If Montero is the problem ... why was this not obvious LAST season, when he caught 55 games and had 1/3 of a season LESS MLB experience?
He wasn't the best guy for ERA, (3.80) ... that would be Jaso, (3.41)
But he was better than Olivo (3.91).
He only threw 6 Felix starts. But he was pretty much Iwakuma's personal backstop. No probs there.
I'm not saying he was great. The .720 OPS allowed was the worst of the 3 catchers - but then again, he caught Noesi more than he caught Felix.
So ... *IF* fingers are pointing in Montero's direction, you cannot simply pretend 2012 didn't happen. If he IS demonstrably worse than 2012 ... why?
Saunders and Maurer are newbies. Fine. But, if the problem is lack of time working with these guys - then GIVE HIM THE TIME.
For me, this comes back to the manager. Okay, Montero is a young catcher. Well, Bench, Posey, McCann, Piazza ... every catcher who ever was a catcher was a young catcher, who acquired experience.
Is there any rationale that explains why Montero would be "adequate" as a rookie, but would be two orders of magnitude worse the following season? I mean ... did he lose a finger?
If he's calling games differently ... is this based on *HIS* 2012 experience and now he's stopped listening to anybody else?
If so ... then by all means demote him. If MONTERO has put himself in charge of game planning, sure demote him. Somehow I doubt this is the case. I'm thinking there was not NEARLY enough work done in spring training to PREPARE the pitchers and catchers to work with each other. I suspect the manager was mostly just letting everyone play and watching. This is precisely why Saunders complained about not working with Montero after his first debacle.
Hey ... maybe my bias against Wedge is showing. But, everything I've seen supports a severe preference for veterans, and a ditantly hands-off approach to managing. I'm thinking when somebody like Barajas or Molina changes teams, THEY probably do take the lead in connecting with pitchers and trying to sync up. Montero does not seem to have that personality. If not, it is the manager's job to MAKE the catcher and pitchers sync up. He had a month to get that done, and up to this point, the results suggest NONE of that happened.
Me? I would lock Montero with 3 pitchers: Iwakuma (had good results with), Saunders (veteran can help take the lead, not afraid to shake off rook), and probably Beavan. I'd lock Shoppach in with Felix, (who didn't seem to like throwing to Montero) and Maurer.
Simplify the job - create actual batteries - give BOTH guys in the battery some instruction and support to try and make the pairings work.
Game planning is SUPPOSED to be a function of management (working WITH players). With a barely non-rookie catcher, two new guys in the rotation, (one a rook, one a second year guy), this is baseball management 101. If Wedge did NOT handle this during ST, then it displays utter incompetence on his part.
If you have Pudge Rodriguez stepping in ... sure, you let HIM take the reins and sit back. If you have a 2nd year catcher who the youngest guy in the lineup (and only a couple of pitchers are younger), then you cannot simply stand back and watch hoping a miracle occurs.
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That best explanation I can invent is --since Olivo was here last year, Olivo was actually taking the lead in working with Montero and Wedge was just taking the back seat. So, with a whole 55 games under his belt, Wedge assumed Montero was going to step up and do his job for him this year.
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Q. Is there anybody left who does not think that the Mariners are going to be Mike Zunino's club very shortly?
A. Nobody within the organization, not that I know of. And Jack Zduriencik his ownself certainly plans to give the team to Zunino before too much time passes.
The few people left, warning us not to get too excited, are bloggers. Not the baseball people.
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Q. Would there be any precedent, for asking Mike Zunino to hit in the major leagues after so little time in the minors?
A. You know about John Olerud, of course, who skipped the minors and posted a .364 OBP back in 1990.
The fascinating thing to me, was that when the Mariners signed Danny Hultzen -- do you remember Hultzen's demands, back then? -- that Jack Zduriencik pointed to the one NCAA starting pitcher who had recently skipped the minors, that being Mike Leake.
The thing is, John Olerud is an important precedent. There were certain things that the college player Olerud could do against any pitching. The 21-year-old Olerud brought certain things to the plate that were effective no matter who was pitching.
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Q. Anybody besides Olerud?
A. Quite a few guys, actually. Pete Incaviglia went straight from Oklahoma State, the #8 overall draftee, to the Texas Rangers and hit 30 home runs as a rookie. In fact, Incaviglia hit about as well as a rookie as he'd ever hit -- he was a .250 hitter, 25 homers, 90 RBI, and he did that from his first swing in the majors.
All of the HOF teenagers had less experience than Olerud and Incaviglia. Last year, Bryce Harper came to the majors with the equivalent of 450 at-bats past high school (I'm considering his age-17 season as a type of high school season). Harper was a very good major league hitter at age 19, and will probably be a great one at age 20.
Ken Griffey Jr.'s experience, through age 18, was quite a bit skimpier than Mike Zunino's experience so far. But the thing is, Griffey wasn't ready to tear apart the major leagues based on 400+ at-bats post high school. He was ready to defend himself for a year or two. My thing wouldn't be to question Zunino's ability to compete in the AL; my thing would be not to expect more than a 90 OPS+ from him this season.
ARod at age 20 slugged over .600 in the American League. I'd consider his preparation, at age 20, to be a little better than Zunino's to date. ARod had 300+ AB's in the upper minors; Zunino does have only 80 AB's in the upper minors, though he has a college career behind him (as with Olerud and Incavgilia).
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Q. How exceptional are those players?
A. In any given season, the youngest player in the majors is typically age 19. Sometimes the youngest player is 20, like Robbie Alomar; ARod was 18.
