1932 World Series Redux
=== Prospect Status, March 2010 ===
Groupthink: In March 2010? A good solid Grade B or B+ prospect.
The Truth: One of the five or 10 best prospects in all of organized baseball.
The Truth^2: At 92+ mph, he profiled as Don Sutton. At these new reports of 96+, try more like Bob Gibson.
The Reality, July 6 2010: Anybody want to list ten pitchers in the minors with better chances to impact the major leagues?
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=== The Plan at West Tenn ===
Groupthink April 2: Work on the glaring weaknesses in AA, see what happens.
The Truth April 2: The joke at West Tenn will end in June.
The Truth^2: Pitching at West Tennessee was detrimental to Pineda's development; it under-challenged him.
The Truth^3, March 30 (If You Were Wrong How Would You Know): "If SSI were wrong, Michael Pineda would do anything other than detonate AA/AAA hitters to neutrino-sized ash particles. He won't. If the reports are anywhere in the ballpark, Pineda's road rage is a given for 2010. Which is what will make the exercise pointless."
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=== The June 1 Status Report ===
Groupthink: Pineda may be ready to try to tackle AAA hitters before too long.
The Truth: Promote Michael Pineda to Seattle Right Now.
The Reality, July 6, 2010: Mike Curto calls for Pineda's promotion to Safeco, where, says Mikey, he looks like he'll be a future #1 starter.
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=== The Prognosis at Tacoma ===
Groupthink: Go face some age-24, age-25 hitters, who will force Pineda to mix his pitches. He could do well, or he could get bombed. We'll see.
The Truth: PCL hitters have as much chance of forcing Pineda to do anything, as I have of talking Howard into allocating Cliff Lee money before it's too late. Pineda will obviously disintegrate PCL hitters. :Ruth points to bleachers, '32:
The Reality: Pineda's numbers are better at AAA than they were at AA. We'll 'splain why in another post.
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=== Secondary Stuff ===
Groupthink: Pineda must throw three ML-quality pitches. (Twitter just tonight reiterated this paradigm.)
The Truth: Of course he doesn't need three ML-quality pitches. His fastball will carry his other pitches if necessary. Here are other guys who pitch that way.
The Truth^2: But Pineda's slider looked real good in ST. Doubts about the slider sound like FKey7 to Dr. D.
The Reality: Curto reports that Pineda's slider is "vicious." Game reports confirm that Pineda goes to sliders in jams.
... we enjoyed the erstwhile Mike Curto's column marvelling how long it had been since Mike had seen performances like Pineda's. Don't kid yourself. You can't judge platypusses (platypi? platypeese? Where's Zum-Bro'?) by duck criteria. If you're a scout, you need to know when to put your looseleaf report xeroxes back in the trunk and judge a special kid according to his own template.
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=== The Obvious Question ===
Q: So what's next? What's the truth for 2011?
A. Gotta see a little more vid first.
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Cheers,
Dr D