Aug
05
Patience is a virtue … and a requirement
ByAs fans we expect instant gratification, and for Yankee fans that goes double. Whenever a young player comes up a struggles, we’re quick to write them off as busts and include them in trade packages for established players. Major League clubs can’t afford to be so shortsighted and impatient, and as Chad Jennings shows, we as fans need to learn how to deal with the ups and downs of a young player’s development as well. Sometimes you don’t get the desired result right away, and that’s just the way it is.
Preaching patience is one thing. Practicing it is something entirely different all together.
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The Mason Williams Watch
I.E. A. Brackman, High Strikeout AJAX, and If only speed was a stat Brett Gardner…..I for one wanted Halladay, but the fact that we would gut 3-7 years worth of hard work and production of a C to B- level minor league system, clearly they were trying to rape us, but geesh it seems the whole league was mad about our offseason spending cause everyone wanted our best prospects, even Seattle asked for the world for Washburn, yet Detroit gave up B level pitchers, and look at his first start 6 earned runs, yeah it was probably just nerves, but definitely wasn’t a performance worthy of all our prospects especially against the cellar dwelling Orioles.
the orioles are no slouch offensively with jones, markakis, roberts, that other outfielder guy, aubrey huff, luke scott, wieters.
Riemold.
However, it is the first piece of data indicating that taking Washburn away from his home park and his outfielders may not turn out well.
Or, maybe Reimold. I think it’s that.
agreed. just saying. its not like it was the royals.
very much so.
dont sleep on the o’s with that young offense and now Tillman and Matusz are both up gaining experience and will be even better next year.
While I find it hard to dispute that it’s vital that we as fans understand that there will be growing pains with young guys, I think Mr. Jennings misses the mark on a few guys. Zach Kroenke is too wild for even Triple A to right now consider him for a role on the big club. And Duncan is no where near a young guy and his struggles with off-speed pitches are well-documented. Can he contribute to a major league club? Maybe, but last year’s struggles are not the reason he’s not playing in the Bronx. He’s more likely a AAAA player. Finally, it seems quite clear that Mitre is what he is–an established major-leaguer who is at best a 5th starter.
AAAA was the label Nelson Cruz had before this year. 29 year old Nelson Cruz. Whose struggles with off-speed pitches were well-documented.
Just saying.
plus, unless he is blocking someone, which he is most certainly not in duncans case, then let him play til he is.
I’d call that an outlier, but still, I see your point.
Duncan has said that he never felt right all of last season after coming back from a significant shoulder separation at the end of ’07. And the numbers kind of bear that out:
2007 – ML .883 OPS / 8:20 BB:K / 83 PAs
2007 – AAA .957 OPS /45:82 BB:K / 387 PAs
2008 – ML .542 OPS / 7:13 BB:K / 65 PAs
2008 – AAA .825 OPS /41:55 BB:K / 260 PAs
2009 – AAA .908 OPS /51:66 BB:K / 398 PAs
Is he an MVP in waiting? Doubtful. I think he’s got plenty of positives regarding his bat to be more than a AAAA player.
Duncan didn’t separate his shoulder until after he was sent back down to AAA last year. He did have a hernia issue in late 2007 though.
Honestly you never know until they are here. Kroenke might be a little wild, but it doesn’t matter when your ERA is 0.98. You have to give him a chance to succeed.
Actually, it does matter. Poor control leads to wildly inconsistent performances out of the pen at the big-league level. K:BB ratio and K/9 are much more useful than ERA when trying to pick relievers whose stuff will translate to the big leagues. And even then there are no guarantees.
It doesn’t matter because his ERA is 0.98? It’s a splendid looking ERA but to think that poor control and a pretty good, but not great k/9 (6.7) will not cause problems seems a little too hopeful. I would like nothing better to see the guy succeed but because his ERA is low does not promote even an inkling of future success. By that rationale, we should bring Melvin Croussett to the big leagues.
/Can of worms, they have been opened.
Really? You have to bring St. Melvin into the conversation? Why not Juan Heredia?
I was baiting a bit. Heredia just doesn’t have the sex appeal, ya know?
