Rethinking the Minor Leagues
by connie mack on Dec 24, 2007 5:40 PM PST
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Since we are clearly rebuilding, I think we should take a look at using the minor leagues in a different form than we have in the past.
In short I would fill the AAA roster with 4A players picked up from around the league and signed as minor league free agents, with the promise of a cup of coffee in the majors if the guys on the 25 man roster don't get it done.
Basically look for Jack Cust/Graham Koonce/Halsey/Jeremy Brown types of guys from around the league. Get at least one of them at each position and honor a commitment to them to give them a shot if the major leaguers get hurt or falter.
The idea is to become the place to be for guys giving it one last chance who feel like they have been blocked for different reasons.
Now, for AA and below...
For double A and below you want to slow down the progression of guys from league to league and increase an emphasis on teaching skills, and I would definitely reintroduce baserunning.
I would literally have a objective list of skills expected to be mastered and demonstrated in game situations before a player can move to the next level.
skills like:
bunting,
throwing to the right base,
taking out the ss or 2b on double plays,
hitting behind the runner on the ground to move runners on 2nd to 3rd and runners from 3b to home.
etc, etc,
I sometimes feel like the A's move their prospects along too quickly and they get to the big leagues before they have physically matured.
I would rather sign a guy out of his senior year in college (22) let him play three full years in the minors:
low A (23)
High A (24)
double A (25)
and then, fully developed and 26 years old, give him a shot at the majors, if he doesn't make the club out of spring training, he goes to purgatory (AAA) where he gets one more shot assuming someone above him gets hurt (i think we can easily make that assumption).
If he makes the big league team at 26 years old, we have him in his physical prime, fully trained up and locked up for three years at the minimum, and three more years under control.
At 32, he gets to hit free agency.
We've been bringing guys up at 22 and 23 years old, they develop into big leaguers at the major league level, and then we watch them go away and have their best two or three seasons after we can't afford them.
I say lets be smarter about when we start the clock.
Of course there are always exceptions, but with the use of the AAA team to hold open tryouts for guys from other organizations who want a fresh start. I think we could pick up one or two back of roster guys/year off the AAA team.
Add an additional 1 or two guys per year from the AA roster and you have your 3-4 rookies per year pipeline set up.
Now of course when guys like Huston Street and Will Clark come along, you move them up quicker, a lot quicker, but in general you try to follow this pace.
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AAA is pretty much already
AAAA guys + Prospects that graduated AA.
Guys who make it at ages 22 and 23 are the guys who will usually have pretty good MLB careers. They are up that soon because they are ready.
Guys who are 25-26 when they make it are less so.
And if you purposley hold back players UNTIL they are 26, even when they are ready at 22, then why the hell if I am a prospect, a draft pick or undrafted free agent or foreign signee, would I sign with you? I can wait and go with another team that WILL put me in the Majors when I am ready.
I agree. The players should be at the highest
level where they can succeed.
by WaddellCanseco on Dec 24, 2007 11:50 PM PST reply actions
The problem with your idea
of slow promotion, one year at A-, one year at A+, one year at AA, then finally a chance or purgartory is this: rule 5 draft.
After 4 years as a pro, any player who is signed after age 19 is eligible for the Rule 5 draft.
Your plan is going to result in a lot of prospects being eligible for the rule 5 draft. You are not going to be able to protect all of them.
Also, you are here assuming that A is the best level to learn MLB skills: you are having your prospects spend 2 years out of your alloted 3-4 years there.
You are forgetting age to level.
A 23 year old college graduate in A- is going to put up very good, but also mostly meaningless numbers, since he will be beating up on players that are younger than him. Players that are in their teens or barely over 20.
A 24 year old in A+, is again going to terrorise kids younger than him. The question is whether that 24 year old is going to really learn much by terrorising kids a couple of years younger than him.
You are here assuming that young players can improve by competing against competitors who have a lower, in some cases much lower, level of skill than them.
Let's say you have a player, 24 years old, college grad, whose plate discipline you are trying to improve. Can he genuinely improve that plate discipline by simply competing against 21 year old pitchers in A+, many of whom are trying with command and control of their pitches? Many of whom are learning new pitches? Many of whom are significantly less developed physically than your 24 year old?
reply to Zonis
In the case of undrafted minor league free agentsI think going to a club admittedly weak at the major league level with an implicit guarantee that you will get a shot at the big league level if those above you fail would be a hell of an inducement. I think there are a lot of clubs that never give those guys the shot at the majors, instead they continually recycle below average free agents. The Giants have been an example of this type of thinking.
I guess I feel there should be expectations that need to be met BEFORE a player proceeds to the next level, what those expectations should be is for someone that knows baseball better than I.
