The Patience Virtue

by Jesse on Apr 26, 2008 2:13 PM EDT in News

It's not easy.

Even though I do try to maintain a view of the larger picture, I can't deny it--I get caught up in the moment just as much as the next guy. And in those moments it's easy to second-guess decisions, and all justifications of The Future can be lost to an emotion-fueled fret.

Carlos Gomez

When the Twins had the decision to make of whether to start him in Rochester or Minneapolis, it was pretty easy to justify going either way. Once the choice had been made, there were some natural doubts but for the most part it seemed plausible enough that, in the long run, this was the best route to take in the development of Carlos Gomez.

Ten games in he was incredible. Twenty games in he couldn't even get by on luck. A bit of a panic settled in, to which I wasn't immune. Questions starting popping into my mind: What if this was the wrong decision? What if being this over-matched wreaks long-term damage on his development? How long should the Twins allow him to suffer this punishment?

Again, the emotion-fueled fret destroyed my common sense. Ten games isn't enough to judge anyone on. Hell, a full season often isn't enough to judge what kind of player a guy can be.

Questions like the ones I was asking myself don't have to be asked now. It's Major League Baseball, and here's a shocker: there's a learning curve. For a 22-year old it's not uncommon to be over-matched, and in the end I do believe that the experience he garners now will help him reach his ceiling much sooner than had he been sent to Rochester. We probably won't see it this year, but the re-occurring theme here is Long Term.

Joe Mauer

Mauer's had a slow start, just like pretty much every other position player. For good reason we're concerned with his production, because the Twins need him to be an offensive force. After a 2-for-3 game on Friday, however, it's amazing how quickly things change. One game, and suddenly the batting average and on-base percentage are significantly closer to where most of us think they should be.

Of course there's still work to be done. Mauer is still only batting .301/.358/.384, which shows a disturbing lack of power--even for a guy who's home run ceiling this season will only be 10-15. But, patience is a virtue; it's a very long season. Players who hit .300 aren't getting exactly three hits in every 10 at-bats, and it's not going to happen with Joe, either. While there's a time and a place to be concerned about Mauer's production, it isn't now. Not yet.

Joe Mauer is, without a doubt, one of the most talented hitters this team has seen. What is done with that talent is more important, but we've seen what he's capable of. We can't ignore that he's just as much to blame for Minnesota's slow offensive start as some of the other guys out there, the difference is that he has what it takes to come around; there's plenty of time for him to return to the form we hope he can fill out.

Francisco Liriano

For some reason it seems like somewhere along the line, it was forgotten that Liriano really hasn't pitched that much in the last year and a half. Tommy John is a major surgery, and it's mildly annoying that somewhere out there, there's a Twins fan who's infuriated by the fact that he's not pitching like he was in the summer of '06.

It was asked earlier on this site whether we thought Liriano was lazy. It's a good question, but unfortunately isn't really a question we can answer in any way besides subjectively.

Essentially, from our perspective, it's incredibly easy to make judgements on those kind of questions and they make for great debate. But it doesn't help us answer the real question, which is how long will it take for Liriano to regain his effectiveness? This means everything from his mechanics, to his command, to velocity, to his mental state, and the answers range from never to it's hard to say. We don't have any answers right now, and as a result of that frustration we look for something to blame it on.

When Kevin Slowey went down, the Twins took a gamble on Liriano in hopes that in the higher levels of competition would up his game. They ignored what Rochester told them, that he wasn't ready, and threw him into the fire.

There were no surprises here. What would have been surprising, would have been if he'd been able to be even half as effective as he'd been in 2006. But instead, he's responded just like a pitcher who's still recovering from the effects of Tommy John surgery.

Time is the only answer we have. It sucks, it's frustrating and it's not the answer we want because we want an answer right now. At least I do, when I hit one of those emotion-induced frets. Hopefully whenever one of them strikes I can come back and read this, and maybe regain some of my sanity.

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Gomez

I think there are lot’s of problems with how everyone’s been looking at Gomez. A big part of it is, too many people are looking right at the first ten games or at the next 10 games. You have to look at it all together.

He’s played in 22 games for the Twins now. I think it’s pretty clear that all of his skills (while sometimes imperfect) are most certainly major league caliber at this point except for hitting. There comes the point of contention. Over those 22 games, he’s hit .255/.271/.362. More disturbing is his 24 to 2 strikeout to walk ratio. He strikesout with the biggest swinging power hitters in the league and he can’t take a walk like a leadoff hitter should.

Now, it’s still a pretty small amount of time. I’m typically all for letting a young guy come in and take his lumps at first. A lot of teams have found success because they went with their young guys, let them struggle, and then they grew accustomed to the majors and had big second halves and great years in the future. But a player has to be good enough where taking their lumps will be productive and serve to simply get them used to the majors. If they don’t have the skills to be there yet, it’s not going to do them any good.