I feel like playing devil’s advocate…
How patient should fans of the Pirates or Orioles be? I realize that those teams’ front offices are mostly to blame for their not having a winning season since the last century but young studs like Erik Bedard and Daniel Cabrera were supposed to bring the Orioles into contention. It seems like prospects fail to reach their projected potential more often than they succeed. Is it worth it for teams to wait for one or two guys to blossom rather than trading them for established players while their value is high?
That’s a fair question, but I think it depends on the state of the club. Your question hold more water for a team like Texas than for the Pirates. A team like the Pirates is better off piling up tons of prospects and hoping to hit on some of them than trading them for an established player who can help them win 80 games. A team like Texas, however, that has some talent and might become a contender with another piece, might be better off trading the maybes for a sure thing. I don’t think so, but I could see the argument.
Well I don’t know to much about the Pirates, but I live In Maryland so I’m pretty familiar with the Oriole’s organization. They’ve always seemed to have a potent offense over the years. Pitching has been where they’ve lacked. Since letting Mussina go and a couple of relievers go, they’ve relied heavily on their pitching prospects. If they would have traded Daniel Cabrera when his value was high for an established starter who could win 10 to 15 games, that would’ve been a big step towards putting themselves back into contention.
But they never really generated any high-end pitching prospects. They had Cabrera, and he was a huge bust. But they never seemed willing to go through a rebuilding cycle, so they’d get guys like Tejada and Mora and refuse to trade them at peak value because they always wanted to limp along. And they wouldn’t do what it took to draft and sign a big signability guy.
What they’ve done NOW, by dumping Tejada and trading Bedard for a HUGE return — and drafting Matusz and Wieters, is get a core of high-upside, high-probability guys that’s going to make them very, very dangerous.
Before, they’d spend lots of money on big leaguers who wouldn’t really help. Now, they’ve shed most of those guys and spend less money and a bit of patience on a bunch of young guys, many of whom will probably help. And they’re going to get a lot better because of it, as soon as next year, or maybe 2011.
+1
That Bedard-Jones deal was a steal.
Thing is, Cabrera alone would not net you a good starter. Once you start packaging a group of prospects, you raise the odds that you will lose someone who can actually help you contend when your club is ready. Those Oriole teams had zero pitching and solid but unspectacular offenses. They needed a lot more than one 10-15 game winner.
I think a good player to think about when it comes to late developing is Ben Zobrist. He has seemed to put it all together at age 28. His first year in pro ball he was a 23 year-old college player.
So for people to say that players like Medchill, Mack or Murton are just organization filler (not that I’ve read too many people on here say that), they may want to at least give them a chance.
One of the biggest cases of this, I think, is Ian Kennedy. I don’t think anybody really understands what goes into pitching at the big league level. He should be given the same opportunity that Phil and Joba have had.
I agree. I think if IPK was healthy, he would’ve gotten a shot to be the fifth starter instead of Mitre.
Of course he would have.
That said, his upside is not as high as Phil or Joba. He should certainly be given a few more opportunities, but his leash should also be shorter than either of those guys.
Agreed.
I agree completely. In 2007, he was as good or better than Joba. One bad year is certainly not enough to write off a prospect.
I am one of the more impatient types and I admit that but clearly Mike is right there are so many ups and downs with young players-look at Josh Bard everyone in Boston is calling on him to replace papelbon, last night he serves the game tying homer to Longoria and then almost throws the ballout of the park. Joba has been bad and then great-so its so hard to tell -even David Price espn was salivating over this guy and he has been just ok this year.
Daniel, Daniel Bard.
my bad-who cares it was great seeing longoria pose after he took him deep
Ya, was such a sweet swing he had.
If the Yankees drafted that high do you think they would have taken Longoria? I wonder if the Longoria’s upton’s and starsburg’s of the world are the obviosu guys and any team if they had the chance would take them?
Those are the guys that solid gm’s/teams don’t miss on.
But then again, you have the Royals who take Luke Hovechar.
Pretty much.
Daniel.
