Former White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, who led a World Series-winning rotation, dies at age 70

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Former longtime White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper has died at the age of 70, per a family announcement on social media. The team has confirmed the news.

Debuting with the Twins in 1981, Cooper pitched in parts of four MLB seasons before beginning his coaching career with the White Sox’ Single-A affiliate in 1988.

Cooper rose through the ranks of the team’s player development system until he was promoted to the role of major league pitching coach in July of 2002, when he replaced Nardi Contreras. From there began one of the most productive coaching runs in White Sox history.

Forever associated with the dominant starting rotation of the 2005 Sox team that captured the franchise’s only World Series title of the past 100 years, Cooper remained the club’s pitching coach until he was fired alongside manager Rick Renteria after the shortened 2020 campaign.

Cooper’s tenure included Esteban Loaiza’s second-place finish in Cy Young voting in 2003, Chris Sale’s five-straight All-Star appearances in a White Sox uniform, and the peak years of Mark Buehrle’s career, which included both his 2007 no-hitter and his 2009 perfect game. When Buehrle, Jose Contreras, John Garland and Freddy Garcia closed out the 2005 American League Championship Series with four-straight complete games, it was first time an MLB team had accomplished that feat in a single postseason since 1928, and none have managed it since.

From 2003, Cooper’s first full season, to his last in 2020, White Sox pitchers were fourth in MLB in wins above replacement (WAR), per FanGraphs.

Especially as major league pitching instruction has come to involve advanced technology, private coaches and data analysis, Sox pitchers reiterated that Cooper’s greatest strength lay in a building block of coaching: he instilled confidence in his players. At the height of his powers, as a collection of pitchers rose from obscurity to success like Loaiza’s 21-win campaign, Matt Thornton rise to becoming an All-Star reliever, or Phillip Humber throwing a perfect game in 2012, an enduring adage became popular among White Sox fans when addressing every new pitching addition:

“Coop’ll fix ‘em.”