'How did it all come to this?' is the big question for sure, but the whole situation is so entirely surreal. I don't follow the other Teams like I do the Jays, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many parallels to the Manoah situation in the recent past. I don't feel bad for too many professional athletes, but I feel sorry for Manoah. It seems extra harsh to suggest that - aside from some underwhelming individual player performance, poor roster construction and organisational depth, and just plain bad luck - that his performance will be a key reason why we may not make the playoffs this year.
Andrew, if you get the time go you think you can run a compare-and-contrast pitching development for mlb teams? I would like to know if our lack of success in this area is a) typical, most teams are exactly like this and not like the Tampa Bay Rays who really do seem to always have another pitcher they can pull out of storage when somebody is injured or not performing or b) worse than average, due to the fact that we do a poorer than average job of drafting pitchers or c) worse than average, due to the fact that we do a bad job of developing our pitchers, who would be much better off if a better-developing team had drafted them or d) we are actually better than average (you'll have to bring lots of data to get me to believe this one).
If the front office, aware than it is bad at pitcher development who has decided that this means that trading for those developed other places is the only way to improve, well that's a defensible strategy. And drafting more infield prospects whom you _can_ develop well, and trade for pitching may be the way to go. But part of me keeps wondering if we just drafted more pitchers and fewer catchers and shortstops if we might be in a better position 5 years down the road ....
Beginning to think professional sports are really hard! Last night was really tough to watch and was clear one way or another we were at the end of the line. You just couldn't send him out there again on Saturday, not just for the team's on-field chances, but for Alek himself. He didn't deserve to be put through that again. A-ball does seem like the best spot for him to get some time to himself. Being in Buffalo probably doesn't address what needs to be addressed. I know "depth" is overstated - at least in the sense there's not many teams with MLB-ready starters behind a 'break in case of emergency' glass, but not having a long man in the bullpen or at least some sort of stop gap who can come up and give you 4 or 5 innings has been an issue.
'How did it all come to this?' is the big question for sure, but the whole situation is so entirely surreal. I don't follow the other Teams like I do the Jays, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many parallels to the Manoah situation in the recent past. I don't feel bad for too many professional athletes, but I feel sorry for Manoah. It seems extra harsh to suggest that - aside from some underwhelming individual player performance, poor roster construction and organisational depth, and just plain bad luck - that his performance will be a key reason why we may not make the playoffs this year.
Andrew, if you get the time go you think you can run a compare-and-contrast pitching development for mlb teams? I would like to know if our lack of success in this area is a) typical, most teams are exactly like this and not like the Tampa Bay Rays who really do seem to always have another pitcher they can pull out of storage when somebody is injured or not performing or b) worse than average, due to the fact that we do a poorer than average job of drafting pitchers or c) worse than average, due to the fact that we do a bad job of developing our pitchers, who would be much better off if a better-developing team had drafted them or d) we are actually better than average (you'll have to bring lots of data to get me to believe this one).
If the front office, aware than it is bad at pitcher development who has decided that this means that trading for those developed other places is the only way to improve, well that's a defensible strategy. And drafting more infield prospects whom you _can_ develop well, and trade for pitching may be the way to go. But part of me keeps wondering if we just drafted more pitchers and fewer catchers and shortstops if we might be in a better position 5 years down the road ....
Beginning to think professional sports are really hard! Last night was really tough to watch and was clear one way or another we were at the end of the line. You just couldn't send him out there again on Saturday, not just for the team's on-field chances, but for Alek himself. He didn't deserve to be put through that again. A-ball does seem like the best spot for him to get some time to himself. Being in Buffalo probably doesn't address what needs to be addressed. I know "depth" is overstated - at least in the sense there's not many teams with MLB-ready starters behind a 'break in case of emergency' glass, but not having a long man in the bullpen or at least some sort of stop gap who can come up and give you 4 or 5 innings has been an issue.