I talked earlier this
week with a Mets “official” who told me not to look for any major moves around
the all-star breaks. He said the minor league teams were going to stand pat,
especially when it comes to one of my favorites, Wilmer Flores.
So much for my sources,
huh?
The important thing is
not whether the information I receive is correct. What is important is how the
Alderson era is progressing.
Year one was pretty
simple on the back fields. All minor league pitchers were given instructions to
pitch 2011 with “what they have” and to concentrate on “pounding the zone”.
Multiple players told me they received that order in writing.
I’m sure there was
plenty of tweaking during the season; however, I wouldn’t be surprised if you
told me no new pitches were introduced. 2011 was going to a year that Sandy Alderson and Paul
DePodesa (did I spell that correctly?) got their first look at what was in the organization and
whether they could pound the zone with the pitches they were taught in school.
This year, it’s
different. The Mets know who the potential starters are and who are future AAAA
players. Some relievers (i.e. Ryan Fraser) were
starters last year because they simply needed to build up their arm strength.
You see, relievers report with far too few innings under their belt.
More important, S and
Co. have now had 1.5 years to evaluate the every day players in the system and
no longer will a player dominating at a level remain behind because he’s
blocked my someone going through the motions.
We saw this in the past
few days when players that were under-performing were dropped a level and were
replaced with other players that need to move on and face tougher competition.
This simply didn’t
happen under Omar and it’s exciting to see the new direction being taken by
DePo.
We’re going to specifically
talk about pitching tomorrow, but, the bottom line under Sandy and Company is,
you bat .330, or slug .450, or OPS .900, or ERA under 3, or WHIP under 1.19,
you’re going places… now.
I love it!
1 comment:
Hi Mack
1.) I see you've changed your description on the top of the site HAHA! :) For the record, I wasn't saying YOU stop being mean, I was yelling at people like 12be4692-8363-11e1-8611-000bcdcb471e (who apparently keeps coming back) who were telling you to stop blogging. Keep at it!
2.) It's DePodesta. Almost got it
3.) I, too, like the approach Sandy and DePo have taken with this team. If you're good you'll be noticed. I like it.
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