How brilliant was it to promote McLean when they did?

[roger_that]

I know, I know, it was a wonderful move.

But I always wonder when any rookie performs well immediately, if he was a great addition to the team when they promoted him Tuesday, could they have gotten the same level of performance if they'd promoted him on Monday? Ya think?

Well, if they could have gotten it on Monday, how about last Friday? Or last month? Or the month before?

I suspect when someone plays lights-out from the get-go that the team made a mistake in postponing his promotion as long as they did. The only logical counter-argument is that he was a great callup on Tuesday, but a horrible rush-job of a career-stunting botch on Monday--that the team called him up, in other words, at exactly the precise optimal hour.

Which I find extremely unlikely.

To the point of silliness.

But that's the counter-argument to "The Mets took too damned long in calling up McLean."

Another mitigating argument, though an incomplete one, would have been if said player's position was adequately filled at the MLB level, in which case, what harm is there in keeping the young guy at AAA a few extra weeks or months?

But we know that the exact opposite situation applies to the Mets starting pitching recently. It was a horrowshow of injuries, poor pitching choices, overtaxed arms, and lousy results.

My conclusion is that rather than praising the Mets for promoting him when they did, McLean's excellence is a condemnation of their wisdom in making player-personnel decisions.

And you know there were people in the front office, who got overruled, suggesting that he be promoted instead of continuing to start Frankie Montas. We will probably never learn who was making that suggestion so please don't tell me that the Mets' entire organization was behind that choice, and that they do this for a living whereas I am a misinformed fan griping on my couch. I get that. I'm more talking about the nature of McLean's promotion and the timing, which we will never know about fully, and the conclusions drawn from his immediate success. Most fans tend to conclude it's a sign that they know what theyre doing, and I tend to view it as a sign that they don't.

[Edgy MD]

It is dangerous thinking. It can only drive you mad.

[MFS62]

Mets fans are already crazy about their team

They don't have to be driven mad.

Now it's just a putt.

Later

[roger_that]

It is dangerous thinking. It can only drive you mad.

 

Do you have any evidence at all that I haven't taken that drive already?

[Edgy MD]

Well, I would encourage reversing field.

[roger_that]

Well, seriously (just for a second), what we have here is an unprovable hypothesis. Unprovable either way: it could be that the Mets were brilliant and picked the exact right moment to promote McLean (unlikely as that seems to me) or it could be that he could have won 10 or 12 games by now if they'd promoted him earlier and the Mets would have a comfortable lead in their division today.

We will never know.

But surely (I know, you don't like it when I call you that) there must have been at least one terrific rookie in all of baseball history who could have starred if he'd been called up months before he was called up.

And if you can grant me that there was that one rookie, who can say that McLean isn't the second?

[Edgy MD]

Of course there are people who were called up too early. Of course there were people who were called up too late. And there are probably even a few called up at exactly the perfect time.

And of course it is unknowable who these people are or were. To the extent we know anything about whether this guy or that guy received the right or wrong timing, we only know in deep retrospect, and what we learn is far from definitive. And that is why this is the way of madness.

[roger_that]

So we're entirely in agreement. The only difference is that, unlike most grateful Mets fans, I tend to view McLean's performance to date as evidence that he could have performed similarly a month or two ago, when the Mets' need for a good starting pitcher or two was already manifest.

I felt the same about David Wright, Hubie Brooks, and Jose Reyes and several other Mets who did well almost immediately on reaching MLB, btw.

[MFS62]

That may have been true with the other players you mentioned, but I'm not sure that would have been true with Mclean. I read an article a few weeks ago about how he has changed his pitch mix this year.

He has four pitches, but it wasn't until he developed command of the sweeper that he was ready for the majors. That has become his most effective "out" pitch, he now throws it (IIRC) 40 % of the time and it has made his other pitches more effective. If they had brought him up earlier, I'm not sure if he would be pitching like we've seen.

Later

[Edgy MD]

So we're entirely in agreement. The only difference is that, unlike most grateful Mets fans, I tend to view McLean's performance to date as evidence that he could have performed similarly a month or two ago, when the Mets' need for a good starting pitcher or two was already manifest.

 

I cannot speak for most Mets fans and I would suspect that you cannot either.

Of course his performance is evidence that he could have performed well sooner. What it isn't is conclusive evidence.

Unless you have three exact clones of the same player, and call each one up at a different time and then measure the three outcomes across time to the ends of their careers, keeping 100% of all other factors even, this remains unknowable. And that is why this is the way of madness.

[Frayed Knot]

fwiw, the Mets have said that they felt that McLean needed work on facing LHBs and wanted to see progress there before bringing him up.

Just because he's had two fine games in August doesn't mean that also would have been the case if brought up in May or June.

Wright had less than one season's worth of ABs (just over 400) in AA & AAA combined prior to his ML debut.

Reyes had just under 500 at those same levels, all of them as a teenager, when he was called up.

Neither situation suggests that their ML debuts were unreasonably delayed.

[roger_that]

My point is not that Wright or Reyes or anyone was "unreasonably delayed." It's that they were MLB-ready the day they were called up and, unless the Mets are luckier than anyone could expect to be, they probably were ready somewhat before that day.

You know, lots of young players have a rough first few weeks or months (I'm thinking of Strawberry in particular) but they adjust and after a while they begin to perform at a high level, even a ROTY-level (again, Strawberry). So it's certainly not true that every young player should have been called up sooner than they were. But with young players who show no sign of struggling at first, you have to wonder.