Over the years, it has seemed like we've squandered many players salary control years while they were still weak on key aspects of the game.
As I said in the original post, when you have someone that is clearly above the level they are at, promote him, but otherwise, they should demonstrate mastery before they move up a level.
Lets say I am a college or high school guy
and I get drafted by the Connie Mack Athletics. I look at your approach, see that if I am drafted, no matter how good I am, I am going to end up waiting 4 years till I get to the Majors, I'm gunna either go to College or go back and hope to be drafted by another team.
If I am an undrafted free agent, such as someone from the Dominican or such, and you're signing me at 16. Well, I'm looking at your team and thinking "even if I do make it, they will make me wait 10 years before I can even get to the big leagues and make money! But this team over here, they will take me and advance me as fast as I can go, and I can get more money faster! F'ck the A's!"
And if you do your plan, which is blatent "We care about money more than you", even the regular Free Agents won't sign with your team. Your own players won't resign because they think you're penny pinchers and don't give a crap about them, and they won't trust you at all.
Zonis,
I'm not saying you don't promote a guy, but you clearly state: We will promote you from this level when you've mastered these skills, and so on and so forth, the pace you move up is determined by your hard work and dedication, and if you do those things you will move up quicker.
Say you are a college guy, and you are ready in three years instead of four. Well, if you're ready then come on up. It theoretically only takes 2 1/2 seasons for a college guy to show he's mastered AA. the following spring training you come in to the camp knowing that the big league club is seriously looking at you. I think that is actually a better deal than most guys get, it just doesn't happen in such a willy nilly fashion.
As for the 16 year old Dominican Republic Free Agents, it will be interesting to see how many of them are actually ready for the big league clubs at 20, 21 or 22 without the steroids and HGH now. But if they are ready (via demonstration of mastery of ALL skills required) bring em up. Just make every effort to sign them to a long term deal before they hit years 5 and 6 of club control.
Besides, how many of these guys actually make it to the big leagues, most of them probably only end up with their bonus money and minor league wages anyway.
I don't see why this plan would affect the regular free agents one bit, control of the bottom three fourths of the roster only increases the ability of the big league club to pay fair market value for the last few pieces of the puzzle.
I also don't think it hurts the morale of the big league guys, the organization sets objectives, and honors those objectives when the guy is ready for a shot at the big leagues, How did Ryan Howard feel at AAA when the Phillies signed Jim Thome? I bet he was pissed.
Reply to rfloh
Regarding the Rule 5 draft,
If a player signs out of college and gets one partial season in rookie ball, one in A one in double AA, they have only burned two and a half seasons out of their four. so you would still have one more season for the prospect to get it together, with at least one, and possibly two spring trainings to make the big league club.
After that, if they still haven't made it, maybe they need an organizational change to make the next level anyway.
I think you make a good point about age in regard to competition. However, at some point it ceases to be about how old you are and starts to be about how good you are. I think the A's misjudged Eric Byrnes on this basis, they didn't bring him up earlier because he was successful in the minors but old.
However, once a player masters what they should be working on at that level, they should be promoted to the next level.
Wait
I'm not sure what you're saying here.
In your diary you say one season in A-, one in A+, one in AA, that's 3.
Here, you say 2 1/2. So, you agree that it's not a good idea to have a college grad spend 2 years at A?
Yes, at some point it ceases to be about age, and it is about how good you are.
The problem with your plan: you are having 23 / 24 year old college grads beating up on 20-21 year olds in A- and A+.
How can you tell how good your college grads are when they are terrorising kids a few years younger than them? Kids who if they went to college would be sophomores maybe? Will your college grads really actually learn anything by beating up on kids a few years younger than them?
Let's say you have a college grad who hits 350 / 400 / 600 in A-. In A+, he is capable of hitting 330 / 380 / 580. You want him to improve on his plate discpline and to take more walks. But, will he change his approach and take more walks when he is OPSing in the 900s-1000s?
Would your college grads not be better off competing against players their own age and their own skill levels higher up in the minors? At AA?
What I don't understand with your plan is why you have college grads spending so long, 2 years, at A level?
The reason teams draft college grads is that they are more polished and don't need as much developement time as high schoolers, especially in the low minors.
rfloh, my understanding of the timeline
for college players is they get drafted after their baseball season, approximately july, and then spend half a season in the minors the first year. call it A-
now in the Spring, their first full baseball season as a Pro, they should go A.
Second full season should be AA
At that point, they have been in the team's minor league system for 2.5 years. the team now has two full seasons before the next rule 5 draft for which they are eligible. right?
I think where a mistake has been made in how the A's evaluate players is they are trying to bring guys to the pros to maximise the upside of their big league careers. That sounds good at first glance, but not if they don't intend to sign them after they are beyond contract control. What is the rush.