Players who were in the majors, to stay, by age 19:
- Mike Trout, 19
- Bryce Harper, 19
- Justin Upton, 19
- B.J. Upton, 19
- Felix Hernandez, 19
- Edwin Jackson, Rick Ankiel, Adrian Beltre, Karim Garcia, Wilson Betemit - 19
- Johnny Bench, Ivan Rodriguez - 19
- Juan Gonzalez - 19
- Gregg Jeffries - 19
- Gary Sheffield - 19
- Alan Trammell - 19
- Tim Raines - 19
- Robin Yount - 19
- Jack Clark - 19
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Q. But man. All the Mariners' prospects disappoint us.
A. Oh, right. Forgot. Yeah, we should DFA them, Zunino and Miller and Franklin and Romero. M's prospects don't work out.
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Q. Would this be more panicking?
A. If Jesus Montero is really causing a dysfunction, then you don't simply ignore it for another six weeks. That's a situation that has to be remedied.
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Q. But is it weird to promote a catcher that fast?
A. Along with Johnny Bench and Pudge Rodriguez, there were other catchers who were given the keys by ages 19-20, maybe 21, such as Butch Wynegar, Gary Carter, and Ted Simmons.
It wouldn't be weird to give the ballclub to Mike Zunino right now, not in terms of baseball precedent. I just wouldn't expect him to rack up 17 RBI in his first 6 games.
The idea wouldn't be that Zunino had to be Buster Posey immediately; the idea would be to fix whatever bad karma is ruining April for the Mariners. And it wouldn't hurt the 2014 season that Zunino would have learned the league -- like it doesn't hurt Hisashi Iwakuma right now that he has already been through his transition.
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Q. Would YOU be comfortable trying it.
A. Would I?
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Q. Would You.
A. I notice Zunino has got 7 strikeouts in those 6 games; in the AL that's liable to get a lot worse.
Dr. D remembers Johnny Bench pretty well. He looked foolish at the plate, a fair amount, when he first got into the league. He had the swing dialed up to 11, struck out a ton for that era, but connected for his share of HR's. Within a year or two he was more solid at the plate, but he was always sort of in the Mike Morse category offensively.
Ivan Rodriguez struck out a ton as a rookie, got embarrassed at the plate some, but played great defense and learned his swing.
Mike Zunino wouldn't need to be The Edgar. If he struck out 140 times, hit 20 home runs, generaled the pitching staff, that would work for me. I'm sure they'd let him know that outcome was perfectly fine with the bosses.
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If you knew that Mike Zunino were going to be a great baseball player, then you wouldn't have much reason to hesitate. Great baseball players aren't bothered by early responsibility.
We know, we know. The M's are in no mood to rush players. ... they may wind up having to do something about their starting catcher, though. They may be forced to.
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Comments
If so, I'm making the call. Give Zunino the ball. OK...maybe Iactually wait another 30 games....not to have Zunino prove anything (he doesn't need to prove more in my book) but to let the M's line-up shake itself out. Because if you call Zunino up now, you either have to:
1. Demote Montero
2. Dump Shoppach
3. Demote Smoak
4. Trade Morales
Are we prepared to make that decision right now? Of that, I'm not sure. Heck, you know me....I have no confidence in Smoak and there would be my move. But he did go 2-4 last night....so that is worth another 10 starts, 8 of them dismal ones.
It's cool that you mentioned Butch Wynegar, Doc, because I've been thinking about him the last day. Wynagar come up in '76 at the age of 20. He had caught 199 MiLB games.....but he made the leap from A ball to the majors. He was in A ball in '75!!!! His 199 games were at the Cal League level and below.
And still the Twinkies gave him the ball.
You know me, precocious talent needs that chance.
Joe Torre was 20 years old when he became the man, btw.
College ball is worth something guys. Zunino knows a bit about pitchers and pitches and which fingers to hold down, etc.
He's going to have some MLB learning curve even if you wait TWO years to bring him up.
It's obvious he's going to get the chance to be the man. Make it happen sooner.
BTW: When he comes up...I hope the M's hitting coaches leave him alone. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Wedge's "Professional AB" mantra is hurting our young bats. He's all about taking pitches, looking for a pitch to go the other way with, going deep into counts, etc. I think our young guys become lost after a year of listening to all that. If anybody ever told Ken Griffey Jr. that, they should have been slapped. Man, tell Ackley and Seager AND Zunino to look for a location and cream the first pitch they get there. With experience they will figure the rest out. Paralysis through analysis is a common golf swing destroyer...I think it's happening in Safeco, with the young guys.
Morse and Raul and Morales, they probably just ignore it.
Surely some of you (grey) guys remember the old Flip Wilson/"Laugh-In" punch line, "Hit the ball, Willie! Hit the ball!" Well, that's what I'm telling our young (and talented) bats, if I'm giving instruction. Pick a spot. Be the ball. Hit the ball.
Is Ty Webb available as a hitting coach?
BTW, can we just get rid of Andino?
moe
It used to come around in the first or second week of June, but now it's more like the 2nd-to-3rd-week of July, so you might as well just say the trading deadline. That's when the Super-Two cutoff is these days.
What you're talking about is the service time barrier (on the ML roster for 172 of 182 "league days"). That's next week. Most teams give it a little time and call somebody up in the last week of April, but the season started pretty early this year.
We could call up Zunino next Friday and have him for an extra year (under likely Super-Two status, so he'd go to arb a bunch of times) vs. calling him up right now and losing club control on his 2019 season.
I don't expect that to happen. And it think it may be time for a Zunino post...
~G
I'm talking about the extra arb year.