God bless Liam for creating the Bernie Button, it’s a handy tool to get right to Bernie Miklasz’s internet posts without having to see the psychotic flamewars and endless trade “Duncan, Boggs and Ryan for Matt Holliday” threads that make up the P-D forums. For what it’s worth, the other day Bernie called Chris Perez “Reyes II” and said they are trying to turn him into a sinker/slider pitcher. Ugh.
First of all, he is a slider pitcher. Or at least he is when he’s right. Secondly, I had no idea he was being told to throw the sinker but…um…why? I have no qualms about having him try to throw lower in the zone, but when you throw 95 you can get away with throwing a pitch up on occasion. I tried to find data on Perez’s splits in different parts of the zone and found no success, (not sure what it would’ve been worth, anyhow) but I do remember that at times his FB would get a little too true at times, so he can’t just fling the ball up in the zone all the time, but I don’t seem to recall him doing that.
I’m continually baffled that minor league pitching coordinator Brent Strom preaches that pitchers should “be themselves”, while Duncan has to fix everyone by making them a sinker-ball pitcher. The whole org doesn’t seem to be on the same page, to put it lightly. But I’m not here really to discuss that; I would like to just ask you all: Should the Cardinals trade Perez? Because if he’s not their cup of tea I’d hate to see him be monkeyed with and correspondingly lose his value as a ballplayer.
Even without being monkeyed with, I for one am not thoroughly sold he’s the closer of the team’s future; it seems we have seen a lot of these college closers with shaky control problems settle in as middle inning guys-David Aardsma, Joey Devine, Royce Ring, Ryan Wagner, Craig Hansen, heck, even Braden Looper to an extent. The jury is still out Devine and Hansen, but their outlook isn’t as bright as it was when they were drafted. Chad Cordero and Huston Street have proved to be the exception and not the rule, so I found this past draft to be pretty screwy with the landrush on relief pitchers.
I think Perez is a heck of a bullpen arm, don’t misunderstand me. He’s easily a top 3-5 prospect and has more upside than any pitcher in the system. I’d like to see the Cards exercise some patience and help him develop. But if Duncan is the one developing him and feels he just has to reinvent him, then I’d rather see him traded while his value is high. My heart can’t take another Anthony Reyes saga.
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I think Bernie is full of poop on this one, but we’ll see how it plays out.
It should also be noted that Bernie originally claimed that the Cardinals sent Perez down to develop a cutter and that Duncan would not let him throw any high fastball up here.
That thread has mysteriously disappeared.
Thanks for the props, but did Bernie take down that thread? I don’t see it.
I think we should trade him now. KRod is available in the offseason and Perez’ value will probably never be higher.
KRod will cost a fortune, 4 years probably 64 million or something in that range, maybe 5 years at 75 million. The Cards will not sign KRod. Can someone dig up what Perez’s ERA or FIP is when he only pitches one inning at a time. Relievers can really blow their ERA out of proportion with one bad inning. Several of Perez’s bad innings came in his second inning of work. He normally never does that. That might be something that TLR and DD just need to adjust to even if it doesn’t fit their bill.
wow, I couldn’t agree more about Dunc’s style of “fixing” pitchers. I hope they don’t apply that to Perez. Since when did pitching become one style fits all?
It got me thinking about how many of our young pitching prospects have we actually developed lately? I spent a few minutes going through baseball reference for the last few years and noticed a few players, but nothing really impressive:
- Wainwright (although he was drafted by another organization)
- Reyes – I wouldn’t call that development
- Thompson – servicable
- Haren – shipped out, bullpen arm here, occasional starter
- T. Johnson – was rule 5, got back, servicable until injury
- Narveson – didn’t do anything
Besides Wainwright (who was drafted elsewhere) and Haren (who we shipped out) who stands out??
We really don’t have any homegrown arms recently.
Bernie likes to try and start stuff and stir things up. Sorry if I don’t believe a word of what he’s spewing.
