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Fascinating bit of Cranepooling in this thread. A glimpse of the just-drafted Scott Kazmir prompts Sal to fret over the wisdom of early callups. Today we can look back at Oakland's Big 3 and see they lost 2 of them before year 7, suggesting to me that the question of calling up young guys is every bit the finacial decision we suppose it could be here.
Wide BeeGee
(8/30/02 11:00 am)
I saw a few innings of this young man last night. He whiffed nine Staten Island Satans in 5 innings. Works fast, really brings it. He was throwing high strikes right past them losers. Looked like (ahem) he he could advance to a better level.
Clones lost 1-0 in 10 innings.
RkFast
Which response would you like?
1. "They cant even hit in the minors!!"
or
2. "Watch Kaz blow his arm out or be traded for Barry Larkin"
Wide BeeGee
Actually, I was hoping for "Call him up NOW!!!"
LF
Something original would be nice.
Actually, I caught the tail end of the game and watched Brooklyn hit into bases-loaded DPs in game-winning situations to end both the 9th & 10th innings (game) and thought ...
WHY CAN'T WE TEACH CLUTCHNESS?!?!?
RkFast
I wonder if the Mets are going to alter this philosophy a bit of holding kids back now that they could REALLY be used by the big club. Not that Kaz is coming up this year or even next, but I wonder if you could see him at Shea in 2004.
Kasey62
r FIRE OJEDA AND HOJO NOW!!!
Methead
Kid's been great so far. 15 innings, something like 27 K's. Only a handful of hits/walks.
Could they promote him toward the end of the season for a start or two in AA? I think the Clones are pretty much out of the playoff hunt at this point anyway.
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... but I don't think challenging the kid is a bad idea. By assigning him to Brooklyn, they already have in a sense. He's responded well so far.
CookieMom
D-Dad and I were figuring Kazmir to be on the B-Mets next year, with Heilman having an outside shot to make the big club or otherwise start in Norfolk.
Norrin Radd
SEND IN DA CLONES!
I'd rather see Kazmir than the chasm here...
Salamander Q
What's your thinking on rushing him to the bigs? Not him, necessarily, but any 18 yo phenom? Does it make sense to try and keep him on a regular schedule of progress, not only for his sake but for maximizing his arm for your club?
"His sake": if MLB workloads, pressure, etc. have the effect of causing younger players' careers to implode, why risk it? I'm thinking Gooden here, of course, but there's Feller too. The question is: is there any real evidence that pitchers who get brouhgt up early have shorter careers than pitchers brought up late? Presumably, you're bringing them up early to maximize their career lengths; if the result is contrary to that goal, why do it?
"your club": the current wisdom says to bring players up generally as late as you can justify, since you're only assured of owning their careers for the first six years. Why, then, would you want to invest in the minor league portion of someone who plays in the majors from age 18-24, if the peak portion of his career 25-31 will be spent with a rival club? Better to have Kazmir dominate AAA through age 21 and 22, so you own him through age 28, no?
Norrin Radd
i was not serious about Kazmir. My hunch is that having guys his age throw a lot of innings is probably not a good thing.
I think it is LESS wise, in general, to rush pitchers than hitters. Overexposing young pitchers increases their chances of debilitating injury.
Position players, on the other hand, are less susceptable to that, i think. And i'd happily take the first 6 years of Griffey's career, over the next 6 years. I'd also be quite satisfied with A-Rod's 1st 6 years. This is not to say that, Jose Reyes (for example) will be the next A-Rod, but i think there is a lot less risk in getting him up here next season than Kazmir.
especially in terms of the team's needs. With a decent talent pool of young pitching at the upper levels of the minors, Kazmir doesn't need to be fast-tracked. But an impact position player, who plays a position where we have about the WORST EVERYDAY PLAYER IN BB, seems to me the kind of situation that demands early promotion.
CookieMom
I'd like to see Kaz pitch at AA for a couple of seasons, especially since he's right out of high school (Heilman went to college for 4 years, so he's had some more seasoning already). But if last night is any indication, he has good stuff - there's no reason why he shouldn't be on the fast track to the majors.
Billy Beane has done it with Oakland, and they don't seem to be suffering too badly with their young pitching staff.
Salamander Q
My point being that time will tell whether the Oakland pitchers prosper in their thirties. If they turn into a staff of Goodens, I think they'll regret rushing them up.
