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RE: Friday Baseball Prospectus - BA's Hot Sheet - July 7th
I agree with almost all your points, haha. To your original point, we hope that the best talents are always represented on the field, but I'm sure there's a great hitter, pitcher or otherwise that never get the chance to go to the show.
Yeah, again the product that gets on the field in the bigs is really good. There is no question about that but they do make errors and they aren't invincible. Sometimes these clubs have spent so much money on these guys they don't want to admit they are wrong and those guys just keep getting a chance and just getting recycled into the system. A big problem in Indy ball is that when guys get released from affiliated ball they have the affiliated experience on their resume so suddenly they will often get a shot at a spot before a guy that never played affiliated. Managers will often think that "well the guy has to be good if he got drafted." When I was playing in the United League there was a guy that was in the Tigers organization that got released from Double A. Not to talk smack but the guys swing was way to slow and long. He wasn't even hitting bombs in BP and he was a third baseman who looked like he should have power. Sure enough he was overwhelmed by the pitching in the United League and went 0 for 32. But he had a starting spot and just kept hitting these weak ass grounders at best.
But a couple other cool stories you might not know. Max Scherzer started his professional career in independent ball with the Fort Worth Cats. Pretty crazy someone with such a big pay check didn't get signed affiliated right out of college.
I was trying to find another story but there was a guy who is in the bigs for St. Louis who spent 7 years in independent baseball before he got a shot and then suddenly he was in the big leagues. There is some rogue talent out there but I will admit a lot of what you see and I'm fairly good at evaluating talent is that guys will not have that extra tool they need to get to affiliated. For instance they will be a corner outfielder and don't really have the speed to play center field but then they will have a good average but they don't hit enough bombs to really get the look. Corner guys have to hit 20+ bombs in Indy ball to really get a decent look.
Pitchers are always needed so that is the likely route. Most guys that end up having vertical movement are pitchers. Second would be catchers. Then up the middle (short or second maybe centerfield) . The most unlikely shot are the corner guys both infield and outfield. You have to hit a lot of jacks to get seen at those positions and you better throw in some opposite field home runs to really get people talking.
I'm sure the grind is all the same; baseball is a tiring sport. I tried a few positions in high school but never excelled at it. I know guy that got a tommy john surgery in one arm and had a shattered elbow in the other; he was better at baseball than I ever was, lol.
The few players that I know are from Indy leagues is Rich Hill and David Peralta, two stars in the MLB.
I believe that the skill level required in the majors is much higher than the Indy leagues, and I can see why talent evaluators will need to see more than pedestrian pop or speed or a combination of the five tools to be even considered for a contract.