Posts belonging to Category Rick Berdelle

Dallas Braden 4/22/10 – “It’s a shame because that guy is a tremendous talent a superstar in every sense of the word and he plays for a very classy org who always do things first class the right way every time. And for him to not understand the baseball etiquette of running across that pitchers mound is right next to terrible and inexcusable.  I’m not a speck on his radar and that’s fine, but he will know I was out there, and he will know not to do that again because there will be repercussions if he does that again.”

A large smile crept across my face as I saw the video clip and listened to Braden tell Alex Rodriguez what is what. At least there was still one pitcher in baseball willing to stand up for himself before he won a Cy Young award or an ERA title.  Ever since baseball began keeping statistics for every game in the late 1800’s the sport has vacillated between offensive and defensive eras.  The early years or “dead ball” era saw very few homeruns and poor defense.  Afterwards Babe Ruth stormed on the scene and boosted the offensive output of the league.  By the 1960’s the scoring outputs were so low that the league felt compelled the lower the pitchers mound.  A more moderate period followed which game way to the offensive era we have seen since the early 1990’s.  In this more modern era ballparks have shrunk to a fraction of the size they were at the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, or Candlestick park back in the day.

It seems that every move including a complete aversion to calling the high strike has led to more and more offensive output.  In the very recent past a few rules involving ejections and warnings after what the umpire deems intentional acts have gone too far.  The pitcher has been emasculated to the point where only Cy Young award winners are willing to stand up to the game’s best hitters, but any rookie who hits a deep fly ball feels comfortable flipping his bat and trotting to first base.  Dallas Braden showed me that pitchers can still be noticed and recognized and feared.  They just have to be more willing to step up and do it.  The best pitchers of the last decade or so all had a mean streak to them.  Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez all struck fear in the hitters because of their big fastballs and willingness to throw the ball inside.  Even control artists Maddux and Glavine were willing to throw a pitch inside with a purpose ever now and then.  Hitters now have body armor covering every part of their body and are totally willing to hang with their elbows two or three inches over the inside corner.  It seems the only safe place for a pitcher is the small dirt mound they call home.  Alex Rodriguez thought he could show Dallas Braden up by walking slowly across the mound on his way back to first after a Robinson Cano foul ball.  I think he might flinch on an inside fastball the next time he faces Braden and once again the pitcher will have the upper hand

I have always been told that I have unique opinions regarding baseball and their respected, organizational decisions.  At the same time, my viewpoint usually comes out while arguing a fantasy baseball point after a few beers while watching a game.  Therefore, I would be honored if The Golden Sombrero would allow me to contribute my opinion on how market size and the media seem to affect player development differently from city to city in Major League Baseball.

This concept of the media impacting player development came about while discussing the defensive abilities of Starlin Castro with my father.  I had noticed that during the Cubs recent spring training, the Chicago media began to paint a picture of Castro as a nearly finished, can’t miss prospect by using superlative adjectives every time he was mentioned.

When I first heard of Starlin Castro during last year’s spring training, he was described as a player who had good raw tools but needed plenty of time to refine those tools and turn them into consistent abilities.  So how did this raw player transform from an unpolished, toolsy infielder into a finished product in one year?  The simple truth is that he still is nowhere close to a finished project.  The defensive ability that was frequently discussed on Chicago talk radio as being the reason we may see him at the big-league level soon, was flawed to the tune of 39 errors in 119 games at SS between two levels in the minors.  Now I am not a person who believes that errors are a great measure of a players overall defensive aptitude.  However, that many errors in a shortened season makes it clear to me that what needs to be refined with a player like Castro, is his game to game consistency.
Baseball is a game that involves a great deal of repetition.  Players perform the same exact play thousands and thousands of times.  That consistency is the great differentiator between a college player and a pro player, and it is even more of a determinate of what makes a minor leaguer and/or a big league player.
The point that I am trying to make is that a player like Castro cannot be evaluated well in a short spring training schedule.  The only way to track his development is to watch him over a full season in the minors and see if he has become a more consistent ballplayer.  The hope heaped on him this early is nearly impossible for him to achieve by the time the Cubs fans and Chicago media would like him to.  Starlin just recently turned 20 years old and has played all of 29 games above A ball.
My theory is that the fans expectations begin to rise as soon as a prospect hits the fans consciousness.  Because of that phenomenon, a player who hits the cities consciousness at 19 years old will almost always leave the fans disappointed.  Players like Micah Hoffpauir and Jake Fox were not called up for any length of time until they were finished products in their late 20’s.  The fans were not calling these players busts while they toiled in mediocrity in cities like Des Moines and Peoria, because they were out of sight and mind.  In larger markets, steps should be taken by management to keep player expectations reasonable in order to aide the player’s development.

On the other side of Chicago a true star began to emerge in 2009.  Gordon Beckham played his first full season of pro ball and wound up making over 100 starts for the White Sox in 2009.  When Ozzie Guillen was asked about Beckham while the Sox were struggling early in the season he said that the Sox should not worry about Gordon and if Gordon comes up, we are in trouble.  This kept the expectations of Southsiders tempered.  I don’t mean to turn this into a post about how the Sox are better than the Cubs, that’s not what this is at all.  I am rather attempting to demonstrate the two very different styles incorporated in the same media market and the major differences.  Expectations for Joe Crede, Jon Garland, and Joe Borchard were far too high when the players were not fully developed.  Crede and Garland went on to have successful careers, and in this market are both considered underperformers to some extent. In my future articles, I would like to demonstrate that the market size can both positively and negatively affect player development and to some extent, minor league placement of players.