‘Family’ will be at the heart of TCU baseball under new patriarch Kirk Saarloos
If Kirk Saarloos chose one person who had the most influence on his baseball philosophies, it’d be Wally Kincaid.
Kincaid was a legendary coach at Cerritos College in California, winning six of the state’s Community College titles in 22 seasons. Over a three-season stretch at one point, Kincaid’s team had a 60-game winning streak.
Saarloos’ late father Larry played for Kincaid. So did George Horton, Saarloos’ head coach at Cal State Fullerton. So did Dave Serrano, Saarloos’ pitching coach at Cal State Fullerton who later hired him as an assistant coach at Fullerton. So did Bill Mosiello, TCU’s associate head coach. And the list goes on.
“Wally Kincaid pretty much started the West Coast brand of baseball,” Saarloos said. “The bunting, the hit and run and all of that stuff. His coaching tree is pretty impressive.”
Saarloos added another branch last month after being promoted to TCU’s head coach following Jim Schlossnagle’s departure for Texas A&M.
Saarloos recalled one encounter he had with Kincaid in the late 1990s. Saarloos was throwing a bullpen session at Cal State Fullerton and the then-retired Kincaid was on campus that day. Kincaid didn’t like the slider grip Saarloos was using so Kincaid mentioned it to Serrano, the pitching coach.
“Wally said, ‘Dave, that’s the wrong way to hold the ball,’” Saarloos said. “I stopped and he showed me a different way to grip my slider. I threw one and I didn’t like it. I said, ‘I like my old grip.’
“Wally said, ‘Dave, he’s stubborn. I don’t think he’ll ever be worth anything.’”
Saarloos chuckled at the memory, adding: “Of course he knew my dad but he was very matter-of-fact and frank. An old-school baseball guy.”
Serrano also laughs about that exchange years later, saying: “Wally Kincaid was right about almost everything, but he wasn’t right about Kirk. He ended up being a pretty good pitcher.”
Saarloos finished his college career with a school-record 127 appearances in going 33-12 with a 2.96 ERA over four seasons at Fullerton, helping it reach the College World Series in 1999 and 2001.
Still, there’s no doubt about the impact and influence Kincaid had on Saarloos and his mentors.
“Wally Kincaid was influential in all of our lives,” Serrano said. “Kirk is going to run a winning style of baseball at TCU, whatever you want to call it. I don’t think they’re going to miss a beat. I think their style of play will continue to flourish and I expect to see more championships along the way. He was a home run hire.”
Baseball’s John Wooden?
When Schlossnagle left for A&M, TCU opened a national search to find his replacement. Saarloos was the internal front-runner, but school officials could’ve fallen in love with an outside candidate as well.
Saarloos, though, received overwhelming support from former and current players. They vouched for his character. They talked about the impact he’d made in their lives on and off the field. While they understood the importance of the hire, they didn’t feel athletic director Jeremiah Donati needed to look far for the next coach.
And while the program made the hire within its family, it was a member of Saarloos’ literal family who was the coach’s biggest champion. Nobody talked up Saarloos more than his older brother Keith. Chancellor Victor Boschini even joked at the introductory news conference that Keith was more of an “agent than brother” during the coaching search.
Early on, Keith posted on Twitter: “TCU will either make @kirk_saarloos Head Coach of @TCU_BASEBALL or they will spend the rest of their lives wishing they had.
“Kirk will become the John Wooden of baseball.”
That comment raised a few eyebrows and Keith understands why. After all, Wooden is arguably the greatest coach in the history of sports, winning 10 men’s basketball national championships at UCLA. His ‘Pyramid of Success’ is still used by coaches of all sports, including TCU football coach Gary Patterson.
“I’ve been saying that Kirk Saarloos is going to be the John Wooden of baseball for 10 years,” Keith said. “When I say that, everybody thinks of the decade of dominance. That’s not really what I’m talking about. John Wooden had a special relationship with his players for decades. When John Wooden’s wife passed, just about every player he coached showed up for him.
“That’s the kind of guy Kirk is. When his phone rings and a kid is calling him, he doesn’t talk to them as a coach. He talks to them as a big brother and as a mentor.
“I’m telling you, Kirk was born to be a coach. He looks into people and sees what they can become. He sees your potential. He will not let you quit until you see it. Who else does that for people?”
Keith added that his brother has been preparing to become a head coach — but not just any school’s head coach — TCU’s head coach.
Kirk turned down a chance to return to his native California and become Stanford’s head coach. The Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees called to gauge his interest. At the end of the day, Fort Worth has become home ever since he joined the program in the summer of 2012 as the team’s pitching coach.
“I’m biased because I’m his brother, but I’ve never lost a bet betting on my brother,” Keith said. “I think the career that he’s going to have there and the players that come out of that school is what they make movies out of. I get emotional just thinking about it.
“I mean, a Saarloos turned down the Yankees. Who turns down an opportunity like that? He is ready for this job, no question about it.”
Family first
The Saarloos’ are used to everyone butchering their name. For the record, it’s pronounced SAR-los, like Carlos but with an S instead of a C.