If I get six years of a guys career under contract control, AND, I don't intend to sign him after that, then I want to get the six years most likely to be his six best years. I'd rather he spent one more year developing in the Minors before I bring him up if I think he will be incrementally better when he starts.
This is a lot more like what the teams with minor leaguers before free agency, lots of rookies wouldn't hit the big leagues until they were 26 or so, but when they did, they didn't make many rookie mistakes.
The numbers of years
a team has a player before being forced to protect him is based not on how many full seasons the guy has been with the team, but simply when he signed his first pro contract with the team.
a second point, rfloh
"Would your college grads not be better off competing against players their own age and their own skill levels higher up in the minors? At AA?"
If they are just killing it at A ball, then yes move them up, but before you move them up for their hitting, make sure they are fielding and doing everything else well too. then move them.
Well, that is the problem I see
if a player is really killing it, will he be motivated to improve more?
Also, is he really improving? If your college grad is taking walks against young kids who are struggling with their mechanics, learning new pitches, is his plate discipline actually good?
Also, whether we fans like it or not, most players are not 5 tool superstars in the making. Example, Cust's D is bad. Would more time in the minors cure that?
Cust is an exception
in that he seems like an obvious dh, but even he has finally come to admit he could approach situations differently when there are runners in scoring position.
So you tell a guy like him:
" we like your plate discipline in normal situations, but what we want to see, and we will promote you when we see it is higher percentage of runners moved over when they are already on 2nd base. When we see this, Jack, you will get a shot at the DH position at the big league level, now get to work."
You seem to be laboring under the delusion
that this actually matters. It doesn't.
Delaying a guy's promotion because he lacks a skill that's worth, at most, a couple of runs a season is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Well then,
are you going to do this to EVERY player?
If you had Ryan Braun, do you tell him "Ryan, you are a great hitter but an abominable defender. When we see that you have improved your D, Ryan, you will get a shot at the big league level, now get to work."
Do you tell Manny Ramirez "Manny, you are a HOF hitter, but a very bad defender. When we see that you are no longer Manny being Manny, you will get a shot at the big league level, now get to work."
Again, most players are not 5 tool superstars. If your intention is to keep them in the minors until they have ironed out every little flaw, you will never be able to protect everyone of them from the Rule 5 draft. You will end up losing a very large number of good players, with flaws yes, but still good players, to other teams.
Hmmm...
There are a few problems with taking this type of simplistic view of player development vis-a-vis the everyday operations of minor league affiliates.
First of all, there is already a league where dozens of A's prospects work on specific skills (like baserunning, hitting behind the runner, etc;) and receive special "instruction" in these skills in a practice environment...it's called the "Instructional League". That's the sole purpose of this league and the A's typically aren't shy about sending their prospects there at the end of the season if they need work on specific skills.
Additionally, extended Spring Training is available virtually all season for prospects in need of "refinement" or "recuperation" in any aspect of the game before they are sent out to a full-season affiliate.
Here's what I'm getting at: you seem to be implying that the A's current player development process is draft-minors-majors without any instruction or additional teaching going on in between the steps of the process, when in fact the process is more often than not much more complicated - depending on the player - with stops at special leagues and assignments where A LOT of skills-teaching and refinement is going on.
Therefore, by the time a prospect gets assigned to a full-season affiliate (Low-A and above) the organization usually has taught or at least exposed a prospect as to exactly what types of skillsets that prospect would need to be a quality player. From that point on, it's the player's responsibility to consistently apply those skills and game knowledge on the field in real-life game atmospheres, since the only way skills are truly mastered is when they are continually tested in a competitive atmosphere, which the A's stress almost more than anything in the minors.
So overall, I think there's already a lot of teaching going on in all minor league systems, including the A's. It's just that, for whatever reasons, the recent draftees the A's have signed haven't been as adept at applying what they have been taught on the field as many other players in other systems have...does that warrant a radical change in how the system develops players? I would say not...it has more to do with the players drafted in the first place, not the systems in place to develop them.
Taj,
I think your calling out my assumption about teaching is probably correct. Maybe the thing is that excellent teaching is a cost effective use of the organization's money, and I think the A's should spend more on it.
Regarding which players we draft, I think you are right on the money. It has often seemed like we don't always draft the best available talents due to signability issues.
Maybe this is where they need to be looking.
I see my thesis as applying in two ways,
how we develop who we draft (this concludes at AA)
And, opening up our AAA roster for the retreads from the entire majors. This would not include a spot on the forty man roster in most cases, but would be a way to stash a higher level of replacement player across the organization.
40-man roster
I'm not fully fluent in the arcana of roster transactions, but if I understand the rules right I think your plan would be lead to roster problems.
