Buck lays into Mountcastle during "reassignment to minor camp" and possible new position?

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah, "attitude" was perhaps not the right word. But he needs to take his game seriously. It's less about changing his game and more about being receptive and taking his faults seriously. 

That's why it will be interesting to see how he goes about his business this year. Will the public admonishment and knowledge of his bad response become the foot in the butt he needs, or will he get bitter and dig in and go down the old "I'll do it my way and show them" road? We shall see.

[tntoriole]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Manny and Schoop are old dogs now?

Absolutely they are in the sense of being taught a specific change in their game by Buck.  Their improvement or lack thereof over the rest of their career will by and large be an internally driven process with little direct teaching by managers. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You keep saying this, but you literally have no idea if it's true or not because it doesn't come out in the press. If you think Buck never says anything to his veteran players behind close doors you are wrong. That I know for a fact. 

As for plate discipline with veteran players, they usually are who they are after a few seasons in the majors. It's not like you are going to have a talk with Adam Jones and he's going to come out and walk 90 times next year. The Orioles have a lot of the same kinds of hitters on the team. It's certainly not because Buck has or hasn't had talks with them about their plate discipline.

 

You are right.  Buck has no problem publicly calling out kids in the minors or rookies but if he does talk to his vets it is in such a way to help shield them from outside scrutiny.

Me, I think that if calling Mountcastle out in public is a good idea than maybe calling Davis out in public for his called third strike issue might be a good idea as well.

So yea, I think he should afford all his players the same level of respect.

[interloper]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

You are right.  Buck has no problem publicly calling out kids in the minors or rookies but if he does talk to his vets it is in such a way to help shield them from outside scrutiny.

Me, I think that if calling Mountcastle out in public is a good idea than maybe calling Davis out in public for his called third strike issue might be a good idea as well.

So yea, I think he should afford all his players the same level of respect.

Davis called himself out starting as soon as the season ended and continued to do so the entire offseason. We can debate whether or not Davis will see any results, but at least he understands there's a problem. That's what they want from Mountcastle. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You are right.  Buck has no problem publicly calling out kids in the minors or rookies but if he does talk to his vets it is in such a way to help shield them from outside scrutiny.

Me, I think that if calling Mountcastle out in public is a good idea than maybe calling Davis out in public for his called third strike issue might be a good idea as well.

So yea, I think he should afford all his players the same level of respect.

There might also be the difference in how the player responded.

If he talked to Davis behind closed doors and Davis laughed at him or told Buck off, it might have been made public.

Just like how he talked to Mountcastle and Hays about the same issue. Mountcastle laughed, it gets made public. Hays took the advice seriously and it was never revealed until now.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

Davis called himself out starting as soon as the season ended and continued to do so the entire offseason. We can debate whether or not Davis will see any results, but at least he understands there's a problem. That's what they want from Mountcastle. 

Didn't Davis set the record in 2016? Did he call himself out that time too?  I forget.

[interloper]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Didn't Davis set the record in 2016? Did he call himself out that time too?  I forget.

Ok, you win I guess. Enjoy. 

[tntoriole]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You are right.  Buck has no problem publicly calling out kids in the minors or rookies but if he does talk to his vets it is in such a way to help shield them from outside scrutiny.

Me, I think that if calling Mountcastle out in public is a good idea than maybe calling Davis out in public for his called third strike issue might be a good idea as well.

So yea, I think he should afford all his players the same level of respect.

Buck doesn't have to go through 162 games with Mountcastle.  He does have to live with Chris Davis every day of this season.  Plus Davis makes about 6 times as much as Buck does.  In any business, lower paid employees disciplining high value, high pay employees is a tricky business.     It is not good business to try to "motivate" your highly paid employee by embarrassing them in public, generally.  

[ReclaimTheCrown]

2 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

There might also be the difference in how the player responded.

If he talked to Davis behind closed doors and Davis laughed at him or told Buck off, it might have been made public.

Just like how he talked to Mountcastle and Hays about the same issue. Mountcastle laughed, it gets made public. Hays took the advice seriously and it was never revealed until now.

This is all very interesting discussion in this thread.  I will say that, in fairness to Mountcastle, when I read the account of the interaction, I assume Ryan's laugh was more an "aw shucks, yeah I'm a bit of a free-swinger" kinda thing than a "don't tell me what to do, old man, I can mash" kind of thing.  I think Buck then, wisely, used it as a teaching moment to underscore the importance of being disciplined, especially as Ryan advances in his career. 

I of course don't know the guy, but I'd just point out that I think it's more likely that he didn't mean it disrespectfully to Buck.  Others with more knowledge could disagree or correct me, just want to be fair to the kid at least.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Buck doesn't have to go through 162 games with Mountcastle.  He does have to live with Chris Davis every day of this season.  Plus Davis makes about 6 times as much as Buck does.  In any business, lower paid employees disciplining high value, high pay employees is a tricky business.     It is not good business to try to "motivate" your highly paid employee by embarrassing them in public, generally.  

