My Player Development Philosophy

As I get closer to possibly getting a job with a major league team, figured I would share my personal philosophy on what I would do if I were ever in that position (and this is definitely open to transitioning as I gain more knowledge of the process with a job in the industry). Plus, nothing like putting this together to help you think.

I. Affiliate Locations

Ideally, the two closest locations to the major league teams are the Low A and the AAA positions. My personal preference (obviously the MLB team matters in this) is to not have my high A team in the Cal League or my AAA team in the Pacific Coast League due to the fact that these are overwhelming hitters environments and I don't want to risk losing my pitcher's confidence.

The reasoning behind my Low A team being one of the closest to the MLB team is that these are many guys first taste of full season ball. With that being said, that would be the place I travel to most often to try and get a better gauge myself of whether these players are slumping or need to be sent down to short season ball to get a quick refresher/confidence boost. The AAA team needs to be close so the players can arrive to play for the big league team as soon as possible.

II. Hiring Coaches

Believe that your coaches in High A and lower need to have a background as a teacher. Whether this is as a high school or college coach or previous experience coaching youngsters at this age, I feel that people with these types of backgrounds are better able to connect with these younger kids. These coaches need to understand how to teach fundamentals and teach them how to handle themselves throughout a season. These are also the coaches that I would allow to make wholesale changes if they see fit (after being approved by myself and staff of course) and dramatically rework a pitcher's windup for example.

Believe that AA and AAA coaches must have major league player experience. I feel that once a prospect reaches this stage of his career, he has a chance at the majors. I thus want our coaches to be able to speak from experience about what you will see at the major league level and the little tweaks that need to take place for that player to be successful.

This criteria is mainly for my initial hirings of the position. I believe promotion from within is very important, as we will have a very detailed hitting and pitching system (installed by the major league hitting and pitching coach with input from our staff) and will teach everything the same way. This prevents people from hearing from 100 different people (at least from within the organization) and should speed the learning process for these players.

All coaches will also be responsible for scouting the opposing team and sending reports back to us on guys they liked (not in depth reports, just reports saying we should check out this guy and then we can have a scout follow him)

III. Promotion/Demotion

I believe a player determines how fast he moves through the organization (at least until the AAA-Major jump). With that being said, players will get promoted in season when they put up numbers deserving a promotion or are recommended to get promoted by the current coaching staff (or both). Ideally, a prospect gets 1 midseason promotion. I believe this is hugely important due to the fact that if a prospect is on a hot streak and keeps switching leagues, no scouting reports catch up to him. I want my prospects to deal with slumps and other things so that we as an organization can see how they adjust. Anyone can hit well for a full season through 3 levels if they never face the same team or pitcher twice. Obviously, if we are in contention, we will weigh the pros and cons before accelerating someone's timetable to help us.

In regards to demotions, they will come primarily from input on the coaching staff. The number 1 thing we want to do is to ensure our players do not lose confidence. In a game of failure, confidence is what separates the 0-10 streak from devolving into a 1-30 streak. The staff will be responsible for keeping in tuned with how a player is feeling mentally and to make sure we don't lose him. Obviously, getting demoted hurts a player's confidence, so that is another option that must be weighed. But, getting demoted and then hitting .310 or pitching to a tune of a 2.50 ERA can do wonders for confidence.

Repeating a level is something that is never desired, but I feel players must show they have performed well at a level and are ready to advance to the next rung on the ladder. The players that repeat a level will also be subjected to getting a midseason promotion a little quicker then other players who are experiencing their 1st season at a level (except AA and AAA). It is also important to keep a players confidence by not having them spend 2 full seasons at a level unless they are under 20 at Low A.

IV. Evaluation

We will evaluate our prospects through mostly our scouting staff breaking down video and seeing if the areas we are looking for improvement are actually being improved. We will send each staff a list of what areas we want each player to improve and it is their responsibility to handle that. Some guys may be as easy as changing their hand placement offensively or working with them on handling the double play or tightening a breaking pitch. Some guys may be as difficult as overhauling a hitter's set-up or a pitcher's windup. We will then use video as a means of assessing this and hope to see a difference from the April video to the September video.

As it relates to what degree of coaching input/scouting and stats go into it, this is how I forsee it:

Short Season: 95 % scout, 5 % stat
Low A: 95 % scout, 5 % stat
High A: 95 % scout, 5 % stat
AA: 70 % scout, 30 % stat
AAA: 90 % stat, 10 % scout

My personal belief (unless I am proven something else) is that stats are too unpredictable at the lower levels. You are dealing with young players working on improving aspects of their game and still growing. Hitting 30 homers at Low A doesn't mean your a star and hitting 5 at Low A doesn't mean your not going to be a power hitter. I am a process rather then an end result guy as it relates to these players. I don't care if you hit .215 as long as you have executed the changes we have seen and thus now have a full off season to cement those changes and hopefully take a big step forward. Once you get to AA, everyone is talented. Thus, stats can begin to paint a clearer picture, as this is the 1st level where every hitter should be able to hit a breaking ball and every pitcher can throw one for a strike. Once you get to AAA, that is mainly performance based to be similar to the majors. You must perform to stay at AAA.

That is a very rough draft of my ideas in regards to a player development philosophy and I look forward to growing these items as I gain experience.