The talent difference between AAA and the Majors is huge. You have to give guys time to adjust. Most fans after a few starts from a pitcher or 3 weeks of playing time want to label guys bust. Look at the 2nd baseman who is a midget in Boston. Guy sucked it up for a good while before starting to hit.
That’s right, Yankees fans be patient. So if Mitre gets pwned tonight and they bring in Clagget. Just don’t bash the guy after he gives up one run.
Or one ball.
Mitre sucks. U don’t need to be Job to see that
Fail reading comprehension is well…fail.
My only issue with Mitre is that he should not be in this spot-I cannot imagine that after spending so much money in the offseason now they would decide not to take on any extra money via contract. I suppose though besides washburn and halladay-maybe tehre was not much out there that was better than mitre
It’s not like they have their own money tree. So what if they spent a lot of money? Is it hard to imagine that they don’t want more payroll?
There was some better than Mitre, sure but I don’t know if the Yanks pursued them. The only one I know for a fact was Washburn.
All I am saying is in this circumstance the fact that it seemed that they needed another starter-maybe they bite the bullet for washburn if they feel he is the guy-now I will say I saw him pitch last night he gae up a ton of fly balls and maybe on most nights in Comerica Park you can get away with that. I dont think you can in Yankee stadium so perhpas they did not see washburn as the right fit.
They did see Washburn as fit. They never got a response back after the Mariners initially asked for Austin Jackson.
Other than him, I have no idea who they tried to get if they tried at all.
Well, they did try for Bannister but I believe KC was asking too much. Hopefully they can somehow get J-Dukes to fall to them via waivers. Washburn, IMO, would’ve been a mistake.
Oh yeah that’s right, they tried for Bannister.
Correct.
Even if there were more options, was it worth what the Yankees had to give up. If they had to give up significant prospects for guys like Ian Snell, The Duke of Oakland, or Brian Bannister I’m not going to complain.
I can deal with Mitre, he’s been horrible one start. Give him a little more time before we call him dead and buried. Pitching in the AL is not an easy thing to do.
I am not against Mitre if he does well great-here is what bothers me the perception some have that the fifth starter is not expected to give you much-while maybe that is true I dont like the idea of teams saying we can afford to have a marginal fifth starter and if he loses half his games thats ok.
How many teams have 5th starters who win more than half of their decisions?
Boston has like 7.
but that’s pretty much what a 5th starter does. He’s not someone who is going to give you 5 or 6 good-great starts in a row unless you have that deep of a rotation which is rare. He’ll be a guy who gives you 5-6 innings of anywhere from 3-5 run ball, mixed in to that will be a crapper of a game possibly two depending on the stretch.
That’s not an excuse to not put the best pitcher possible from the organization in that role.
Mitre is a retread.
or what was out there that might have been a little bit better than mitre simply wasn’t worth the price of admission.
probably right again I am not one for making trades for trades sakes, I was thinking about Mark Guthrie but then sawy him putch twice against the sox-(bad idea) who knows people suprise us I did not think Pettitie would outpitch Halladay but I am glad he did
I recently jumped on the Bannister bandwagon. Though I would still love to give Ian Kennedy another chance when he gets healthy.
You answered your own question. Also remember that Mitre was 9th on the depth charts at best. He came after Hughes, Aceves & IPK. Hell, Jackson may have been ahead of Mitre.
Yup and we killed the two top parts of the depth for bullpen duty…
Ugh.
Get the feeling this is about Brackman. Face it. Bust
Yeah I’d wait a year until making that statement because he had TJ surgery this year…
But hey THEY HAVE TO BE GOOD NAO OR NEVAR!!!!!!!
BUST BUST BUST!!!
yeah, obviously nothing will change over the course of the next year or two with him. Lets take his first full season of professional ball after tommy john surgery as gospel. Sounds like a smart idea.
clagget heading to toronto.
If all his pitches aren’t strikes. I want him released immediately.
Please do not post this type of thing without a source.
http://blogs.nypost.com/sports.....ll_up.html
Stats for Clagget and Kroenke:
INN H ER BB K WHIP
Claggett:59.2 55 20 24 34 1.32
Kroenke: 55.1 36 6 25 41 1.10