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WHAT THE QUESTION IS NOT

The question ain't:  Can you teach Ichiro how to take pitches like Mike Hargrove.

The question is not:  SHOULD you teach Ichiro how to approach an AB like Mike Hargrove did.

The question ain't:  Do you think you can add 50 points of OBP to Nori Aoki's slash line, by giving him pregame advice.

The question ain't:  Can you draft Jeff Clement and bestow upon him Jim Thome's gift for pitch recognition.

The question ain't anything but:  can a baseball team play at a higher level if it has its snake eyes on.  

And can you make a difference for a few 20-year-olds if they spend four years training to think with pitchers.  ELITE pitchers.  Schwanke's system is all about beating TOUGH pitchers in the championship game.  If you learned make a bed well enough for the Army, so a quarter will bounce on it, you can probably make the bed well enough to work at Motel 6.  If you can beat Dallas Keuchel, you'll probably be okay against Edgar Olmos.

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ACQUIRING PLAYERS TO FIT YOUR SYSTEM

You can't draft guys with no talent for pitch recog, and "teach" them into recognizing a Joaquin Benoit changeup.  If you want talent for pitch recognition, you'd better draft for it.

That said, Nori Aoki is the kind of player who CAN do something with pregame info, and who WILL do something with it.  

You know who is wayyyyyy like that, I bet you?  Steve Clevenger.  I'm super stoked to see what happens when you cross that flicky-fast, bubbled-level, KBIZLT swing with this org philosophy.  It could be like crossing Marshawn Lynch with Pete Carroll's teamwide "dogfest."  Well, Clevenger ain't going to suddenly turn into John Jaso and lead the league in OBP ... :- )

But you take Aoki, and Clevenger, and ... Iannetta has a .231 life AVG but a .351 OBP, I notice.  That's three gorgeous fits for the system.  Adam Lind has been known to keep a tight zone with three balls; by "has been known to" we mean, 66 times last year in part-time play.  That's four imports, and we haven't started on the three stars or Seth Smith.

Ketel Marte got to the bigs and, in terms of patience, learned real quick.  He seems to be a listener, if nothing else.  I'm just spitballing here, but I'm thinking DiPoto likes hitters who listen. That could be part of the decisionmaking process when you're talking about Marte vs Miller, a real quick ticket outta town for Logan Morrison, I dunno.

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WIN FOREVER, Dept.

You see DiPoto's vision for a lineup that can maintain pressure on a pitcher for a game, and that could all have UP years together.  And here's where Edgar comes in:  analyzing that day's SP and what the SP is capable of.  Coming up with a plan based off those probabilities.   Is there a human being on the planet who is better with that specific task?

This is talking Dr. D's language.  John Wooden and Phil Jackson and Pete Carroll instilled mental toughness not by screaming!, but by consistent focus on technical details.  Be honest now; doesn't Jerry DiPoto (in his measured positivity, his firm-but-calm-hand with transgressors, his joy of life, and of course the shape of his head) almost remind you of Pete Carroll's son?

Pete Carroll has said that Marshawn Lynch (and later Rawls) "completed our circle of toughness."  What circle?  The circle in which the sum of the parts becomes greater than the whole.

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The idea in these posts isn't to predict a crashing success.  It's merely to discuss, a little bit, what a systematic org philosophy might look like.  Again, read the Schwanke article.  People ask what Dr. D would do, if he were GM.  Well, "Control the Strike Zone" properly implemented can be baseball's version of the NFL's "Always Compete."  It's based on a teamwide professionalism and toughness.  Granted, we're talking about "chemistry" which was supposed to be baloney by definition.  But SSI never bought the Webster's Dictionary of WAR.

What would Dr. D do?  Among three or four major initiatives, this might very well be one of them.  If you get nothing else out of it, you might get your players into their best form.  And since you have a manager working with you (unlike Scioscia), and you have the Aoki's and Clevengers and Linds ...  if you get lucky, your upside is a Pete Carroll upside.

But we'll settle for a game's worth of pro at bats.  :- )

Enjoy,

Dr D