If we recall, I was hoping Gomez would start the year in AAA and stay there for at least a couple months. I think he’s been badly rushed through the Mets system and he hasn’t displayed empirical evidence that he’s a MLB ready hitter. However, now that the Twins DID start him up in the majors, they really need to wait awhile longer to pass judegement.

So right now, It’s April 26th, and the Twins are 23 games into the season. It’s been a day sort of 4 weeks since the season started. I think we can make a sufficient evaluation once twice as much time has gone by, or 8 weeks into the season.

I am of the opinion that if Gomez still holds his current hitting line and tendencies, he is NOT a major league prepared player and must be sent down. I don not require fantastic play from him, just good enough play to demonstrate he’s ready to learn in the big show. Between the Punto-esque hitting line and the plethora of strike outs, I don not believe he is prepared if this continues.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane

by AdamOnFirst on Apr 26, 2008 4:23 PM EDT reply reply 0 recs

Questions

How will more time in the minors help him make better contact against major league pitchers?
How do you know when he’s ready to play in the major league based on minor league stats?
Who in the Twins organization can play center field adequately in his absence?

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Apr 26, 2008 6:34 PM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

Ok

The first two questions I’ll wrap together.

The Met’s pushed him crazy aggressively through their system, never giving him much of a chance to stop if he needed too. They’re doing this with all their top guys these days. He only had 140 AB’s in AAA. Ever. And less than 500 in AA before that, and less than A ball before that. And it’s not like he ever hit the cover off the ball or anything. He’s never had a .800 OPS in the minors, or ever really been terribly close. He’s never hit .300 in the minors, underwhelming for someone who’s a speed and contact guy. His strikeout numbers have been atrociously high, downright disturbing for a speed and contact guy. He needs to learn to actually make consistant contact before he can be effective as the type of hitter he is, especially if he’s going to leadoff as would clearly be best. His ISO has actually been Ok in the minors, especially considering how much he struck out. Just improving the contact would improve both the BA (dramatically) and I’d bet the ISO (a bit). I mean, he’s a guy who probably has a very high BABIP (couldn’t find the numbers anywhere) and he’s not going to be successful striking out 25% of the time.

For center fielders, Jason Pridie. He’s a bit older, has put up decent minor league numbers, put up even bigger numbers in AAA last year, and is continuing on with a nice .810 OBP so far this year in AAA. I think clearly he doesn’t have star potential, more likely he profiles as a good fourth outfielder, but I think he could prove a pretty capable, if only adequate, option in center field. He’s pretty young as well. He has also struck out quite a bit in the minors, but at least he has a fair bit more power than Gomez does. I’d kinda like to see what he’s capable of, until Gomez is ready to get into the majors.

If it means anything, John Sickles has gone on record a couple times this offseason, at least once before Gomez was a Twin, that he though Gomez was rushed by the Mets and putting him in the majors could be substantially harmful to his growth.

Look, my theory is that struggling in the majors is ok and expected, even necessary for development. But a player has to have a certain level of readiness for them to be capable of keeping up enough to learn. It’s hyperbole, but I could go jump onto a college baseball team, and I’d be terrible, and probably wouldn’t ever really learn to hit because they are so far better than I am that I can’t even figure out what’s going to learn. I think Gomez is several months of AAA work away from that point. But as I said in another thread, I think we’ve made the decision to bring hi north, so we need to let that decision play out for at least 8 weeks of the season or so. We can reevaluate then.

by AdamOnFirst on Apr 27, 2008 6:28 AM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

You said it better

But this is exactly what I was trying to say on another thread. Gomez is good enough to be a bad major league player right now, but its possible that he won’t learn to be a good player without some of the basic instruction in the minors. Someone needs to say “no more strikeouts, period”, and see if he can adjust, at a place where statistics aren’t as important as the process. When they sent Garza back down, I remember reading interviews with Gardy and Garza saying that he had been told to just go work on throwing more breaking balls. I don’t remember how his stats turned out, but there was at least one interview with Gardy where he said that one of Garza’s AAA games, even though he gave up more runs than desired, was good because he was working the breaking ball in fastball counts, and getting strikes with it.

This is what Gomez needs. Someone who says “you need to work on these 5 things”. Ignore your stats, and everyday we’ll watch video of your last game, and rate you on how well you did those things. Then we’ll go drill them, then you’ll go try again in the next game. Those things would be learning to pick on the first pitch (say thigh high fastball) and swing at nothing else. Bunt fair. Get better weight transfer on your swings, and DON’T strike out. Give it a few months, and his stats will fix themselves.

by snolls on Apr 27, 2008 11:20 AM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

I'm glad you don't run the Twins

You can’t just say, “no more striking out, period.” So what happens when he strikes out? And he will strike out, no matter how many times you try to drill not striking out into him. He’s not out there against a pitching machine. He’s out there against good pitchers who are intent on striking him out. And they will succeed sometimes. It’s a surefire way to destroy his confidence. And that is the last thing you want to do. Plus, it’s just not fair to the player to make such unreasonable demands. If that’s your team-wide policy, I would suspect you’d send half the team down after the first game. If you single him out as the only guy who is forbidden from striking out or else, you set up an adversarial relationship with the kid.

