One change on the Mack’s prospect list, found on the right
side of the web site. SP Logan Verrett was moved
from #15 to #13, lowering SS Gavin Cecchini to
14th and SP Rainy Lara to 15th.
I want to talk a little about what a pitcher has to do to go
from one level to another. The simply answer is to master the competition that
you are facing at that level, but let’s look a little deeper at what these
levels compile:
A – As wild as it gets. Some teams
fill their team with last year’s short season players. Others promote guys
straight from the DSL system. And still others sign draft picks and give them a
plane ticket to their team at this level. You’re going to find just about every
kind of young player here, but what you won’t find is a tremendous amount of
top prospects. They usually sign their deal, finish their first year on a short
season team, and go giddy-up all the way to A+ the following season. There are
exceptions (Brandon Nimmo), but most of them are
high school kids or very young Latin players.
Hitters at this level will swing at
just about anything and batting coaches pull their hair out nightly, and the
secret for any pitcher is the command of the strike zone. Yes, you will work on
secondary pitchers, but you will get to the next level if you take what God
gave you and apply it here… right down the middle of the plate 1mph more than
the batter swings at it.
A+ - It gets tougher here by game
one. I remember talking with Josh Thole about
the year when Jason Heyward, Jesus Montero, and David Price dominated the Sally League. Thole, who was
then on St. Lucie said, ‘Mack, they’re all like that up here.” It was a funny
exaggeration, but the fact is that the A+ level is where you leave behind all
the players that have no chance to go all the way in this game. It’s also where
you begin to define the difference between starters and utility players. Most
A+ teams target 5 starters, 8 fielders, and 2-3 key relievers. The rest… steak
knives.
Obviously, pitchers must now show
some command of their secondary pitchers and be able to work the corners.
Batters have to showcase that they are learning patience while, at the same
time, improving their new swing that is developed from the batting cages to the
weight room.
AA – It’s separation from the ‘boys’
time. As Bobby Valentine said, this is your ‘prospect league’ where you play
all the great players you either played against in school or heard about. No
one gets to the majors unless they master it here and so many have been left
behind that looked so good at the A and A+ level.
Hitters are judged on both OBP and
OPS. Strikeouts ruin your resume. Base on balls count. And home runs are
secondary to gap hitting. Every team wants to see a hitting machine here and sometimes
it take two years to have it happen. Others just go away. Remember, you’re
facing the prospect pitchers day after day.
Speaking of pitchers, pitching
great against prospects is one thing, but it’s the next level that gets you to
the majors. For now, you should have the full arsenal your team wanted you to
have. Now, you just have to work with your catcher, mix your pitches and hit
the zone.
AAA – You are almost there, but you
need to show what you can do against former major league baseball players. That’s
a whole different test. A good example would be pitching to, lets say George Springer and Omar Quintanilla. On paper it
would seem that Springer wins this hands down, but, go ahead, try and outthink
a crafty veteran like Quint.
Plus, there’s an added problem in
the Mets organization because you’re throwing a ball to a man with a bat in his
hands at a location that seems to have the same gravity as the moon.
Hitters now get to face 28-year old
starters who have been there and back and you’re going to find out real quick
it’s not as easy as you think.
MLB – Okay, so you go through the
chain and you finally get your diploma and fly into LGA. Is there a guarantee
at this point? Well, go ask Kirk Nieuwenhuis or John Maine. Both excelled throughout their minor
league career and one (Maine) actually had a nice run in Flushing, but that
doesn’t mean shit in the long run.
Baseball is a game you have to
excel at each and every day. You have to make out better than others do. If you
have a bad outing, you shake it off, you answer dumb questions from the Twitter
beat guys, and you start over the next day. You have 24 hours to put the bad
behind you or wipe the whip cream out of hair after the celebration. Your value
is what you do next, not what you did last.
Parents ask me all the time… ‘did I
make the right decision not making my son finish or go to college’. I never
answer that question.
There are 6,000,000,000 on the earth and there are 30
shortstops in the majors. You do the math.
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