[image title="80321690JM018_CHICAGO_WHITE" size="full" id="15818" align="center" linkto="full" ]
Brian Burkhart chimed in yesterday with a fantastic post about the difficulties that a team like the Yankees faces when trying to develop young pitching:
Now, let me first state that this is a great problem to have. But the reality is, because the Yankees are expected to compete for the World Series every single year, it is difficult for them to give young starters the experience they need. In a perfect world, at least for Joba and Hughes, both pitchers would be allowed to make however many starts they needed to reach their innings cap. The Yankees can’t just run both pitchers out there though; they tried that in 2008 with Ian Kennedy and Hughes, to disastrous results. So instead, in comes Javier Vazquez……
The big market teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets have been accused in the past of using other teams like a farm system, but sometimes when it comes to starters, this is simply the most effective method. Look at how hard it is to juggle the development of 2 young starters.
Brian is right on the money here, as developing pitchers in a winning environment is difficult in terms of both perception and execution. Fans and media expect clubs like the Yankees and Red Sox to do what is best for the club at the present moment, and frequently suggest moves that might improve the team in the short -term but are not in the long-term best interests of the club. Teams shut down pitchers due to workload concerns all the time, but it gains negative attention when the club doing it is in the midst of a pennant race. Even though that sort of perception should not have an impact on decision-making, it is difficult for a club to act as if they were in a vacuum when every member of the media and many of their paying customers disagree with a move.
In terms of execution, even if the club ignores external pressures to send a young starter down or put him in the bullpen, the vagaries of a long season and the typical struggles of a young starter often force the organization’s hand. The team needs to find a balance between short-term and long-term goals, and it is often difficult to gauge what kind of impact a move made for “the now” will have down the line. When the club is in the midst of a pennant race and a young pitcher is struggling in the rotation, the priorities of the team may be altered and decisions that would not be made in Kansas City are undertaken to satisfy the needs of the current roster, often at the expense of the pitcher’s development. These factors combine to make for a inhospitable environment for young pitchers.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
8 Responses to Burkhart: Hard For Good Teams To Develop Pitchers
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
Very true, and very difficult to navigate around. The easiest thing to do is leave the 5th spot open annually, but when you have multiple worthy candidates as we do this year, some of them will wind up in the pen or AAA. I don’t think that’s necessarily the end of the world, I want my best arms on my MLB staff in whatever role is available. But I will freely admit my first priority is winning games on the MLB level, anything else comes in a distant second.
Most pitchers get years of tutoring in the minors, when you get to this level, it’s sink or swim. But even if they fail, I believe the good ones will still find their way back. Melky did, Hughes did, many HOF pitchers (Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux) went up and down a few times in their first few seasons. Even the great Mantle was sent down to AAA after a rough first season. There’s nothing wrong with that, if they have what it takes they will assert themselves and find their way back to the bigs. I don’t blame the team if a prospect fails, unless they clearly rush a guy at a very young age. I don’t think the Yanks have done that since Melky played horribly in Boston back in 2005.
Maybe I forget, but there really have not been that many good pitchers that the yankees produced and traded over the past ten or so years. Lilly is the only one that I recall. A couple showed slight promise and then got injured. I don’t disagree with the point but am not sure that it means anything regarding Yankees.
The point isnt necessarily that they traded good pitchers, just that the environment in NY is not great for developing any pitchers, good or ultimately bad.
But presumably if the fram system were developing talented pitchers, then they would be playing somewhere. It seems a stretch to say that talent in the farm system as a whole is impacted because the big league club does not give players the opportunity to pitch.
Why is that a stretch? I’m not saying all of these guys would be stars if they had a chance to pitch, just that their development would be more typical and standard, less stilted.
I just don’t think that they have brought in the players that would devlop anywhere. I don’t disagree with the premise, though. The question to me is whether the farm system, as a whole, is weaker than other in drafting pitching. My sense is that it was horrible for a decade and only recently started to improve.
That’s fair, and hard to argue with. They didnt draft too many good pitchers before 2006.
[...] Burkhart: Hard For Good Teams To Develop Pitchers [...]