Yesterday, Rob Neyer had a few things to say about the Yankees’ handling of Pat Venditte. Venditte, as you know, is the ambidextrous pitcher twice drafted by the Yankees. After dominating A-ball hitters, he was recently promoted to Double A Trenton. Venditte is 25 years old and rarely cracks 90 mph on his fastball when he’s throwing from the right side. When he pitches lefty, his fastball sits in the mid-80s. He has gotten good results thus far, but it’s clear that the Yankees don’t regard him as anything more than an organizational arm. Yet, Rob Neyer sees something sinister with the way the Yankees are treating Venditte.
Still … I suppose I shouldn’t be terribly shocked that Venditte has just made his Double-A debut, but I haven’t checked in a while and I am shocked. If the Yankees aren’t going to give the guy a chance, you’d wish they would just release him. But of course they won’t do that, because if they release him and he winds up reaching the majors and pitching well, Brian Cashman looks like an idiot. So instead they just string him along, waiting for him to finally fail (while the rest of us hope he doesn’t hurt one of his pitching arms).
Look, I’ve written about Venditte many times, and I’m fairly sure I’m on record saying he’s very unlikely to pitch effectively in the majors. We know he doesn’t throw even reasonably hard for a non-knuckleballer, and we also know the Yankees generally know what they’re doing.
But professional sports are supposed to be a meritocracy. Pat Venditte turned 25 in June, and spent four months this season in Class A, posting a 1.73 ERA and a 6.07 strikeout-to-walk ratio. You believe, I believe, and the New York Yankees believe that his stuff won’t play at higher levels. That’s fine. But for gosh sakes, give him a chance to prove it before he’s got crow’s feet and liver spots.
Let me guess, Rob, the Yankees also have a cure for cancer but aren’t sharing until they can get it patented and sell it for 1000 times cost, right? Aren’t they just so mean?
In all seriousness, there’s a lot wrong with Neyer’s take. To start, Brian Cashman doesn’t make the decisions about who gets promoted and when. As a very well-compensated member of the national media, Neyer should know this. More to the point though, this is a ridiculously cynical interpretation. As TYU-regular The Honorable Congressman Mondesi put it, “Considering Cashman drafted Venditte twice, Neyer must think he’s incredibly cynical if he believes all that stuff re Venditte. I mean, if Neyer’s opinion was accurate, that would basically make Cashman a monster. It’s ridiculous.” The Congressman is right. If Neyer is correct, then Cashman is holding Venditte back in order to make himself look good. That’s a serious allegation. As a general manager, putting your own interests and personal image ahead of the organizational benefit and the development of your players would represent some sort of professional misconduct.
But that’s not what the Yankees are doing. When Neyer says that “professional sports are supposed to be a meritocracy”, he’s arguing that, on the merits, Venditte deserves more than the Yankees have given him. Results matter, it’s true. But those results, and the accompanying statistics (including the K/BB ratio that he seems so fixated on) aren’t the only factor in player development and organizational advancement. As Moshe said, how you go about accumulating those statistics matters a great deal. Sure, Venditte can dominate High A batters. But he’s a 25 year-old former college pitcher who lacks the ability to crack 90 mph on the radar gun. That profile isn’t one that you find very often on the major league level, which is why Venditte is low on the organization pecking order. There are more talented pitchers with higher upside that the Yankees should look at first. In a way, it’s a lot like arguing that successful college quarterbacks like Colt Brennan or Chase Daniel should get more opportunities at the NFL level while ignoring their obvious shortcomings. There’s a reason those guys are 4th on the depth chart, and it’s not because the general managers are trying to make themselves look good.
But Neyer knows that Venditte doesn’t have much of a future at the MLB level and he admits as much, which makes his imputation of a sinister anti-Venditte conspiracy to Brian Cashman more than odd. Don’t you think Brian Cashman wants to maximize his assets? Don’t you think Cashman would swap Pat Venditte for another useful part if there was another interested organization? Obviously he would, so why Neyer imagines that another organization would aggressively handle and promote Venditte, or even be interested in him, is a mystery.
Pat Venditte is an organizational arm with no long-term professional upside, and the Yankees aren’t obligated to promote him to Triple A or MLB simply to satiate the curiosity of professional writers. I would certainly love to see Venditte and his freak show make the bigs one day. It’s a cool story, and it’s fun to think about. But it’s not more than that, and implying otherwise is just irresponsible and petty. As I said when I first read his comments, “Go nitpick someone else’s A-ball roster management”.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
9 Responses to Neyer gets it wrong on Venditte
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
I tossed out a little summary of this article on Twitter last night, and got a slew of replies. They were all very thorough and well-thought out, so I’d like to include them here for attribution and discussion purposes.
SteveH_MandAura: “Couldn’t that be said about a million different minor leaguers? That’s beyond stupid.”
J_Yankees: “That’s [stupid]…could be said about anyone”
JoeRo23 (part one and two): “Considering Cashman drafted Venditte twice, Neyer must think he’s incredibly cynical if he believes all that stuff re Venditte. I mean, if Neyer’s opinion was accurate, that would basically make Cashman a monster. It’s ridiculous.”
