Has anyone ever, anywhere, at any time before or after that draft, said anything even remotely hinting at this? It would be news to me.
This post reeks of hindsight. And I find the implication that Luhnow treats Appel's development equally as important as someone like Gonzalo Sanudo laughable. I think all the lumps and bumps the system is experiencing this year are very normal and are in fact just growing pains. 2013 was a magical, very unusual season in which nearly every major prospect took a step forward, there were no significant injuries and no prospect really tanked. All six minors teams made it to the playoffs; Luhnow and Co. couldn't do any wrong last year development wise. Now players are getting injured or are underperforming and we're so quick to bash the process. When actually the process is working just fine. Injuries happen. Prospects do underperform. Take a look at the top 10; most are having a solid if not strong season. Appel is the only top 10 prospect really disappointing. Even McCullers for all his 'struggles' is putting up league average ERA and a better than K/inning rate while being 3.2 years younger than average.
I like this post. I really think people lose sight of how much of a crapshoot developing young players actually is. You can scout, research, interview to your heart's content, but sometimes it just doesn't translate to pro ball. For every average major leaguer, just an average player, there's a dozen or so "phenoms" that flamed out in the minors. And the opposite is true, there's a long list of quality players that just fell through the cracks so to speak, were not highly thought of, and the had great careers in the bigs.
There's also the scenario where a player plays terribly for a stretch and then comes out of it. Every (successful) baseball player has had a stretch were they played terribly and then busted out of their slump. Springer was terrible in his first AA stint. Folty and DDJ were awful in their first seasons. Flaming Appel now is the equivalent of a sell-low mentality. At the least, I don't personally believe yesterday's performance was indicative of his long-term value/potential.
I get all that. Just never agreed with the way they've handled Appel. Never wanted him to go to Lancaster, never wanted him to be part of the tandem system. All that being said, I still expected (and continue to expect) better than what he has done thus far. You know, it is possible for this front office to make mistakes, and still be a good front office. Luhnow said himself it was a mistake to put Appel in Lancaster after a minimal spring (let alone putting him in the tandem system). As much of an inexact science that developing players is, the front office will make the "wrong" move from time to time trying to "perfect" that inexact science. It should be ok to point that out, and still not be labeled as an "armchair GM" or somebody only claiming stuff in hindsight (again, I never agreed with Appel pitching in the hangar).
As has been documented above and in other threads, the high-round college pitchers (the supposed depth of draft) have all been mediocre or bad so far. The college position players are doing well and/or are even slightly outperforming expectations given their status as college players in the low minors. -Conrad Gregor (4th round) is hitting .298/.407/.399 between LoA and HiA. -Tony Kemp (5th) had a blistering start that leveled off but his overall season line is still very good: .336/.425/.467 -Brian Holberton (9th) was a college catcher from UNC who's hitting .353/.400/.571 at LoA. None of the HS draftees were started in full-season ball this year. A stark contrast compared to last year with Correa/Ruiz/McCullers but then again none of the 2013 HS picks were high round picks. All in all, no major standouts yet and disappointing performances from the top picks. The upside just isn't there compared to the 2012 class but there's a lot of depth and it's not difficult to picture 7 guys in the top 10 rounds making the big leagues in some form.
Not true. Marco Gonzales, Jonathan Crawford, and Michael Lorenzen have all been pretty darn good. Gray has only been mediocre because he's already in double A. He shredded high A ball. Ben Lively is a fourth round pick that is destroying A ball. Appel has sucked, we don't need to sugar coat it. The high school pitchers taken high have been very successful.
Good post. After reading your reply, I feel like once again we're just talking two sides of the same coin. I had actually started to wonder if you thought it was a good FO at all after all the Springer/Appel posts. You say a FO can make mistakes and still be good; I said not all bad outcomes are due to bad decisions. We just recognizing the crapshoot nature of the game in different ways. You and I just seem to ascribe different sets of motivations to the FO's actions. Whereas you saw them trying to shoehorn Appel into Lancaster's tandem rotation (and thereby sacrificing to the pitchers hell that is Lancaster), I saw them putting him in a more experience/preparation appropriate-level that would limit his innings better as he came back from injury. Luhnow admitted he made a mistake, but it didn't mean the underlying logic at the time wasn't sound. It's anyone's best guess of how much rehab or what competition level Appel could have succeeded with.
Ah, okay. Kyle Westwood has been decent. The two guys to watch are high school guys though, Austin Nicely and Devonte German.
Conrad Gregor is sporting a .412 OBP, he doesn't have much power right now, but regardless of position if you can get on base at a high clip you are valuable. He's athletic enough that he could probably handle LF if needed. Likewise Tony Kemp is destroying Lancaster to the tune of a .425 OBP, we'll see if his BA is able to travel outside of California. Kyle Westwood has been great, 2.97 ERA with a 3 to 1 GB/FB ratio in Lancaster. Brian Holberton currently has a .971 OPS at QC Lastly Tyler Brunnerman has a 1.73 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, and 10 K/9 out of the pen. Most of these guys are a little old for their level, but there have been quite a few players from last years class having really good years. Jacob Nottingham who will debut later at short season has a lot of potential too. We draft a lot of guys with great plate discipline, but in A ball, I only take a good OBP seriously if it is supported by a solid BA as well.
The post I responded to did, that is the only reason I posted that I don't follow college or HS baseball so I don't act like I know who they should or shouldn't take. I just hope they take the guy they think is the best without worrying about slot concerns
