Grayson Rodriguez 2021

[RZNJ]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

No, there are also guys who just aren’t good enough and of course you have guys who have injury issues and just zap their abilities.  We may be seeing that with Diaz.

But what goes on between the ears is a major reason why an athlete fails or succeeds.  They are all great at what they do.  Even getting to that level is an amazing accomplishment.

I don't disagree with the above but I think mentally strong or weak is a poor choice of words.  It's not that simple.  Maybe aptitude.  

[Frobby]

When I was a kid, I used to have this recurring dream that I was at the wheel of a car that was going and I didn’t know how to drive.   Once I learned to drive in our automatic transmission car, I started to have the same dream, only now I was at the wheel of a moving car that had a stick shift and a clutch.  Once I learned how to drive a stick shift car, I started dreaming I was in the cockpit of an airplane heading down the runway.   

My point is, you don’t put a kid in the cockpit of an airplane and say “here kid, fly this.”   There’s a bunch of intermediate steps along the way and skipping them can make it much harder to learn to fly the plane.   And that’s kind of how I feel about MiL development.   It’s not really about confidence, it’s about not throwing more at a player than he’s ready to absorb.    
 

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, Frobby said:

When I was a kid, I used to have this recurring dream that I was at the wheel of a car that was going and I didn’t know how to drive.   Once I learned to drive in our automatic transmission car, I started to have the same dream, only now I was at the wheel of a moving car that had a stick shift and a clutch.  Once I learned how to drive a stick shift car, I started dreaming I was in the cockpit of an airplane heading down the runway.   

My point is, you don’t put a kid in the cockpit of an airplane and say “here kid, fly this.”   There’s a bunch of intermediate steps along the way and skipping them can make it much harder to learn to fly the plane.   And that’s kind of how I feel about MiL development.   It’s not really about confidence, it’s about not throwing more at a player than he’s ready to absorb.    
 

But how you define ready to absorb is the whole point.

 Most people define it as going through each level of the minors, putting in your time at each level, achieving X amount level of success and then move on.

It’s not that cut and dry and btw, I think context is always lost in these conversations.  For the large majority of players, we all recognize that this is the best path.  But we are talking about those top guys.

No one is complaining or even discussing the development path for Robert Neustrom.  
 

And the other part of this discussion is why teams do this way of developing to the top guys.  Normally speaking it’s because of the service time rules.  You better believe that if the rules drastically change and all of a sudden, guys can become FA a lot sooner, that the “normal path of development” will change.   And that would prove that this isn’t necessarily about development as it is service time.

[7Mo]

58 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And the other part of this discussion is why teams do this way of developing to the top guys.  Normally speaking it’s because of the service time rules.  You better believe that if the rules drastically change and all of a sudden, guys can become FA a lot sooner, that the “normal path of development” will change.   And that would prove that this isn’t necessarily about development as it is service time.

"Normally speaking it's because of the service time rules".

How many top guys do the O's have? If you're saying Adley and Grayson are the only guys held back by service time these days, I agree. But I guess it depends on how you define "top guys". 

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, 7Mo said:

"Normally speaking it's because of the service time rules".

How many top guys do the O's have? If you're saying Adley and Grayson are the only guys held back by service time these days, I agree. But I guess it depends on how you define "top guys". 

Do you think Mountcastle was?  

[7Mo]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Do you think Mountcastle was?  

I think there was legitimate work being done with him with pitch recognition and controlling the strike zone. I think there was some work being done with him as a left fielder. 

Answering a binary question, I'd say yes, service time was a factor. I wouldn't say to an egregious degree because I think the strike zone work was both needed and helpful but yeah, to some degree.

[Sports Guy]

13 minutes ago, 7Mo said:

I think there was legitimate work being done with him with pitch recognition and controlling the strike zone. I think there was some work being done with him as a left fielder. 

Answering a binary question, I'd say yes, service time was a factor. I wouldn't say to an egregious degree because I think the strike zone work was both needed and helpful but yeah, to some degree.

And that OBP barely above 300 shows how much that extra work paid off!

[Frobby]

Guess who was our MiL pitcher of the year?   Shocker - Grayson wins the Jim Palmer Award.   

OK, that was very obvious, but Drew Rom would be my vote for no. 2.   He led our MiL pitchers in IP (107.1) and wins (11) and was second to Grayson in ERA for pitchers who threw at least 75 innings (3.18).
 

[Big Mac]

On 9/24/2021 at 12:24 PM, Sports Guy said:

And that OBP barely above 300 shows how much that extra work paid off!

To be fair, his 6.9% BB rate this year is a vast improvement over the 4.3% he put up in AAA.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Big Mac said:

To be fair, his 6.9% BB rate this year is a vast improvement over the 4.3% he put up in AAA.

He’s still swinging at 41.4% of pitches outside the zone, 6th highest among all qualifiers.   Lots more he could do to improve in that area.