You say you want to fill up Sacramento with a bunch of AAAA types with the implicit promise that they'll have a chance in the majors. OK, but they can't get their cup of coffee in the bigs unless they're on the 40-man roster. Traditionally the extra 15 spots on the 40-man roster are given to guys you want to protect from the Rule 5 draft, ie, your real prospects. If you load up the roster with a bunch of AAAA guys who don't really need to be protected anyway, then who do you push off the roster? You can't bump the veteran, because he's out of options, unless you want to cut him outright and eat his salary. So basically this is just a recipe for leaving all your real prospects unprotected.
Now if your idea is that you only give the AAAA guy a chance if the veteran is injured, then you can put the veteran on the DL and you're still OK, but then what do you do when he gets back?
Another thought, I suppose, is that you might fill up the 40-man roster with all your prospects just in time for the Rule 5 draft, and then take them all off in favor of the AAAA guys as soon as that draft is over. I don't know if that would work. Seems like it's too easy, so I suspect there must be a catch.
Does anyone out there know? For example, Henry Rodriguez is on our 40-man roster right now, I assume because he's so hot we wanted to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. But I doubt he's the first guy we'd want to call up to Oakland if we're short an arm. So what's to stop us from - now that the Rule 5 draft is over - transferring Rodriguez off the 40-man and putting in his place someone more immediately useful like, say, Brad Ziegler?
Thats even worse
You put, for example, Aaron Cunningham on your 40 man roster to protect him for the Rule 5 draft (for example).
Then you waive him to get him off the 40 man roster to put Hiram Bocachica on the roster because Mark Kotsay got hurt again. Congratulations. You just put Cunningham on the 40 man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, only to give him away for free on waivers to another team who now doesn't have to play him in the Majors, but can just keep him on their 40 man roster but in the minors.
Oh, right. Waiver claims.
Duh. I should know that.
So there's your answer to the original diarist's question. If you're going give a cup of coffee to a bunch of AAAA guys that no one else wants anyway, each one of them has to go on the 40-man roster.
What prospects do you expose -- whether via Rule 5 or via waivers -- in order to make room for these guys?
You can't
You have to sign the AAAA guys to minor league contracts, a la Bobby Kielty with the Red Sox this season. Of course, this means that your AAAA guys are going to be of the mediocre (Hiram Bocachica) variety instead of the good (Jack Hannahan) variety...
That's a good point, about the 40 man roster
Like PaulThomas says below, sign all these guys from outside the organization to minor league contracts and stash them in AAA. Don't put them on the 40 man roster until a spot opens up at the big league level for them to play. At that time use the dl with your major leaguer and put your 4A guy up there to see if he can stick.
Especially over this next year or so, as it looks like we will be out of contention, this system gives the A's to evaluate a bunch of 4A guys from outside the organization in the hopes of finding some gems. They are out there, and this process gives the team the flexibility to find them.
Also, you would become known around the leagues as having the quality 4A guys, you can trade them as injuries come up to other teams for actual lower level prospects down in A ball.
While a team might not normally give much for a 4A type, if he's killing it in AAA, AND plays a position you need, better than what you have in the system, AND your main guy goes down with a 30-60 day injury and your team is in the playoff hunt, it becomes worth it to trade a lower level prospect for the best 4A replacement you can find.
That doesn't work out either
The only way to free up space on the 40 man roster via the DL is if someone goes on the 60-day list. Swisher sprains his ankle, he's going to miss a month. Do you 60-day DL him, costing the team another month of his services just so you can add one of your 4A wonders to the 40 man roster?
Of course not.
I didn't know that, but nevertheless
the 60 day DL should have been used more aggressively by the A's last year, and this year, when it looks like they won't contend, it could also be used without affecting the A's chance to contend, which is already lousy.
2007
Should have been on the 60 day DL:
Duchsherer
Harden
Street
Calero
Loaiza
Piazza
Crosby
Chavez
Kotsay
Buck
Powell
2008 should be on the 60 day DL right now:
Chavez
Gaudin
Powell
2008 likely candidates prior to the end of the season:
Harden
Crosby
Duke
Maybe with a 5th outfielder in the mix the first half of the season Buck wouldn't have broken down.
More aggresively?!?!
Last year the A's had 5-6 guys on the 60 day DL.
I'm saying you need to do more research
The Titanic had fewer holes in it after it hit the iceberg then your arguement. Most of the names on your "should have been" list were indeed on the 60-day DL at some point of 2007.
Not only that
But having 15 guys on the 60-day DL means that, eventually, you'll have 15 guys who need to come off of the 60-day DL, and you have 15 guys who will need to be waived from the 40 man roster or released to create 15 spots.
It's not a very good loophole to try and use.
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