Prospects and Suspects

A story about draft picks and the Road to the Big Leagues…

The first time I hung around a minor league baseball team I asked the manager how many of his players had a legitimate shot at the Big Leagues and he said “four.” The next day I asked a player the same question and he said: “All of us.”

I said: “You ought to talk to your manager.”

Here’s the first thing you should know about the young ballplayers who just got drafted by Major League teams: drafted players are divided into “prospects” and “suspects” and there aren’t enough prospects to fill out a team roster so they draft a bunch of suspects so the prospects have someone to play with. Teams don’t tell players what category they’re in, although where they got drafted ought to be a clue.

The Kansas City Royals first-round pick was Blake Mitchell and I know that because they just introduced him at a press conference. Who did the Royals pick in the 20^th round?

Yeah, I didn’t know either.

I looked it up and it was a shortstop named Blake Wilson and this particular Blake will need to play his ass off or rob a convenience store and take hostages if he wants his own press conference.

High draft picks will be given every chance to succeed (and then some) because someone in the organization risked their reputation by saying that player was worth a high pick and they want the player to prove them right.

First-round pick Bubba Starling never panned out at the Big League level, but still had a 10-year career as a professional ballplayer.

Low draft picks get fewer opportunities and have to prove the organization wrong and change the path of their career by how they play, which reminds me of a story a front-office guy told me:

A kid in the minors was trying to make an impression by running into walls during batting practice and the other organizational guys were saying watch this kid, he’s busting ass all the time and the front office guy who told me the story said the kid was making an impression, but after watching the kid a while, he said:

“Y’know, if he was a prospect, we’d tell him to quit doing that.”

When I first started covering baseball I was naïve; I admired players who ran into walls or fell over dugout railings trying to make a catch or ran over a catcher trying to score, but after seeing how the wrong guy getting injured can screw up a team’s season, came to realize a big part of being a professional ballplayer is knowing when to run into a wall.

Seventh game of the World Series, yes; minor league batting practice, not so much.

Nevertheless, it is possible to change the way a team sees you and any player who needs inspiration ought to look at Hall of Famer Mike Piazza who was drafted in the 62^nd round of the 1988 draft.  

Protecting the high-price players

A friend of mine went from being the first base coach of a Big League team to being their third base coach and I asked another ballplayer friend how much more responsibility a third base coach had. He said “a lot” and then added:

“And they don’t like it when you get those millionaire players blown up at the plate.”

Which struck me as funny because it meant third base coaches need to think about salaries before sending a runner home:

“Hey, you make a lot of money so stay here at third, but you make the major league minimum and we don’t think you’ll be here that long, so go ahead and try to score.”

Quick question: if you’re a baseball fan you probably know San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey got his leg broken on a play at the plate – who broke it?

Answer: Scott Cousins.

Cousins was a third-round pick of the Florida Marlins, made his major league debut on September 3^rd the year before and was playing in his 34^th game of the 2011 season, so he was probably still trying to make an impression when he collided with Posey.

BTW: Posey getting hurt was more the fault of the outfielder who made an off-line throw and pulled Posey into an awkward position than Cousins’ fault for doing what he’d been taught to do; run over a catcher and try to knock the ball loose.

Another BTW: If you’re thinking the poor catcher is defenseless, Ned Yost once showed me how he’d try to tag a runner in the nuts and Jason Kendall explained how you throw an elbow into a runner’s throat and if they get hit in the nuts or the throat, next time those guys aren’t so eager to run you over.

Or…you can change the rules and take one of the most exciting plays in baseball out of the game, then sit around and wonder why attendance is down.

How to coach a rookie

One of the people I talked to at every opportunity was Kansas City Royals coach Rusty Kuntz and Rusty taught me a lot about baseball even when he didn’t feel like doing it which was probably about three days out of four. Anyway…Rusty once told me how you handle a kid who just got drafted and is just starting his professional career:

You leave him alone.

The kid was probably smoking hot shit at East Bumfuck High and won’t be inclined to listen to a coach who hit .236 in his Big League Career.

What the kid ought to be thinking is how did a .236 hitter like Rusty Kuntz get to the Big Leagues, last seven years and have a long coaching career afterwards and what’s Rusty know that can help him do the same.

Fans missed the point when they didn’t appreciate players who didn’t put up big numbers (which is totally different than putting up awful numbers) but somehow stayed in the Big Leagues anyway.

Would you rather have an All-Star and HOF candidate?

Sure, but just like “prospects” there aren’t enough of those All-Stars and HOF candidates to go around so you fill out the team with guys who are smart and solid and won’t do anything dumb to lose a game and by the way, those smart players fans scorn because they don’t put up big numbers are the same guys who will be running teams after they get done playing.

