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First Pitch: The Big Things That Are Ignored During Minor League Development

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My job gives me a very unique perspective. I spent most days on a baseball field, watching some level of the Pirates’ system from the MLB team to the GCL and DSL teams. I get a chance to see every player in the system multiple times throughout the year, and I watch them progress throughout their careers. I talk with them and their coaches, along with player development staff and front office members about this progression each step of the way. I review the reports of our writers, who undergo the same process. I talk with scouts, getting a perspective from outside the system as well.

I also keep in touch with readers as much as I can, trying to get a feel for the fan base and the questions that exist for each player, or the attention certain players are getting. That involves reading and participating in the discussions on the site, and in the past it involved reading and participating in the conversations on other Pirates forums (although I hardly have time these days for the discussions on this site, so I don’t have time to check around and see what message boards or other sites are saying).

On one side of things, I get perspective from inside the game. On the other side, I get the opinions from outside the game. This allows me to see some of the key differences between how the game and the Pirates operate, and how the fans want things to be operated.

One of the biggest differences usually comes with player promotions. I’m not talking about the promotion from Triple-A to the big leagues. To be honest, I’m sick of talking about that. What I’m talking about is the promotion at any level of the minors.

We’re nearing the point where teams across baseball usually start promoting some of their players up the ranks of the minor leagues. This time period is also when fans start compiling their wish list of which players should be promoted. More accurately, it’s when fans tend to say “Why hasn’t this guy been moved up yet?”

Watching this process for years, with one foot inside the game and one foot outside of the game, I’ve noticed a few trends. There are some things that fans totally ignore at the minor league level, which have a higher value placed on them inside the game. These things play a heavy role on promotions, which means that if you’re ignoring them, you might be calling for a player to be moved up much sooner than the team is willing to move him up. I thought I’d review a few of the big ones tonight, taking a look at some of the things fans don’t really see or value when determining if a prospect should move up.

Defense

I’m putting this number one on my list, because it’s the thing that stands out the most when writing about prospects. The large majority of fans don’t see the players play. Out of the people who do see the players, the large majority of that group doesn’t see a player enough to make the eye test valid. But everyone sees the offensive stats, and that’s usually all a player gets evaluated on.

Let’s take a look at two cases this year. The first one is Kevin Newman. There have been calls for him to get promoted to Altoona since before the calendar turned to the month of May. And if he’s still in Bradenton after the calendar turns to June, I have a feeling those calls are going to get pretty loud. But as I’ve written a few times, there’s a clear reason Newman is at the current level: Defense.

Last month, I wrote about how Newman was working on his set-up position, getting ready earlier to put him in better position to field the ball. Last night I followed up on that, noting that he has moved beyond the set-up, and is now working on a wider base when fielding grounders. He’s showing progression defensively.

The argument I usually see is that you can work on defense anywhere. This ignores two things. One thing is that it’s easier for someone to work on their defense when they don’t have to worry about the bat, and that’s the case for Newman in High-A right now. The other is that the game gets much faster as you move up. Defense isn’t something where you just learn it, and it’s the same for all levels. Just like offense, it gets more difficult as you move up. So moving a guy up to work on things at a higher level actually makes it more difficult for the player to work on those things.

Now let’s go to the flip side of all of this with the second player example: Reese McGuire. Here we have a case of a player who is outstanding defensively, but has struggled with the bat. The Pirates have actually been aggressive promoting McGuire’s bat, and a big reason for that is the defense. They sent him up to Altoona after he showed improvement over the off-season during instructs and the Arizona Fall League. It was a small sample size, but with no questions on the defensive side, and catchers pushing him from the lower levels, it was a move they’ve made. And despite a .693 OPS in Altoona, McGuire doesn’t look over-matched at the plate, with a lot of signs that he’s starting to get it figured out offensively.

However, people look at a guy like McGuire and consider him a disappointment because of the offense, totally ignoring that the defense will get him to the majors. It’s a different case than Newman, but the underlying theme is that defense doesn’t get the same attention as offense, and is very over-looked in the minors.

Triple-A

This might be the next biggest one. One of the things I’ve noticed while running this site is that fans are way more aggressive than the teams in calling for promotions. That exists at every level, where a month of success leads to calls for a guy to get moved up. But no level has this more than the Triple-A level.

At times, it feels like the perception of Triple-A is that it’s just a holding ground until certain roster deadlines have passed. It’s like players are Major League ready the day they get promoted to the level, and all you need is one good start or a big game at the plate to show they’re ready for a promotion.

There are even teams who act this way about Triple-A, and those teams always become the focus of the argument for fans who want to see a player promoted aggressively to the majors. The thing is, usually people stop paying attention after the player is promoted. You might hear that Sean Manaea and the A’s or Jose Berrios and the Twins are examples of teams who don’t care about Super Two. You don’t hear that Manaea has a 7.62 ERA in 26 innings, or that Berrios posted a 10.20 ERA in 15 innings over four starts before being sent back down (he has a 1.23 ERA in 22 innings in Triple-A, for reference).

