the Mariners story: pushing prospects fast

by scooter on Jul 5, 2007 1:31 PM EDT

The Mariners' current regime has received a lot of criticism for pushing their prospects too fast. Under that criticism is a general sense that there is a progression to developing prospects: once they can dominate a level, then advance them, but to do so before that messes them up somehow.

There's no proof of anything in developing prospects, so that assumption is more based on an intuition, but it's a logical intuition -- it does seem to make sense to let guys go up a level only after they've proven they can handle a lower level, no?

Given how some of their guys have progressed this year, though, I'm not certain that holds. After struggling with promotions, Clement is doing just great at AAA, Adam Jones has absolutely flourished, as has Balentien. Now in a different organization, but A Cabrera, also, has flourished after being pushed hard by the Mariners.

At a minimum, this seems to show that these guys haven't been hurt by being advanced too fast, and one could even guess -- and, again, it's just a guess, there's no proof of anything -- that they've responded to being pushed.

Was the prospect junkie community too hard on the Mariners? Do they not know what they're talking about when they criticized the Mariners (and the Mets, to a lesser degree) on this score?

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in a word

yes

by bleedjaxblue on Jul 5, 2007 1:27 PM EDT reply actions

by the way

this popped into my head after i voted for Jeff Clement in the poll below. after looking up his stats he seems to me a no-brainer, and the Mariner fans pushing for Balentien have a case, also.

i think my own conclusion isn't that pushing fast is better, but also that it isn't necessarily worse. mostly, i think that it doesn't much matter. A great player will become great based on his tools and skills, and a modicum of good teaching. The obsession about 'why is this guy being held back???' or 'they ruined this guy by pushing him too fast!!!' strikes me as overblown.

talent will usually win out, and we probably worry too much about levels and such.

by scooter on Jul 5, 2007 1:30 PM EDT reply actions

+1

agree again.

prospects fail, and it's a natural fallacy of people to look for causality to that failure (besides the obvious "he wasn't as good as I thought he was" or "pitchers get injured"). finding a scapegoat makes it more palatable. in the end, most of the "pitfalls" of the speed (or lack thereof) of promotion are fiction more than fact, and people who have the talent to hit major league pitching (or pitch to major leaguers) will do just that when given the opportunity.

by bleedjaxblue on Jul 5, 2007 1:37 PM EDT up reply actions

well

the only thing is that there are some guys who you need to see at higher levels because there's nothing you can learn about them, or that they can learn about their game, in A ball. the only guy i've been actively pushing for a promotion this year was will inman, back when he was depantsing FSL hitters every 5th day. with a guy like that, you know he will destroy the low minors, and you've seen him do it, so i thought the next step in his development was learning how to make adjustments against better competition, since it was unlikely that the same things would work against more advanced hitters. so the brewers were holding up his development with every start he made in FSL. but they promoted him to AA a month ago, and although he's taken his lumps, this is the only way the brewers or inman are going to find out what kind of pitcher he'll become.

as far as the mariners are concerned, i think you're right about the four guys you mentioned. they seem to be doing fine. however, i still don't understand why they rushed clement to AAA last year when he came back from his injury. if the plan was for him to be successful at AAA this year, why couldn't they have put him in AA? and with johjima's contract, they certainly did not have any incentive to have clement ready for the majors in 2007. just a strange decision, but apparently the long-term consequences are okay.

i'm much less sanguine about their handling of brandon morrow. taking a prize arm with essentially zero minor league experience and sticking him in the bullpen... well, i just don't think he's getting the work he needs to sort out his command issues. and i think being in the bullpen is actually exacerbating them--if he falls behind a hitter in a key spot, he can just work around them and pitch to the next guy, unlike a starter who needs to worry about his pitch count and going deep into games. basically i think he's picking up bad habits, although i can't back this up with direct observation. all i know is that his stat line is totally wonky.

by jpahk on Jul 5, 2007 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions

the thing

i don't necessarily berate the mariners for doing what they do, and i've never been particularly worried that rushing guys will ruin them - it just makes our job as armchair prospect analysts insanely difficult. is this guy hitting .220 because he's playing in a level that's way over his head right now, or does he just suck? no way for us to know. so it's irritating on that level. in terms of actually, like, being a good strategy for developing young baseball players - i mean, at the end of the day, who cares? this is about us.

by wily mo on Jul 5, 2007 1:47 PM EDT reply actions

The Mets rush their prospects too

by Bravesin07 on Jul 5, 2007 3:15 PM EDT reply actions

Mariners

do push their prospects.

In the case of Clement he was a university kid so A or even AA shouldn't be too much of a challenge. He had poor numbers last year but was hurt. To a casual observer he was being pushed but it's not what really happened.

In the case of Jones he has always held his own age relative to level. Actually more than held his own. They felt it's better to challenge him than to beat up the lower levels.

I think more people complain about how they move their pitching prospects to be honest.

Morrow is a good case. He is starting to struggle now but Seattle is in contention and the GM has his job hinging on making the playoffs.

by pedrophile on Jul 5, 2007 6:12 PM EDT reply actions

how about AAA?

well, ok, but having him hit kind of OK in AA, get injured, and then come off the DL directly into AAA did seem weird to me. i'm not sure how casual i was.

by wily mo on Jul 5, 2007 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions

casual

meaning yourself, myself, etc. It did seem fairly quick. I'm guessing the management saw that while the numbers were not there he wasn't over-matched. Again, I'm just guessing here.

by pedrophile on Jul 5, 2007 7:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Mariners and Mets

Kudos for not treating highly talented baseball players like babies.

Challenges make people better. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the course of human history.

Rays in '08.... Desmond Jennings - the breakout continues.....

by youALREADYknow on Jul 6, 2007 7:52 PM EDT reply actions

excellent quote

braves push their prospects too and don't let their best ones play in AAA much. Salty and Francouer both were promoted from AA. I wouldn't be shocked in 2009 that Andrus gets some time in the majors from AA. If you got Andrus out of Myrtle Beach he would be hitting .280-.290 right now. I think Andrus makes a Furcal type run next year.

by Bravesin07 on Jul 7, 2007 1:53 PM EDT up reply actions