The pitching coach.
Part instructor, part psychologist, part buddy, they are tasked with handling the most skittish of athletes this side of racehorses:
Professional pitchers.
Jason Simontacchi is all those things—sometimes more than one—to each and every pitcher on the Springfield Cardinals staff.
“I’ve been through just about everything that these guys have or are going to go through,” Simontacchi said.
Few are more prepared to deal with the kaleidoscope of personalities that make up a pitching staff more than Simontacchi. Cardinal fans remember him as the rookie who burst onto the scene in 2002 to win 11 games and steady the staff on the way to the National League Central title, but his baseball story begins much sooner, back in 1996. He was initially drafted by the Kansas City Royals, but it took being twice released, playing in the independent Frontier League, then the Italian League, before he made it to St. Louis.
“Two years prior to that, I was ready to hang them up, playing independent ball,” he said. “So I get the phone call and they call me in and it was just, I don’t know man, it was like, not that I expected it, but it was almost like, ‘Ok, alright, I finally get to find out if I can pitch in the big leagues.”
He thinks his Major League experience gives him credence with his minor league charges.
“I think being at the big league level at one point kind of earns their respect,” he said.
“Simo,” as he’s known around the clubhouse, fully admits he’s still learning to be a coach. He is in his fourth year, second in Springfield after cutting his coaching teeth in Single-A Peoria.
“I knew I was going to have to have patience,” he said. “Just because of the fact of the level we were at.”
After readily admitting he doesn’t know everything, Simontacchi said he draws on experience with coaches from his playing days, now that the role is reversed.
“I knew I didn’t like it when coaches forced me to do things, especially when I didn’t know them,” he said. “I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to be one of those guys.”
That attitude is obvious in his interactions with players—light, joking, equal. He is somewhat of the Springfield guidance counselor. He can give players advice, say what he thinks, offer suggestions, but he can’t do the work for them.
“If you don’t want to do it, nothing’s going to happen,” he said, his pace quickening. “We can tell you till we’re blue in the face that you need to work on your changeup, but if you don’t do it in the game, it’s not going to get better.”
Put simply:
“This is your career, this is your job, take ownership of it,” he said. “You want to get better, well, pay attention.”
On this muggy Friday night in late June, J.C. Sulbaran starts for the Cardinals and cruises through the first
four innings. But two singles and a walk in the fifth load the bases and prompt a visit from Simontacchi.
"Alright, this is it right here," he said on the mound, unhurried. "This is the ballgame right here. Yeah, exactly, don't lose that aggressiveness right here. Stay aggressive."
The coach tries to keep things simple.
“It’s mainly fine-tuning.”
Sulbaran gets through that issue unscathed, then a couple innings later his night is done. Simontacchi offers him a congratulatory pat and moves back to his seat in the dugout.
“I’m proud to be a Cardinal, I really am,” he said. “I haven’t coached in other organizations, but I just know that this works here.”
Beyond his pride in the franchise, Simontacchi takes on an almost fatherly air with his pitchers.
“As long as they can become the best that they can be, whether they make it or not, really that’s all you can ask for.”