Likewise, there are teams like the Orioles or Tigers who constantly ruin prospects by skipping them over the upper levels. These teams get the attention for the promotion and for being aggressive, but there’s never any follow-up to notice that this might be a bad approach.

Triple-A is an important level. There’s still development needed at the level before a player is ready for the majors, and you can’t just skip that development and do it in the big leagues. Some players do have success with very little Triple-A time, but the large majority do not.

Individual Pitches/Learning How to Pitch

I thought about doing a section for the changeup, but figured I’d leave it more vague with individual pitches. Aside from stats, the big focus with pitchers tends to be on their stuff. For the fastball, the focus is on velocity. The breaking pitches need to be described as above-average or plus, and need to produce strikeout numbers.

It’s possible to dominate in the minors, especially in the lower levels, even without a key pitch or two. If you can locate a plus fastball, that’s all you need for A-ball to post good numbers. If you’ve got a good breaking pitch to go with that, or a good changeup, then you can do the same in the upper levels.

The changeup seems to be the most common pitch that gets overlooked, mostly because not many players come in to pro ball with that pitch. But the pitch could also be a breaking pitch, or even a two-seam fastball. The reason I feel the changeup gets valued the lowest by fans is that a good breaking pitch usually comes with strikeouts, and a bad one usually lowers the strikeout total. As a result, you’re going to get more concern over that pitch because you can actually see that it doesn’t work in the results. With the changeup, you have to wait until you get to a level that’s too high for the pitcher to continue to have success in order to see the results. And for some pitchers, this might be the majors.

After the pitcher has his pitches, the next step is learning how to pitch. This goes along with the comments about Triple-A development, since this is often the Triple-A step in the development for pitchers. Pitchers can put up strong numbers without good sequencing of their pitches in the minors, but that usually doesn’t work in the majors. And if they don’t have plus pitches, then it might not even work in the upper levels of the minors. But if they do have plus pitches, they can put up good results while still needing work on their approach.

Sample Size

I mentioned it earlier, but fans tend to be much more aggressive with promotions than teams. This ends up making the teams look conservative, when they’re actually just promoting on a normal schedule. Occasionally, you’ll see a guy who warrants a quick promotion. We saw this already this year when Brandon Waddell got promoted after less than a month in Bradenton. But Waddell is the exception to the rule, and not a guideline for every promotion.

I’ve thought about why this trend exists over the years, and I think the problem is that baseball is a long season, full of very long time periods along the way. A small sample size can feel like an eternity, and when you’re in that sample size, it can be difficult to realize that it’s still a small sample. Logically, you might realize that the number of at-bats and innings is small, but when you’re in the moment, and you’ve been following the sport daily, that one month feels like an eternity.

The best example I can give here is by looking back at Jameson Taillon in 2012. He had an outstanding start in Bradenton, putting up a 1.47 ERA and a 36:7 K/BB ratio in 36.2 innings over his first seven starts. That ran from April 7th to May 10th, and there were calls for him to get promoted to Altoona, even before the final start on May 10th. At the time, it seemed like Taillon was ready, and there was no way this was just a small sample size.

Then, Taillon started working on his development. The league adjusted to him in the process, and he ended up posting a 5.97 ERA in 66.1 innings over his next 12 starts. After that, he started getting more comfortable, posted a 1.23 ERA over his final 22 innings, and got promoted. I remember covering him at the time, during the bad stretch, and the final few bad outings saw improved results from him, even if the stats didn’t match up with the stuff. I’ve written many times about the evolution of his delivery over the years, including this massive article. A lot of that work was being done in A-ball that year. I can only imagine what would have happened if he was called up after a month of action, only to work on all of that in Altoona, while facing a higher class of hitters. Instead, he went to Altoona, and looked like a different pitcher from the start of the year.

**Prospect Watch: Yeudy Garcia Throws Six Shutout Innings. A good outing for Garcia, although the reports I’ve received have said his command has struggled, even though the results have been good recently. I’m hoping to see him on Sunday, to get my first live look at him in a month.

**Tyler Glasnow Needs a Changeup Before He Can Help the Pirates. Speaking of a pitcher who needs to improve a pitch for a promotion, while dominating the minors and making it look like he’s ready…

**Pirates Place Vogelsong on Disabled List, Recall Schugel. Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Vogelsong.

**Updated Top 25 Prospects List From Keith Law Has Three Pirates. Law ranks three Pirates prospects in his updated top 25, and two of them could be up in the majors this year.

**Morning Report: What’s the Deal With Extended Spring Training Assignments? John Dreker takes a look at extended Spring Training. I’ll have some live reports from there in the next few weeks, getting an early preview of the short-season teams.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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