A’s Hire Barry Enright As Pitching Coordinator

The Athletics are hiring Barry Enright as pitching coordinator and director of pitching in their player development department, reports Sam Blum of The Athletic. Enright has spent the past couple seasons as pitching coach of the Angels.

A former reliever who pitched parts of four seasons in the big leagues, Enright moved into coaching in 2019. He began as a minor league coach in the Arizona system before getting an MLB job as assistant pitching coach going into 2022. Enright held that role for two seasons before joining Ron Washington’s staff as lead pitching coach.

Enright worked in that capacity for two years. The Angels had one of the worst pitching staffs in MLB over that stretch, finishing 28th with a cumulative 4.73 earned run average. Their 20.4% strikeout rate was better only than Colorado’s 17.4% mark. The pitching staff wasn’t much better the season before Enright’s arrival, and the team’s performance over the past couple seasons is of course mostly a reflection on the roster itself.

The Angels made a managerial change, tabbing former A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki to lead the dugout. Suzuki overhauled the coaching staff and brought in veteran pitching coach Mike Maddux from the Rangers. Enright doesn’t jump directly back onto an MLB staff but will get to work with a farm system that’ll need steps forward from its talented arms in a challenging environment.

The A’s have an excellent offensive core but are light on established pitching. Four of their top five prospects at Baseball America are pitchers. They’ll need continued development from that group if they’re to compete for a playoff spot over the next two seasons at the hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park.