The family’s roots are Dutch, traced back to Friesland, a province in the northern part of the Netherlands.
“There may be just a tinch of French in our last name because there is a Saar River, but my mom’s side and dad’s side are 100% Dutch,” Saarloos said. “We’ve been over there and it’s crazy because you look around and it’s like, ‘That looks like my grandma.’”
In case it’s not clear, family is a priority for Saarloos. Arguably the most moving and emotional moment during his introductory news conference is when he talked about his late father Larry, an apple farmer who went on to run his own winery, Saarloos and Sons, in California that Keith is now runs.
“He still influences my brother and I on a daily basis,” Kirk said. “Just going through this whole thing and figuring out if I’d be the next head coach, I wish my dad was here. He would have the perfect advice on every single thing happening right now. That’s the part that stinks because I know he’d be eating this up and giving me advice on this and that.
“But he ultimately prepared Keith and I to be ready for this. My brother who runs a business and now for myself. My first phone call now instead of my dad is my brother.”
Added Keith: “If you ever look up our winery, the first wine is called family. Then it’s farming then vineyards. Wine is the last thing we do. Those kids who are going to be playing for TCU baseball are going to feel part of a family and Kirk will be the patriarch. And, in our family, family does not let people down. That team at TCU will not let someone on their team down.”
The family-like drive is evident in any conversation with Kirk.
In talking about retaining Mosiello, he mentioned Mosiello’s wife Janelle and children Shane, Gehrig and Helton more than any sort of coaching feat. The same went for undergraduate assistant Matthew Purke and his two daughters Finley and Hadley as well as incoming volunteer assistant Kyle Winkler and his daughter Kole.
Saarloos then teased recently-promoted recruiting coordinator John DiLaura about starting a family.
It’s more than talk too. Saarloos proudly showed off one of his office cabinets filled with toys. The refrigerator in the baseball office is stocked with kid-friendly snacks and drinks as well.
“We’re gone so much that when we have home games and we’re around, we want family here,” Saarloos said. “We want that whole setup and for them to go through this together. It’s definitely cool to see all of us in these different stages in the game of life. The more family we can have around, the better.”
Baseball talk
Kirk Saarloos had a stellar career at Cal State Fullerton and was even mentioned in the popular baseball book-turned-movie Moneyball. But the Oakland A’s, the team Moneyball centered on, didn’t draft Saarloos.
Instead, the Houston Astros took him in the third round of the 2001 MLB Draft. That started Saarloos’ professional career that spanned seven big-league seasons. Among his career highlights, he was one of six Astros pitchers who combined to no-hit the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on June 11, 2003.
Roy Oswalt started the game but exited in the second inning with a pulled groin. Peter Munro entered and threw the next 2 2/3 innings followed by Saarloos who went the next 1 1/3 innings. Brad Lidge took the sixth and seventh innings. Octavio Dotel pitched the eighth and Billy Wagner closed it out.
That Yankees team, which featured Hall of Famer Derek Jeter and a guy who hit 440 career home runs in Jason Giambi, was a first-place squad that ended up going to the World Series.
“I don’t tell people there were five other guys. I just say I threw a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium,” Saarloos said, smiling. “Is there any cooler place to do it at than there? That was definitely something, man. My mom and dad were in town, my wife was in town, so we went out to a steak dinner afterward and it was like, ‘Whoa.’”
Saarloos joked that some of his teammates didn’t even realize a no-hitter had been thrown. After all, it’s not something that crosses your mind when your starter leaves early.
But Saarloos and the other pitchers were aware of what was happening inside the clubhouse. Saarloos thought he may even be rewarded with the victory since he threw the fifth inning, but the 8-0 decision wound up going to Lidge.
Saarloos smiled and said: “I had a little pine tar on the underneath of my cap. They took Brad’s hat and it’s in Cooperstown. That’s probably a good thing they didn’t take mine with a little foreign substance on it given everything going on in the game today.”
Speaking of today’s game, Saarloos is more than OK with utilizing shifts given the data behind it and other analytics-driven measures. He also doesn’t see much changing in how TCU approaches the game.
The Frogs will continue putting an emphasis on the running game. They ranked third in the country with 121 stolen bases last season.
They’ll also put an emphasis on scoring runs. They scored 468 runs last year, which ranked eighth in the country.
And they’ll put an emphasis on pitching and defense. Saarloos knows the pitching staff had issues solidifying its rotation last season, comparing it to a football team with “two quarterbacks.” But he’s excited about what young pitchers showed such as River Ridings, Luke Savage and Garrett Wright.
“Not a whole lot is going to change since I ran pitching and Coach Mo ran the hitters and we’re both still here,” Saarloos said. “Continuing to be aggressive offensively is going to be a mainstay here. From a pitching standpoint, this year was a little bit different because of COVID and how many options we had. We were trying to figure out roles but it was hard because you had so many different guys trying to find their niche. But you saw a lot of guys getting better as the season wore on.
“So not a ton is going to change with TCU baseball going forward because the band is essentially coming back together.”
