Minors 4/19

smootness said:
But we also groan about having Heyward mostly skip AAA, and he was an undeniably phenomenal hitter. If anything, those are the guys that fans will want to be even more protective of.
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Yeah Heyward gets it a lot. Andruw too. I don't think it would of mattered with either of them. Andruw I think just didn't have the ability to hit for a good average at the major league level for whatever reason. That's no slight on him because it's just hard to do that. But he had the power and walk rate and was a good hitter. Heyward I think really just screwed up by getting hit in the head. He swing is different now and has zero power. It's a shame.

Those two also came up at times when the Braves had a spot open and were contenders. It made sense to bring them up to help the big league team. Furcal too (even though he was older than what we thought at the time).

Would Albies be a lessor hitter if he came up in two months? Hard to say. Would staying in AAA all year hurt him? I seriously doubt that.
 
smootness said:
We just won't ever know that. It's easy to point to those that skipped AAA and didn't fully realize their potential and say, 'That's because they skipped AAA.' It would be the same thing as taking a guy like Brian McCann, who had success and skipped AAA, and saying, 'That's because he skipped AAA.'
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True. It is an topic where you can point to examples that supports different points of view. As far as I know there hasn't been a carefully done study of whether aggressive promotion affects outcomes in terms of major league careers.

I don't think Swanson skipping AAA will hurt him. But I do think it will hurt the Braves.
 
nsacpi said:
I think skipping AAA was not good for some of our hitters...Francouer, Simmons, Andruw
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My guess is those guys turned out to be the hitters they were always going to be.

I don't think a year of triple a was going to teach 400 HR hitter Andruw Jones to lay off that low and away breaking ball, or Francouer to take a walk, or Simmons to be more than an average hitter.
 
smootness said:
We just won't ever know that. It's easy to point to those that skipped AAA and didn't fully realize their potential and say, 'That's because they skipped AAA.' It would be the same thing as taking a guy like Brian McCann, who had success and skipped AAA, and saying, 'That's because he skipped AAA.'
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I think it is a subtle strain of homerism. Thinking your own players are, or should have been, better than they turned out to be.

You can see this with guys like Alex Wood, Povse, Andrelton Simmons, etc. Some folks apply it to those who are here, others do it on those who left. Others do it on everyone. Seems to be most potent when directed at players who came up through the system.
 
Southcack77 said:
I think it is a subtle strain of homerism. Thinking your own players are, or should have been, better than they turned out to be.

You can see this with guys like Alex Wood, Povse, Andrelton Simmons, etc. Some folks apply it to those who are here, others do it on those who left. Others do it on everyone. Seems to be most potent when directed at players who came up through the system.
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Its a fairly subtle issue and I'm mostly agnostic about it. The part I wonder about concerns players who do not adjust well when the league finds a weakness in their game. I always wonder about those players if maybe time in AAA would have improved their ability to adjust. AAA has a lot of crafty pitchers who have pitched in the majors and know how to identify and exploit any weaknesses a hitter has. But maybe guys like Francouer would never learn to adjust no matter how much time in AAA.
 
nsacpi said:
Its a fairly subtle issue and I'm mostly agnostic about it. The part I wonder about concerns players who do not adjust well when the league finds a weakness in their game. I always wonder about those players if maybe time in AAA would have improved their ability to adjust. AAA has a lot of crafty pitchers who have pitched in the majors and know how to identify and exploit any weaknesses a hitter has. But maybe guys like Francouer would never learn to adjust no matter how much time in AAA.
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Eric Thames fully credits playing in Korea as his development as a hitter. He had issues staying back and laying off breaking stuff. He said in Korea that's all they throw.
 
thewupk said:
Eric Thames fully credits playing in Korea as his development as a hitter. He had issues staying back and laying off breaking stuff. He said in Korea that's all they throw.
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The question is whether Francouer would have learned the way Thames did. I do think AAA can give you that opportunity to change your approach in the way Thames did in Korea. But the player has to be receptive to the experience and able to make the adjustments.

Thames himself didn't make those adjustments in AAA. I think part of it was he was a bit more mature as a person when he went to Korea. And sometimes being in a very different environment makes you more open to new things. Its a complicated subject.

On the pitching side Roy Halladay famously reinvented himself when sent down to the minors.
 
nsacpi said:
The question is whether Francouer would have learned the way Thames did. I do think AAA can give you that opportunity to change your approach in the way Thames did in Korea. But the player has to be receptive to the experience and able to make the adjustments.

Thames himself didn't make those adjustments in AAA. I think part of it was he was a bit more mature as a person when he went to Korea. And sometimes being in a very different environment makes you more open to new things. Its a complicated subject.
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I agree. Sometimes players just don't have the ability to do what needs to be done no matter how much 'development' they have. Each person is different.
 