Rebexarama: “that could be said about ANY prospect, how dumb”
SteveH_MandAura: “Yeah, he’s literally saying Cashman is holding the guy back to “save face.” If he could help, Cash would use him.”
leokitty: “The other thing is that I’m not sure why Neyer thinks Venditte would be treated differently in another system”
jaydestro: “it must be awesome to be such an expert and know what you are publishing for public consumption via mass media outlet”
mikeaxisa: “If Venditte didnt throw w/ both arms no 1 would care about him. Josh Schmidt has had a similar career”
SteveH_MandAura: “He’s the ambidextrous Colter Bean.”
NYBD: “I don’t think Neyer is being malicious, but I find the conspiracy theory strange. I just dont think he is in Yanks plans”
GEHadji: “I think Neyer’s kryptonite is non-prospects/fringe guys who put up big numbers in the minors. I otherwise enjoy his writing.”
TheYankeeU: “Thats what Im getting at. Minors are NOT a pure performance meritocracy. How you get those outs is important. Hes a novelty.”
And finally, my two favorite responses:
AndyinSunnyDB: “It’s too bad he can’t start his windup with his back turned to the batter and surprise the hitter with which side he’s pitching.”
JamalGr: “The ability to be an organizational reliever with both arms brings tremendous value that scouts can not yet fathom.”
I actually went back to Neyer’s post today to see if he had updated it and came across another great comment. Of course there was a lot of Yankee-bashing going on (at ESPN shockingly enough) but this guy nailed it:
You folks do realize that the Yankees drafted Venditte TWICE, with all other MLB teams passing on him for nearly 2,000 rounds? He’s a baseball pro because of the Yankees. He didn’t pitch as a pro until he was 23 and has only been pitching for a little more than two years since appearing around June 2008. He was invited by the Yankees to Spring Training this year, and he is now in AA. Calm down. He only throws in the mid-80s and if he wasn’t a switch-pitcher no one would even be paying attention to this. The Yankees only crime is they may have moved him to AA a couple months sooner. Big deal. Hardly worth an ESPN column. He’s a few years away from being Rule V eligible, and we’ll know long before then if his stuff translates to the higher levels of the minors and the majors. I hope the kid makes it. Pat, wear sunscreen. It’ll keep the crows-feet to a minimum at your “advanced” age of 25, which he only just turned four weeks back.
I do think Neyer is a little out of line on this post, but in his defense he never says Brian Cashman should promote him. He said “release” which I believe is Cashman’s job. So this:
“To start, Brian Cashman doesn’t make the decisions about who gets promoted and when. As a very well-compensated member of the national media, Neyer should know this. ”
doesn’t make sense.
Also, I think his statistics argument is somewhat valid. I know stats aren’t close to being the only thing that determines whether minor leaguers get promoted/demoted, but Venditte is an exception because of his freakish skill. There have been more worthy pitchers called up to Double-A this year than Venditte (see Betances, Banuelos), and this is what Neyer neglected to mention/think about. Still, I think everyone, not just the writers, want to see if this guy can handle the higher levels.
1. “but in his defense he never says Brian Cashman should promote him. He said “release” which I believe is Cashman’s job”
He said that Cashman should release him if they aren’t going to promote him. He went on further to imply that Cashman was stringing Venditte along. It’s semantics, and not really important, but it was clumsy at best.
2. “but Venditte is an exception because of his freakish skill.”
Just because he can throw with both arms doesn’t make him a skilled pitcher worthy of promotion.
Like I’ve said, it’d be totally cool if Venditte made it. But Neyer’s cynical approach is simply uncalled for.
Wanted to clear up something that I think could be confusing. In saying that Cashman doesn’t decide promotion timetables, I didn’t mean to imply that he doesn’t have that power. Obviously, he could override that decision and move Venditte up earlier if he wanted.
Maybe Pat should try the knuckle ball?
Neyer is just promoting ESPN’s agenda, which is to make the Yanks out to be the villain capitalists while the poor toil in other parks. What is it about sports that makes the media want a communist system to be used in pro sports? Or, is it the owners themselves that want a salary cap, (communism) so that they have higher profit margins. BTW, since salary caps have been instilled in other pro sports, has anyone noticed the fan’s cost of going to sporting events going down? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
First off, thanks for the quote/link… Always fun for one of the hoi-polloi to get a mention.
As for the matter at hand… You covered this point, but I really think it deserves emphasis… Neyer is literally accusing Brian Cashman of standing in the way of a kid’s career – his future prospects, livelihood and earnings potential – because he thinks Cashman fears looking bad if the kid gets promoted and does well. This is such a ridiculous, cynical, and, frankly, unrealistic thing for someone like Neyer to think, that it shocks my conscience, even a day later. He’s saying the success of a kid in the Yankees’ system is something Neyer thinks will make Brian Cashman look bad… And he’s so worried about that success that his worries outweigh the potential benefit of a kid becoming a success and Cashman won’t either promote him or give him a shot with another organization. That’s asinine, it’s mouth-breather WEEI/WFAN caller type of stuff.
It’s just so wrong on so many levels. And I don’t mean to make this into a ‘Neyer sucks’ thing (and by saying that I don’t intend to imply that Stephen is doing that either)… But on this one thing that Neyer wrote, he’s completely ass-backwards, and it kind of makes you wonder how much he dislikes the Yankees/people within the organization for him to write something like that. It was an incredibly strange thing for someone with Neyer’s platform and reputation to write.
Pat Venditte was underrated while at Creighton and he became an ace on the team. He was underrated at low A ball and set several team and league records. He was underrated at A ball and had great stats. You cannot argue with his his success. He is succeeding in a way that no one in the history of the game has ever done. I love this guy.