[Edgy MD]

I can show a Himalayan mountain of evidence that refutes the notion that Reyes was MLB-ready the day he came up. To state that he was as if it is an established fact suggests that evidence is not what you are looking for at all.

[roger_that]

I can show a Himalayan mountain of evidence that refutes the notion that Reyes was MLB-ready the day he came up. To state that he was as if it is an established fact suggests that evidence is not what you are looking for at all.

 

Can you, though? He was promoted in the middle of June, played a rangy shortstop while getting off to a slow start with the bat, but before July was over, he was batting in the .280s. His season was done at the end of August, by which point, 69 games in 2 and 1/2 months, he was playing a major league quality shortstop and batting .307. Despite playing fewer than 70 games, he had 2.3 WAR. I call that "evidence" of a rapid demonstration that he was an excellent player at the age of 20 even if you don't. I don't think there was a Mets fan in the world who said at any point there "Gosh, I wish they would have left him in the minors longer."

And of course if you're being literal about my words 'first day' I'll remind you that he got two hits, one of them a double, and scored two runs in his first three at bats as a Met, which most of us took as a positive sign.

[Edgy MD]

I would not write that I could do something that I could not do.

[roger_that]

Okay, so while you're preparing your Himalayan mountain of evidence, why don't you read a bit from Reyes' Wikipedia entry?

 

Reyes made his major league debut on June 10, 2003, against the Texas Rangers, the day before his 20th birthday, going 2-for-4 with a pair of runs scored in a 9–7 loss.[7] Reyes was the first teenager to play for the Mets since Gregg Jefferies in 1987,[8] and the first to start a game since Dwight Gooden in 1984.[6][7] After the game, Reyes collected the ball from his first career hit and sent it to his parents. Over the following weeks Reyes' impressive form continued, including a grand slam off Jarrod Washburn in an 8–0 victory over the Angels. When Rey Sánchez completed his month-long spell on the DL, Reyes' strong play moved Sánchez to the bench.

Reyes' season was cut short a month early by a sprained ankle, but he still managed to compile impressive rookie numbers. In 69 games, he batted .307 with 32 RBIs and 13 stolen bases. Reyes finished 8th in voting for the 2003 NL Rookie of the Year.

 

In fact, instead of trying to refute "Over the following weeks Reyes' impressive form continued" with your impressive mountain of evidence, why not correct the Wiki entry first? Can't allow ridiculous lies to spread, can we?

[roger_that]

Rather than continuing to engage in a snarkfest with you, Edgy, over approximately nothing, I would be curious to know how far back the oldest posts on this forum go, if you've troubled to save them. If so, we could look at posts from summer 2003 on the subject of Reyes, how good the CPF thought he was, what was made of his callup, and so on. I have no idea where these old posts might be, if they exist, but maybe someone else (you?) knows. Might be interesting to review in general. Maybe my memory is off, and we were denouncing the Mets organization for their foolishness in calling up this raw minor leaguer and expecting him to perform at a major league level.

[Edgy MD]

Unfortunately, while our forum goes back to the late Bobby Valentine era, the archives only go back to 2005, as some sort of massive data crash at ezboard destroyed the first few years.

[Edgy MD]

Anecdotally, we had a poster consistently arguing that José Reyes should have been called up earlier, which is fine, but he would not entertain any notions or evidence to the contrary.

I am guessing that was you, no?

[roger_that]

Yes, you are guessing it was me.

[Edgy MD]

Congratulations, Doc G. Welcome back.

[Lefty Specialist]

Not to open a can of worms, but we may be having this conversation about Jonah Tong shortly....

[Centerfield]

I think it's impossible to know if it was the right time to call up a particular player when it comes to that player's development. But as far as a team in contention is concerned I think it would be far fetched to argue that the team couldn't have used McLean, even a lesser version of him, during the losing streak in June.

McLean said he got better against lefties in his recent starts. Would he have not made that progress pitching in the bigs? I don't see how anyone can know the answer to that.

As far as Jonah Tong, I can't figure out how he's that good. The clips I'm seeing of him shows a lot of swing and miss on his fastball, and a decent change up. Hopefully that can translate to the big leagues, but who knows.

[Lefty Specialist]

Well, we're going to find out the answerto that question on Friday.....

[roger_that]

I think it's impossible to know if it was the right time to call up a particular player when it comes to that player's development. But as far as a team in contention is concerned I think it would be far fetched to argue that the team couldn't have used McLean, even a lesser version of him, during the losing streak in June.

McLean said he got better against lefties in his recent starts. Would he have not made that progress pitching in the bigs? I don't see how anyone can know the answer to that.

As far as Jonah Tong, I can't figure out how he's that good. The clips I'm seeing of him shows a lot of swing and miss on his fastball, and a decent change up. Hopefully that can translate to the big leagues, but who knows.

 

Yes, everyone agrees that it's impossible to know, by definition: "knowing" requires access to an alternate universe. But it's certainly reasonabe to suspect that if a rookie has an impressive start to his career, he very likely could have been called up earlier and had that success. What we can "know" is that holding him back longer would have been needlessly timid. I maintain that there's a very thin line between AAA success and MLB success, and GMs are reluctant to test how thin that line is.

BTW, I haven't heard much from the Baty-haters lately. I wonder why that is.

[MFS62]

Gee.

Depending on how well he pitches, we'll soon be able to belabor the same question about Jonah Tong.

Later