CookieMom
If they win a championship or two in the interim, I don't think Billy Beane will lose much sleep if the phenom pitchers fade out a little early.
Salamander Q
Norrin: Really? Check this out
baseball-reference.com/g/griffke02.shtml
and then tell me you'd rather have his first six years than years 7-12.
And remember you picked this example.
Norrin Radd
facts. you always have to throw FACTS in my face.
sheesh.
metsmarathon
380) Tom O’Malley  3B, 1B, 1989-
1990
Posts: 1211
(8/30/02 3:29 pm)
Reply Re: Rock the Kazmir if ya go by adjusted OPS, he was a little better in years 3-6 than 7-10.
the first step is admitting you're a runner
Norrin Radd
Overall, i'd still rather have had him years 1-7 (he was hurt year 6) than years 8-14 (thru 02)
his last 2 seasons have been pretty sucky and indicate a downward trend in his career at that point where he is probably using up more of a team's payroll than, say, the 1st 2 years of his career, when such middling production is affordable.
Salamander Q
You don't get to pick and choose. Year 7 he could have signed with another team. Seattle could be sure of having him only for the first six seasons. And they don't compare to the second six.
You're going to pass on the four consecutive years with 49, 56, 48 HRs? You're talking outta your...oh, hell, now you've got me doing it.
Kasey62
r I'm in the bring 'em along slowly camp.
Anyone know off the top o' their noggins who was the
last great phenom pitcher to be rushed and stayed
healthy.
I know Gooden was thrown out here in this wordy
thread (guilty of pc'ing) but just 'cause the guy's
throwing so close to Shea and happens to be on tv
doesn't put him on the fast track.
Then again, he was touted as a higher pick and a
bunch of teams passed due to not wanting to pay
the signing bonus.
kcmets.com is going to interview him in the next
week or so...stay tuned.
We gonna have a funky gootime!
CookieMom
What's our time frame for evaluation?
Barry Zito didn't spend much time in the minors, and he seems healthy in his second full season in the majors. But I concede that's not a long term evaluation.
Kasey62
Barry Barry Barry
My point is, who lasted a good long career.
You should like this subject...the tired arm.
CookieMom
Hey - you wanted a recent phenom who came up quickly, and I accurately named one :p
And I do think it's an interesting subject. I will be curious to see whether you guys study it and come to any significant conclusions.
Methead
Did Zito spend time in college, or not?
That's the biggest factor for me. You look at a guy like Mark Prior, who tore through the Cubs system in what seemed like a couple of months... but he's already got 4 years of experience that Kazmir doesn't.
I'm not saying "rush the guy" or "put him on a fast track", but I don't see the harm in a start or two in AA the last few weeks of the season, especially if he's slated to begin next year there anyway.
Salamander Q
Like I said (there's a bunch of PCing going on here), Bob Feller came up very young (17 I think) and had a good long career, but this needs to be studied systematically. It's not just blownout arms, either--with Gooden it was a matter of pitching for the big team when his arm was ready but his head not. Who knows if a little more maturity could have kept him (and Straw) off the drugs? Prolly not, but my point is that there are other dangers to promoting kids too quickly for their own good.
Anecdotally, there are a LOT of good young pitchers who've crashed and burned: in our history alone, from Gentry through Pulsipher, we've brought up promising young guys who seemed to know how to pitch at a very early age but who fizzled after a season or two. I'd venture to guess that if you just looked in the baseball encyclopedia for pitchers who threw their first big-league inning in their teens, you'd find a ton of Wally Bunkers for every Bob Feller, which raises the question: is it worth the risk?
In this climate, where even when you develop young stars, they grow into mature stars for other teams, I'd say No.
CookieMom
Zito spent some time in college, but not a full four years.
Sal - I ask this more out of curiosity than contrariness. Do we have any take on the number of guys who crash and burn while still in the minors? If it's truly an age and maturity issue, I would imagine that there are a lot of promising head cases who wash out early, but since they aren't with the big clubs we never hear about them.
Salamander Q
I'm sure it's a lot. That's what young people do, after all, crash and burn and fizzle and generally wreck their lives, right? (See the "first cars" thread on the NBF for a sense of how many of us here literally crashed our first set of wheels.) It's a miracle that anyone makes it to age 25 with his or her talent preserved and functioning.
