Back when he dug into biomechanics, for example, he started researching it and picked the brains of people who knew more than he did. He asked for articles and books to read.
Now, he’s able to do mound visits in place of Kranitz, a veteran pitching coach, and has the respect of the pitchers.
“That started way before that (first) mound visit happened,” Abreu said. “Because in their throwing program, in their bullpen session, they notice that we care about them, that we go to the bullpen with a plan: ‘Oh, I think this is something that you could work (on), that you can get better at’ or things that happened in the last game. When they see that we really care about them, they open themselves (up) a lot more so they’re more willing to listen to whatever advice we have for them.”
If Abreu’s coaching career could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: In life, the learning never ends.
“You always learn, and you never stop learning,” Abreu said. “At some point, I’m not gonna lie – I thought I was gonna know everything. Until I started coaching. I was like, ‘OK, there’s a lot more to learn.’ And I can tell you, you never stop learning because you have to be with different people every day.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Extra Innings
* The Braves on Thursday scored one run against the Rockies. One.
In 2024, the Braves had played 62 games in which they’ve scored three or fewer runs. For context: The 2023 Braves played 37 – the fewest in baseball by 24. The 2022 Braves had 63 such games, which was the third fewest in baseball.
We certainly must consider that the Braves are missing many of their offensive contributors and have had to undergo a lineup shuffle all season. But it’s staggering to see the Braves struggle this much offensively.
Thursday marked the 23rd time the Braves plated one or no runs in a game this season.
* Reynaldo López has gone at least six innings in 14 of his 23 starts this season. This is a big win for a guy who hadn’t been a full-time starter in years.
Entering the season, everyone was interested to see how durable he would be in this role and how long he could start.
He’s had an injured-list stint, but this season has gone better than anyone could’ve expected.
“Yeah, it’s good. It’s been good,” López said through interpreter Franco García about how pleased he’s been about consistently going deep into games. “And I feel like we’ve made some really good adjustments with the strength and conditioning staff and the trainers, just as far as in the recovery process, and I feel like that’s really helped me sort of be 100 percent ready for each of my starts – and that’s also the plan moving forward.”
* Colorado’s Austin Gomber, who threw eight innings of one-run ball against the Braves, averaged 90 mph with his four-seam fastball. There are no excuses for a performance like Thursday, but one wonders how difficult it is to hit lower velocity in a high-velocity era.
“Yeah, it’s something we don’t see a lot in our game right now, so it’s kind of tougher to go down to it,” Michael Harris II said. “I mean, normally you adjust during the game, but I think he did a good job of ramping up when he needed to and then going back down when he had to.”
Added Matt Olson: “He threw well, I’m not gonna take any credit from him. But yeah, I mean sure, probably not seeing as many guys at that velo. But he threw well, he kept us off-balance. We obviously couldn’t get anything going. He threw a good game.”
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