Teams like to keep smart guys around: Chris Getz is an Assistant General Manager for the White Sox and Chris Young is the General Manager of the Texas Rangers.

If a young pitcher asks Nolan Ryan about pitching, Nolan might say throwing harder than God helps, but if you don’t throw harder than God maybe you should talk to Bruce Chen (86.9 MPH fastball, 4.62 ERA and 17 years in the Big Leagues) who, if the internet is correct, is the Los Angeles Dodgers Latin American Field Coordinator.

If a player does not have great statistics, but still has a long career he’s probably doing something valuable that does not show up in the numbers.

So what about Rusty’s advice on coaching a rookie?

You leave the rookie alone because at some point he’s going to fail and if you’ve been working with him you’ll get some of the blame for his failure.

And when the rookie fails he won’t want to talk to you anyway. He’s more likely to call his dad or his high school or college coach – people he’s worked with in the past – and if their advice doesn’t work (and it probably won’t because those guys probably didn’t play in the Big Leagues and don’t know what it takes to succeed) then maybe the kid is willing to listen to the coach with the .236 lifetime average.

Plus, the coach can say, “He’s awful…I can’t make him any worse” and get to work on making him better.

Helpful hint: If you already know everything, you can’t learn anything and the guys I just talked about were still willing to listen and learn after decades in baseball.

That’s how they stuck in the Big Leagues.

Also: you don’t give 110 percent

According to Rusty at some point a first-time professional ballplayer will admit to being tired. Even at the lowest levels, pros play way more games than amateurs and mix that in with travel, changing time zones and partying your ass off (because being a professional ballplayer gives you way more social opportunities and it’s one of the reasons guys want to be professional ballplayers) and after a couple months first-time pros are walking around like zombies.

Rusty said pro ballplayers have to learn to go at either 70 or 80 percent (he was more precise, but I forget which one it was so let’s say 75 percent which is still 25 percent higher than the half-assed effort I’m giving right now) and then when the player needs 100 percent it will be there because adrenaline kicks in.

So if you ever get criticized for not showing enough energy, inform your critic that you’re a professional and you’re saving it for the Big Moment, but you probably shouldn’t mention that you consider a trip to the liquor store to buy enough beer to make it through yet another Royals’ loss a Big Moment.

The competition gets way better

A former player who moved into the front office after he was done playing once told me the hardest thing to project was a player’s makeup.

Moneyball made fun of front office guys who paid attention to things like a ballplayer’s girlfriend (did her looks reflect on the player’s confidence level) but smart teams and front office guys are always looking for clues as to who a player is right now and who he might become once they draft him and give him a shit ton of money.

That’s why scouts need to see a player play. The scouts already know a player’s numbers, but they need to see the player in person and when they see him they need to pay attention to how he acts and what he does:

• If he’s a catcher is he talking to his pitcher between innings or goofing off and spitting sunflower seeds in the dugout?

• When he’s on deck is he paying attention to the pitcher he’s about to face or checking out girls in the stands?

• Does he get on the railing and root for his teammates or does he say to hell with this and head for the air conditioned clubhouse?

You’re searching for clues as to what kind of kid he is and how he might react to the situation you’re about to put him in. A high school kid who has always been the best player on the field encounters players just as good as he is for the first time and how he reacts to that is a huge deal. Does he get intimidated or does he say, “Fuck ‘em, I’m still the best player out here.”

How to make a living in the Big Leagues

The first pitcher Jason Kendall ever faced in the Big Leagues was Kevin Brown (6-time All-Star, 2 ERA titles, 3.28 career ERA and 19 years in the Big Leagues). Brown threw just one pitch and Jason stepped out of the box and thought:

“If they’re all this good, I’m fucked.”

Fortunately for Jason they weren’t all that good and he went on to collect 2,195 hits and the lesson here is generally speaking you don’t make a living getting hits off 6-time All-Stars. When you face a Top-of-the-Line pitcher you hope to get a broken-bat single or a walk or (if you have the balls) a hit-by-pitch so it’s not zeros across the board and the next day you go get three hits off some pitcher who isn’t an All-Star.

When we talked about his 2,000 hits Jason said about 1,800 of them were on pitches right down the middle because “that other shit is hard to hit.” It can be done occasionally, but most of the time you don’t make a living hitting sliders at the knees on the outside corner; you make a living hitting flat sliders left in the middle of the plate.

Rusty Kuntz once said it’s not a Big Series when you face a first-place team; you just hope you don’t get swept. But it is a Big Series when you face a last-place team; you have to sweep or at the very worst take two out of three.

Learning how to think like a Big Leaguer is part of how you go from being a suspect to a prospect and there’s a whole lot more I could talk about, but I’m taking Rusty’s advice and currently giving it 75 percent.

I’m saving the other 25 percent for a Big Moment.