The decision whether to demote a struggling young player is far more complicated this year, because you’re not demoting him to another team. You’re sending him to the alternate site to play in simulated games, not to face real, live pitching or hitting in minor-league games where stats are tracked and the outcomes matter to somebody. There are many such players on contenders’ rosters right now – Austin Riley on Atlanta, Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Cavan Biggio on the Blue Jays, Francisco Mejía on the Padres, Nico Hoerner on the Cubs, now Jo Adell on the Angels – and others on rebuilding clubs, like Evan White on Seattle or Willie Calhoun on Texas. In a normal, 162-game season, I doubt any of these players would see their playing time or roster spots threatened, since we’d have nearly 150 games left and nobody would be thinking much about playoff odds.
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I spoke to several front-office executives who all had at least one young player underperforming so far this year about the challenges inherent in this decision: Do you demote the player so you can play someone better and try to win a few more games in this shortened season with expanded playoffs, thus risking harming the player’s development by robbing him of at bats or innings?
“It’s an interesting question, and something we’ve talked about not for now, but if it were to go on another two weeks like this,” said an assistant GM. “Normally you’d probably demote the player, but this year I’d be inclined to let it play out. It also depends on how he’s struggling.” He went on to say that if the struggles were something you expected, given the player’s history, you’d be more inclined to consider sending him out to work on those things, whereas a player struggling with things he’d never had trouble doing before would merit a longer look. In the latter case, you might assume that the struggles – say, difficulty hitting or laying off sliders – was a function of facing better competition in the majors, like the better sliders you’ll see more consistently from major-league pitching.
“On the one hand, there are no official games (at the alternate site),” said one GM. “But on the flip side, we could send a guy down and he could get a dozen live at bats each day against Triple-A type pitching as he works through his swing. Maybe that’s a better environment than a typical Triple-A environment?” No player would get that many at bats, or the ability to try to fine-tune his mechanics between swings or at bats, playing in real games. You’d have to assume that the teammate pitching to him would make every attempt to get him out, as if they were really competing in a live game – and that’s probably not an accurate assumption.
“I think you’re more inclined (to demote the player) if you’re contending, and you don’t get performance” from a young player, said another GM. “Rebuild-wise, you would keep them up, to develop them.” He also said that the lack of alternatives in this environment, where you only have about 32 players (at most) at your second site, could end up the determining factor, rather than developmental concerns. If your shortstop or catcher can’t seem to buy a hit, you have to have a viable replacement ready to consider sending them down to the alternate site, even if you fully believe that’s the right developmental move.
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A VP with another club pointed out a different risk with keeping such players in the majors, saying, “If a player is getting overmatched it still might be wise to send him out so as not to shatter his confidence and/or hurt his industry value.”
We’re in an inherently small sample with this season, where players may not have enough time to overcome a bad start and improve their overall statistics, and there are no scouts out seeing players to try to identify real changes in mechanics or skills. Some teams are already at the quarter-season mark, which would be mid-May in a typical year, around when you’d expect to see a few demotions, either to the minors or at least to reserve duty, for young players off to rough starts. This year’s calculus isn’t necessarily harder for GMs, just different – but the time to make those decisions is probably now.
Scouting Notebook
• Spencer Howard‘s debut for the Phillies didn’t quite go as planned, but he looked a lot better than his line – 4 runs allowed in 4.2 innings, including two homers – might have indicated.
Howard showed a full four-pitch mix on Sunday, and showed he could miss bats with all three of his offspeed pitches. His four-seamer was 90-95 mph, and he located it pretty well when he went to the bottom the zone, leaving the one that Freddie Freeman hit out to left field up too much. (Freeman later tripled on a well-placed fastball down and in, a credit to him as a hitter.) Howard’s changeup was his best pitch, 78-81 with good arm speed and late tumble, and he was willing to throw it to left- and right-handed batters. He only threw five curveballs, but the pitch has huge two-plane break and I think it’ll be very effective as a pitch he only breaks out a few times a game. His slider doesn’t break nearly as sharply, but it’s harder and hitters swung through or over it more often (7 out of 19 pitches) on Sunday. The other homer Howard gave up came on a slider he hung to Ronald Acuña, Jr., who was in the midst of a three-homer day that helped power Atlanta’s doubleheader sweep.
Howard worked very quickly – as did his opponent, Atlanta lefty Max Fried, who has been among the best starters in baseball so far this year – and threw a ton of strikes, although his command within the zone wasn’t great. Howard threw a lot of mid-height fastballs, with more fastballs middle-middle than anywhere else in or out of the zone, and given his four-seamer’s lack of movement and the fact that Atlanta hitters didn’t whiff on the pitch at all on Sunday, that seems like the most obvious area for improvement: either work on throwing the fastball to the top or bottom parts of the zone more, or just throw it less frequently in favor of his three quality secondary pitches.
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• Rockies righty Ryan Castellani also made his debut on Sunday, throwing four innings without allowing a hit before exiting after 60 pitches. The Rockies’ No. 14 prospect coming into the year, Castellani had struggled last year in Triple-A Albuquerque, maybe the worst pitchers’ park in all of professional baseball and certainly the worst above A ball, but looked quite good against the Mariners, sitting 91-94 mph on his two-seamer with a really strong changeup that he only used to left-handed batters. He threw two breaking balls, using the 80-82 mph curveball more often than the slider, and kept the pitches down near the bottom of the zone for most of his outing. The Mariners’ lineup was very inexperienced, and didn’t get to see Castellani a third time, so it’s possible that he’ll look different against other lineups when he’s stretched out. The mix of pitches and ability to work up with his two-seamer and down with his offspeed stuff was very good to see, especially given how rough his 2019 was.
• The Giants picked up outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe from the White Sox, just a few days after Chicago designated Basabe for assignment. They’d acquired him from Boston in the Chris Sale trade in December of 2016, but the talented outfielder has had trouble staying healthy in pro ball, playing in just 300 regular-season games in the three years since the trade, and he’d started to see his body slow down recently, which could really impact his ability to stay in centerfield. Basabe was Chicago’s No. 8 prospect coming into 2020 on the basis of some sneaky power and solid plate discipline, although if he can’t play center on more than an emergency basis he’s probably lost his chance to be a regular. He’s out of options next year, which likely contributed to the White Sox’ decision, especially with centerfield set for the foreseeable future.
(Top photo of Austin Riley: Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
