and a pitching coach that wasn't the 12th man on a losing team's staff.
Can you stop with this nonsense about a good pitching coach needs to have had a good career. There is zero correlation.
The best nine team ERAs last year, their pitching coach and their career:
1)Washington--Steve McAtty--career 63-63 in a career of 221 games total. 1 good year of 14-7 and ERA of 2.33. Next best year ERA of 3.86. 1 nomination for Cy Young that year.
2)Seattle--Rick Waits--career79-92, 4.25 ERA. No awards
3)Oakland--Curt Young--Career ERA 4.31--No awards
4)San Diego--Darren Balsley--never threw a pitch in the majors
5)Atlanta--Roger McDowell--good relief pitcher, good career
6)Dodgers--Rick Honeycutt--109-143 career, 2 time all-star
7)Baltimore--Dave Wallace--Career of 13 appearances--7.84 ERA
8)Pittsburgh--Ray Searage--total career of 287 innings
9)Mets--Dan Warthen--4 years, 12-21, 4.31 ERA, career of 83 appearances
There you have it, a motley crew of coaches (in terms of their playing careers) that coached their teams to the best 9 team ERAs in the majors. Only McDowell and Honeycutt had decent careers. Most of the rest were outright bums.
How does that correlate to your perception? In fact, it is widely perceived that the better players are the worst coaches and vice versa. Gretzky was a terrible coach. They got way better once Tippett came in.
You are entitled to not like Walker, but to say he's a bad coach because he didn't have a good MLB playing career is just dumb. Tell us what it is specifically about his pitching philosophy and/or teaching techniques that you think are flawed. I'm willing to bet you will have no specifics, simply a general perception. He may well be a lousy coach but not because of his playing career.
Yes, I know what you mean, it's just a phrase that bothers me. 