Francouer brought a football player's mentality to baseball, which was that he was going to go as hard as he could after every play. That unfortunately meant he tried to hit everything, and he tried to hit it as hard as he could.

I don't think any amount of additional minor league time would have helped him. I mean, it's not as though once a player arrives in the majors, he's a finished product that can't improve or adjust. There is nothing that would mean a player like Francouer can't learn to lay off breaking pitches after seeing them in the majors. In that way, what's the real difference between being in AAA vs. MLB?

And Simmons was always seen as a guy who could make contact but swung at just about everything, rarely walked, and didn't have much pop. That's pretty much what he is and was always going to be.
 
I don't think "football mentality" is really the story with Francoeur. Other football players who played baseball (Kirk Gibson to name one) had decent walk rates and showed more of an ability to adjust.

Simmons developed some bad habits in 2014 after hitting 17 home runs in 2013. To his credit, he improved his approach in recent years.
 
cajunrevenge said:
Some of you have warped ideas on how development works. These kids aren't robots. Leaving them down in the minors too long can have a negative effect too. You don't learn to hit Syndergaard by facing AAA pitching. If anything being in the majors speeds up their development. Unless the time in the majors shatters their confidence it's not hurting them. Prospects in the high minors know they are close. Sometimes they try too hard to hit well enough to get a call up and struggle. Then never regain their original form.

The minor league's don't work like video games where prospects just continually progress because they are in the minors.
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Really? What happened with Thames? He has major contact issues, and then spent a few years in the KBO, which is the equivalent of AA. It looks like all those reps against lesser competition certainly helped him improve as a player.

Every single silly bit of anecdotal evidence you throw out can be countered with another piece of anecdotal evidence. That's why nobody with any amount of brain power relies on it when making decisions.
 
smootness said:
I'm just saying, skipping AAA nearly or entirely didn't slow down the development of any of them. And Altuve may be an abnormality, but he's probably the closest approximation of Albies' skill set overall.
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I'l give you a few minutes to look up the difference between those teams and the current Braves team before I point out the flaw in your logic.

Here's a hint...the Braves were in the same position as those other teams when they decided to promote Heyward early enough to lose the extra year of control.
 
nsacpi said:
I don't think "football mentality" is really the story with Francoeur. Other football players who played baseball (Kirk Gibson to name one) had decent walk rates and showed more of an ability to adjust.

Simmons developed some bad habits in 2014 after hitting 17 home runs in 2013. To his credit, he improved his approach in recent years.
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I think intelligence as a whole factors into issues guys like Frenchy and Andruw had with hitting. Let's just say they were never the most cerebral guys on the field.
 
thewupk said:
Yeah Heyward gets it a lot. Andruw too. I don't think it would of mattered with either of them. Andruw I think just didn't have the ability to hit for a good average at the major league level for whatever reason. That's no slight on him because it's just hard to do that. But he had the power and walk rate and was a good hitter. Heyward I think really just screwed up by getting hit in the head. He swing is different now and has zero power. It's a shame.

Those two also came up at times when the Braves had a spot open and were contenders. It made sense to bring them up to help the big league team. Furcal too (even though he was older than what we thought at the time).

Would Albies be a lessor hitter if he came up in two months? Hard to say. Would staying in AAA all year hurt him? I seriously doubt that.
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I have always partially blamed the Braves coaches for Heyward. When they talked him into trying to be a pull hitter instead of using the full field like he always had because they wanted more home runs I was furious. Even Chipper called that move within the first few days a bad decision when Chip and Joe asked him during a game. I thought it was pretty bold to go so against the franchise live on air like that but he was absolutely right. Heyward just kept rolling over balls trying to pull everything for a good while after that.

Chipper just has a great understanding of hitting. Not all great hitters do as it comes so naturally for a lot of them. He understands the subtle things that make up hitting. That is why I wish he had more desire to be a coach.
 
thewupk said:
Yeah Heyward gets it a lot. Andruw too. I don't think it would of mattered with either of them. Andruw I think just didn't have the ability to hit for a good average at the major league level for whatever reason. That's no slight on him because it's just hard to do that. But he had the power and walk rate and was a good hitter. Heyward I think really just screwed up by getting hit in the head. He swing is different now and has zero power. It's a shame.

Those two also came up at times when the Braves had a spot open and were contenders. It made sense to bring them up to help the big league team. Furcal too (even though he was older than what we thought at the time).

Would Albies be a lessor hitter if he came up in two months? Hard to say. Would staying in AAA all year hurt him? I seriously doubt that.
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Andruw said he could hit .300 if he wanted to but would only hit 20 homers a year. Personally I wish he would have done that.
 
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