{"id":25366,"date":"2019-09-30T17:06:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T21:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=25366"},"modified":"2019-09-30T17:49:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T21:49:46","slug":"mike-butcher-will-not-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/09\/30\/mike-butcher-will-not-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Diamondbacks Pitching Coach Mike Butcher Will Not Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Arizona Diamondbacks, Pitching Coach Mike Butcher Go Separate Ways<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThe (<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/arizona-diamondbacks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a>) have parted ways with pitching coach <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/butchmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Butcher<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d the team stated in a press release Monday afternoon.\u00a0 Butcher, 54, had just finished his fourth season in charge of the Diamondbacks hurlers.\u00a0 The team did not immediately state the reasons for Butcher\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Butcher joined the Diamondbacks as pitching coach on November 1st, 2015, under manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/halech01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chip Hale<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 He stayed aboard when the Diamondbacks hired current manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/lovulto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Torey Lovullo<\/a><\/strong> in November of 2016.\u00a0 Under Butcher, Diamondbacks pitchers posted their four highest single-season strikeout totals in club history.\u00a0 In 2017 and 2018, they had their best and second-best ERA totals, respectively, in club history \u2013 3.66 and 3.72.\u00a0 They also had their fourth-lowest and third-lowest WHIP totals, respectively, in club history \u2013 1.27 and 1.25.\u00a0 However, in 2019, their ERA rose to 4.25 \u2013 seventh in the National League \u2013 and their WHIP rose to 1.308 \u2013 eighth in the Senior Circuit.\u00a0 The increase in team ERA figured heavily in their near-miss of the postseason in 2019.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Resume for Mike Butcher<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is too early to tell what pitching coach openings will pop up around the league.\u00a0 However, Butcher figures to be in the discussion to go somewhere.\u00a0 He served as <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/maddojo99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Maddon<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s pitching coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/tampa-bay-rays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> in 2006 before heading to Anaheim in 2007.\u00a0 While there, he served as the pitching coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/los-angeles-angels\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Angels<\/a> under manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/sciosmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Scioscia<\/a><\/strong> from 2007-15 before coming to Arizona.\u00a0 He has overseen several of the top arms in the league during his 14 seasons as a major league pitching coach, with 13 different pitchers receiving nods to an All-Star Team.\u00a0 Prior to his tenure with the Rays, he served in the Angels\u2019 minor league system for six years, showing that he can guide both developing pitchers and established veterans.<\/p>\n<p><em>Information from the 2019 Arizona Diamondbacks Media Guide contributed heavily to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"xpGxcbusS_R7t7BzSyE1xA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1132573517\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'xpGxcbusS_R7t7BzSyE1xA',sig:'ag_vrcE3qT43YX_VU1Yc00oCu3MRPusub0a6wllX99s=',w:'433px',h:'594px',items:'1132573517',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arizona Diamondbacks, Pitching Coach Mike Butcher Go Separate Ways \u201cThe (Arizona Diamondbacks) have parted ways with pitching coach Mike Butcher,\u201d the team stated in a press release Monday afternoon.\u00a0 Butcher, 54, had just finished his fourth season in charge of the Diamondbacks hurlers.\u00a0 The team did not immediately state the reasons for Butcher\u2019s departure. Mike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2901,"featured_media":25369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1071],"tags":[326,3129,3130],"class_list":["post-25366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diamondbacks","category-mlb","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-mike-butcher","tag-pitching-coach"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}