I have some sympathy with the thought of sending him down to work on stuff. But I don’t think you can change his approach so radically without risking ruining him altogether. And I don’t think he was rushed as badly as Adam says. Yes he was rushed, by about a half a year. If he shows he can make the adjustments and succeed up here, that’s no big deal. Lots of kids skip AAA altogether. Chuck Knoblauch, for example. They typically struggle at first, but they make the adjustments. And when they do, they are that much better. Give him till the end of May and if he hasn’t made the adjustments, send him down.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Apr 27, 2008 1:55 PM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

Baseball = what have you done for me lately

A big part of it is, too many people are looking right at the first ten games or at the next 10 games. You have to look at it all together.

You look at rookie’s most recent efforts in the context of the whole. What’s the trend?

Because baseball is a game of adjustments, there will be ups and downs. But for rookies who start out well and falter, you can not ride them into the All-Star break. If Gomez’ .170 OB% of his second 10 or so games were to continue in concert with his potential for a team record in strikeouts, for instance, you adjust.

But not a Fantasy League adjustment. That’s a pervasive mentality for so many people who have come to the game through Fantasy Leagues. Neshek had a couple bad outings and someone here declared they had dropped him from their team. You just don’t make those types of decisions in real baseball if a formerly reliable reliever has a couple of rough games. June is decision time.

As the end of May approaches, you have a good idea about a team. And that’s when the decisions need to be made. So with Gomez If he’s well past 50 whiffs and has a .250 OB%, he’s probably got to go for awhile. You really don’t want the focal point of your big trade setting the team record for strikeouts as a rookie, and you can’t afford to have a leadoff hitter who’s never getting to first base.

Will that be the case? We’ll know at the end of May.

Catching a fly ball is a pleasure. Knowing what to do with it after you catch it is a business.

by Firpo Marberry on Apr 28, 2008 12:46 AM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

I have another name on my list ...

Delmon Young.

Does he take any pitches????

Beyond those which go to the backstop on the fly, I mean.

by BD57 on Apr 26, 2008 5:53 PM EDT reply reply 0 recs

Yeah

He’s had a rough start, too. Worse than rough actually, it’s been pretty harsh.

by Jesse on Apr 26, 2008 6:03 PM EDT up reply reply 0 recs

Jesse

Your posts are always great. Just a thought.

As a counter to how frustrating it will be to see Liriano struggle, especially after he’s been so (SO) good in the past, I offer a slightly encouraging example…

As most Twins fans can agree, the last real exposure we had to a Tommy John situation was when the Twins held the reins on Joe Mays’ career. I remember suffering through that year he came back, and watching him while he had no stuff, no velocity, no confidence. As any Twins fan who was watching during that period in time, “the operation” was always held up in stark relief of “the CONTRACT.” Joe had to get better in a certain timeframe, or the newly-signed deal was a bust. He was moved up when he was “supposed” to be ready, and we all remember the results. There wasn’t time to see whether he could work through it. We were paying him, and he needed to be the pitcher we remembered, or he wasn’t worth the wait.

Counter to that, Francisco has a lot of time on his hands. Everyone (Fans, team, front office) was hoping he would be the “Liriano of 2006”. Silently, no one was EXPECTING that he would be. The way I see it, it’s almost advantageous that Liriano got shelled in his first trip back to the bigs. Since the contractual obligations for Liriano are still minimal, the team can take the time necessary in order to build Francisco’s arm, strength, confidence, etc. I’m excited to see what Liriano makes of this new opportunity to rehabilitate and WORK toward being the pitcher he knows he’s capable of being.

I’m happy that they brought Liriano up, because it gave weight to the amount of work that Francisco still needs to do. If he is a smart guy (and my gut tells me he is) he will see this as an opportunity to prove his worth and work ethic to the organization that gave him his shot.

For me, anything we get on the field from Liriano before 2009 will be gravy. I wish him the best, and I also hope he realizes what this latest trip to the minors is… a chance to rehabilitate and re-learn without pressure. It’s a luxury we were unfortunate to not have with Mays, and I am excited to see him run with it.

by Neil on Apr 26, 2008 6:39 PM EDT reply reply 0 recs

I think that's a pretty good take.

I think mostly you’re agreeing with the whole idea of patience. However Liriano chooses to look at his trip to the minors, he can’t ignore that it’s about his performance and continued development with his “new” arm…whatever that ends up being.

If the Twins had the personnel to contend this season, we might see a little more pressure on him to get back, but that’s not the case this year. I’m sure he’ll be back sometime toward the end of the season, but right now there’s no reason to push him back here. Hopefully we’ll be able to see gradual improvement from him over the course of his many innings in Rochester.

by Jesse on Apr 26, 2008 6:50 PM EDT up reply reply 0 recs