It just seems so pressure-packed, pitching in MLB along with people five and ten and twenty years older than you are in your teens, before huge crowds, with loads of cash to spend, that the physical risks, which are considerable but equal wherever you pitch, are far less than the risks of having your values and your judgment warped.
I think of what Ryan Thompson was saying when we last played the Brewers: he was arguing that as a young Met phenom, he had this unshakable sense of his destiny for greatness, and so (he implied) he partied a lot, slept little, took very poor care of his body, ignored advice from managers and teammates, etc., and got by on his natural talent. This is a natural tendency for some young athletes, but the longer you can keep someone with these tendencies in the minor leagues, where they have to learn skills and get experience that's helpful anyway, the better off they are. Promoting someone to MLB at an early age, IMO, just reinforces this sense of overweening self-confidence that comes back to bite them in their asses.
What's the upside to early promotion? That the Mets might get a few decent years out of young stars? Okay, but under the present system you want those years, as much as possible to center around the late twenties, when players' careers peak, rather than the early twenties, anyway.
The upside to late promotion is tremendous, not least the time spent teaching players fundamentals, and reinforcing them. You've got the players yearning for promotion, feeling well-ready for promotion, and you can still motivate them by saying stuff like, "Sure, you hit .300, kid, but I want to see you learning how to hit behind the runner, and I want to see you hitting the cut-off man consistently. And, oh, yeah, that sliding-into-first-base shit has got to stop. Do all that next year, and we'll try to find a spot for you on the big league roster."
CookieMom
The flip side being that you want to take advantage of talent while it's hot. There's no guarantee that young prospects are going to stay healthy, or even alive (I'm thinking Brian Cole, which isn't the best example but he just jumps to mind) for an infinite amount of time.
While balancing and weighing all of these factors, at some point you simply have to evaluate whether a player has the stuff to handle the majors yet, or whether further seasoning will help him be more productive down the road. Looking at Kazmir's stuff the other night, I would hate to keep him down solely based on age-related fears.
Your concerns are valid ones. But I would consider them factors in the total equation, rather than overriding considerations.
Salamander Q
Yeah, of course, you want to be able to make exceptions in exceptional circumstances, but again with Gooden, all the talk was how incredibly mature this 19-year-old was. How exceptional the talent was. Now, in Gooden's case, the talent did demand he pitch in the majors at age 19, but even there I think we were hoodwinked as to the maturity level. He was a quiet, superfically well-behaved teenager with a rebellious streak below the surface a mile and a half wide.
With Brian Cole, how would you have felt if the Mets had put him in the outfield, arranged their roster to reflect having a talented player out there, proly for nthe next six years at least, made trades based on having Cole out there, etc. and THEN he got himself killed by doing a dumb-kid stunt like driving without a seatbelt? Human tragedy aside, it's foolish business judgment placing your interests in the hands of people whose own personal judgment, categorically speaking, is so poor.
The hot hand argument is the only one that gives you an upside and, as I argued with Norrin, the free-agency system limits your control over the player's career on the endpoint, so you want to TRY to see that you get as many good years as possible out of your young players, which means shooting for ages 24-29 rather than ages 19-24. If this costs you an occasional Dwight Gooden, well, that's a big price to pay, but who knows how many Dwight Goodens would be even better coming up with sounder judgment and better training? More important, who knows how many other stars we never heard of would benefit from such policies?
CookieMom
I agree that we were hoodwinked about - he presented himself as much more mature and family-oriented than he actually was. But I would hate to use his example to penalize every promising youngster. It's ok to be wary, but I'd nonetheless keep an open mind while keeping a close eye on these kids.
As to Cole, I'm not so sure that the organization didn't make plans and moves with Cole in mind. He wasn't that far from making the big team, and I do believe he was part of "The Plan". And, unfortunately, the categorically poor judgment is more related to their status as athletes than their age (see, e.g., Mike Darr).
The question you are presenting is whether Dwight Gooden would have had more productive seasons if they waited a few years before bringing him up. I'm not convinced that he would have - I think it's at least as likely that he would have crashed and burned at a similar age if he remained in the minors. Mark Corey's drug use wasn't a recent phenomenon upon his promotion to the majors, was it? At least this way we got a few productive years out of Gooden before he lost that look of dominance for good (damn him for blowing his career up his nose!).