I don't think it is good business to embarrass any of your employees in public.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

1 minute ago, ReclaimTheCrown said:

This is all very interesting discussion in this thread.  I will say that, in fairness to Mountcastle, when I read the account of the interaction, I assume Ryan's laugh was more an "aw shucks, yeah I'm a bit of a free-swinger" kinda thing than a "don't tell me what to do, old man, I can mash" kind of thing.  I think Buck then, wisely, used it as a teaching moment to underscore the importance of being disciplined, especially as Ryan advances in his career. 

I of course don't know the guy, but I'd just point out that I think it's more likely that he didn't mean it disrespectfully to Buck.  Others with more knowledge could disagree or correct me, just want to be fair to the kid at least.

That's how it seemed at first, but taking into account what @Tony-OH has provided too, it seems like Mountcastle laughed in the "don't tell me how to hit" manner. There was probably more said too, but this is what was made public.

[DrungoHazewood]

27 minutes ago, Aglets said:

17 walks in 538 PA in the minor leagues last year............that is indeed pretty bad.  a BB rate of 3.16%.

...

Joey Rickard is an interesting case; he walked at a 12.7% rate across AA and AAA but last year it fell dramatically to 3.3%. 

 

Rickard is a cautionary tale.  Even with great plate discipline walk rate doesn't always translate.  With Mountcastle he apparently doesn't yet realize that a 3.2% walk rate is the result of someone who can't tell a pitch you can drive from one that's going to one-hop the backstop, and that also means you're not going to hit well enough to play in the major leagues.  You basically have to have hit and power tools that are absolutely off the charts to be an impact hitter at 3B while you walk 2% of the time.

If you make a list of the most successful MLBers who walked in 3% of PAs or less you'll get luminaries like Alvaro Espinoza, Boss Schmidt, Tim Anderson, Paulo Orlando, Whitey Alpermann, Jay Kirke...  Basically the only good players who walk that little were pitchers who could hit a little, and guys who played back when it was 8 or 9 balls for a walk.

[Frobby]

35 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

No, that's not true at all. What is being taught is to be aggressive on YOUR pitch. That's really the key. Being aggressive in a 2-0 fastball is a good thing. Swinging at a 2-0 curveball in the dirt is a bad thing. They want the players to have a plan at the plate and understand what the pitchers are trying to do to them. I was told Mountcastle got himself out way too much in AA by swinging at bad pitches, even in hitter's counts. AS he goes up in levels, you can't expect a down the middle 3-0 fastball in certain situations (like say with a tie runner on 2nd, late in a game and a base open).

There was the story where this happened. With two outs and that tie runner on, Mountcastle swang at ball four and popped up for out number three leaving the older better hitter on deck with no opportunity. That player was livid at Mountcastle so the coaching staff brought them together. That's when Mountcastle was like, "If I had hit a double no one would be talking to me."

That's where his lack of maturity and understand of the game came into question. That's where being over aggressive hurts him. Clearly the pitcher did not want Mountcastle to hurt him so he was basically pitching around him, but instead of taking the walk he swang at a bad pitch and got himself out. 

I don't think this is anything that maturity and getting the right advice from the right people won't cure. Mountcastle has all the tools, and he isn't the first or last 21-year old who needed to mature.

Thanks for these specifics.    I agree 100% with the message Buck has delivered.    Sounds like he needed to hear that from the top.   

[Can_of_corn]

10 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

There might also be the difference in how the player responded.

If he talked to Davis behind closed doors and Davis laughed at him or told Buck off, it might have been made public.

Just like how he talked to Mountcastle and Hays about the same issue. Mountcastle laughed, it gets made public. Hays took the advice seriously and it was never revealed until now.

Of course ultimately the issue with Hays was also made public.

So I guess if you aren't one of his vets it doesn't matter how you take the criticism.

[wildbillhiccup]

40 minutes ago, Aglets said:

17 walks in 538 PA in the minor leagues last year............that is indeed pretty bad.  a BB rate of 3.16%.

MLB average is apparently 8.5%.   According to bb-ref every Oriole had a lower than average BB rate for us in 2017 except for Davis, Gentry, Seth Smith, and Flaherty.

I assume Buck's argument is when you get promoted to MLB your rate is likely going to fall even further.

Joey Rickard is an interesting case; he walked at a 12.7% rate across AA and AAA but last year it fell dramatically to 3.3%. 

 

Wow, that's even worse than Roughned Odor (4.9%) and Javier Baez (5.9%). That's definitely not going to cut it at the MLB level.