Salamander Q
No, Mom, what I'm saying is that if Gooden,a genuine star at age 20, is your best example, it's certainly far from a wholly successful story without a serious downside attached. To point to his great early success, and say "This would have been lost if we followed your policy," is just not true. It MAY have been lost, true, but Gooden also MAY have been able to put in the same MLB career with an extra year or two of minor league ball, and he MAY have even been able to improve the overall quality of his MLB career. I personally think that your scenario, of simply losing Gooden's peak years by burying him in the minors, is the most likely, but that doesn't mean that the other scenarios are not part of the equation.
As to your point about Brian Cole: I'm sure the Mets did have plans for him. But what if those plans were for him to play CF starting in April of 2000? And what if, based on that plan, the Mets had dealt off Jay Payton and Timo Perez, so that when Cole self-destructed they had few options available to play centerfield? You can say that any ballplayer at any age could always die suddenly, but I think any actuary will tell you that a 20-year-old is far likelier to crash an automobile than a 25-year-old. My point being that resting your fate on kids is not only risky in terms of their rates of development, but also in terms of risking backwards development. There's a serious downside here which you seem inclined to ignore.
That said, in certain circumstances, I think it's worth a shot. I would, for example, promote Reyes sometime in the middle of next season, have him fill for Rey once or twice a week, maybe go back to AAA to have him get regular playing time for a month or so, and hand him the job (if he shows he can do it) in 2004.
CookieMom
I don't think I'm ignoring anything. And I don't think we're really all that far apart here. It's a present vs. future evaluation, without the luxury of a crystal ball. And most players certainly need the extra minor league seasoning. It's the rare case - when you look at a kid like Kazmir with great stuff but who looks like he should be in geometry class, where you have to do the serious weighing and balancing. And if you do bring them up early, of course it's beneficial for everyone involved to keep a careful eye on their development - both on a personal level as well as a professional one.
Edgy DC II
What -- for the sake of this argument -- are we calling young.
Glavine was up at 21, got his head handed to him for a full season at 22, didn't shine until 25, but has had a long, productive career.
I think half-season ball (which reflects more-or-less the college schedule) should be the limit on some of these guys their first two years.
Neyer looked at the hard-throwing, long-timing, big winners in history and discovered that a surprising number missed a large amount of time before they turned 25. Of course, Feller was over 250 innings for a few years before entering the army. But who knows, maybe Uncle Sam grabbed him just in time.
Sometimes waiting saves them simultaneously from their managers and themselves.
It isn't that far-fetched to think that Gooden might have lasted longer if he came up later. Hindsight is, of course, 20-20, so it's not really about blaming anybody not named "Gooden" that he didn't win 300 (or even 200), but it would be a shame (a blameable shame) if something wasn't learned from his case.
CookieMom
Edge - what, specifically, do you propose should be learned from the Gooden case? That players need chaperones until a certain age?
Edgy DC II
Perhaps he was brought up and thrown into the cauldron at too young an age. Perhaps he was messed with too much in trying to improve his ability to hold runners on. Perhaps he shouldn't have been allowed to throw so many damn innings.
And perhaps, when a young player voluntarily offers a drug-testing clause in his own contract, it should be read a little more closely.
You can always learn.
CookieMom
www.nypost.com/sports/mets/47150.htm
Kasey62
>>>has a slider that dives like Greg Louganis.<<<
Ah, never mind, it's too early.
CookieMom
Fine Kase. I'll be the one to say it.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Edgy DC II
Or whether he's more suited for relief pitching (ironically, the player whom Kazmir most resembles, 5-11 Houston closer Billy Wagner, happens to be the Texas native's favorite player).
This Alanis Morisette moment is brought to you by the New York Post.
Norrin Radd
>Sal: "That said, in certain circumstances, I think it's worth a shot. I would, for example, promote Reyes sometime in the middle of next season, have him fill for Rey once or twice a week, maybe go back to AAA to have him get regular playing time for a month or so, and hand him the job (if he shows he can do it) in 2004."
WELL, IF YOU'RE AGREEING WITH ME, WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME SUCH A HARD-TIME, YOU A.....
oh, CF. Damn your eyes!
Salamander Q
Rey Ordonez-related exception. Where Rey is concerned, all sensible processes are moot.
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