I’ve brought up Brian’s point to my buddies a lot – the Cardinals can’t develop pitching. We’ve hit with Morris, Wainwright and Haren; I’d say McClellan, Thompson and Johnson are tweeners (right now); we’d missed with Bud Smith, Ankiel, Alan Benes, Narveson, Cavazos, Dove, Cali, Journell, Pearce, etc (the list goes on) – and most of these guys never got a true shot. I fear Ottavino and Herron are on a similar path.
Duncan can work a miracle with declining vets, but they tinker too much with the young guys that have nothing wrong.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the Cardinals simply cannot develop pitching. . .that if they want a frontline starter, they’ll just have to acquire him from another organization (Wainwright, Carpenter, Lohse, etc.). The numbers seem to bear it out. We’ve developed one certifiable ace in the last dozen years (Morris). I, for one, was not sorry to see the Cards pass on Porcello last year. . .who probably would have been completely screwed up in our system and a complete waste of $7 million.
If they want sinkerballers, they need to draft them, not try to convert them.
Fortunately, that seems to be what is happening of late.
I wonder if this schism up to the last few years was a product of the disconnect within the organization.
I’ve sometimes wondered if Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax would have ever reached their full potential under Dave Duncan. They both struggled early in their careers. Anthony Reyes is obviously not as talented as those two HOF-ers, but I wonder how locked into his pitching philosophy is Dunc, and would he have been obsessed with converting Gibson and Koufax into sinker ball/groundball pitchers.
One thing is for sure, Perez isn’t working on a sinker at Memphis right now and if Duncan wanted him to learn the pitch then he’d have ordered Perez to throw it at AAA so it was ready when he came back up. But right now Perez is just throwing tailing 94-97 MPH gas at Memphis.
You can’t discount what Wainright has done just becuase the Cardinals didn’t draft him. He started in AA, pitched two seasons in AAA, and has thrived under Dave Duncan. To say they haven’t developed any other pitchers is as simple as they haven’t had much talent come through. I understand Reyes didn’t work out, but it’s not as if Reyes had all the talent in the world and Duncan smothered him. Reyes didn’t have the stuff to blow it by people at the major league level and maybe Duncan tried to give him a better approach. Maybe there was a better way, a better fit, but this idea that Duncan just ruined a great pitcher seems a little far fetched to me.
A lot of ill will here towards DD. Narveson, Cavazos, Dove, Cali, were all marginal talents. Ankiel’s explosion wasn’t because DD was trying to make him throw a sinker. I believe Reyes problems are in his head and with his controlm though I do believe he could have been handled better by TLR/DD. Benes was injured.
TLR or DD one stated publicly that Perez need to work on his slider. Nothing was mentioned regarding a sinker.
That the thread is now missing is no surprise. Bernie’s always full of crap.
Some fans do not have the perspective to be able to distinguish junk (Cali, Cavasos, Dove) and blah (Reyes) from premium arms. This is understandable, because reporters will hype whoever is near the majors during spring training.
The good news: Dunc is a genuine pitching expert and he can do the brain-work. What a relief for the rest of us.
Part of the hype about Reyes was because there were no other arms in the upper levels of the system that even remotely resembled a frontline starter. It’s kinda like going to a weight watchers meeting to meet women. After a while the 200 pounder might look good compared to the 300 pounders.
From Chris Perez mouth he was sent down to work on his slider. Asked him myself last week in Oklahoma City.
Where is today’s DFR? What is this I hear about Garcia leaving the team in Memphis?
I believe Alec on this one. (Good sourcing!) All we’ve heard from Dunc on Perez is that he needs to get his slide more reliable, and that’s sound coaching.
My point in listing all of those pitchers were none of them developed and were given a true shot. Sure, a lot were limited talent-wise, but so was Kent Bottenfield, Garret Stephenson, Jason Simontacchi and they all worked out alright because Ducn worked with them at a more advanced age. Something doesn’t click with younger pitchers and we need someone who can develop them better, a la Leo Mazzone.
Eugene, nobody should give a chance to a guy like Pearce. Thats the point. He was not ML material.
Leo Mazzone pulled his hair and gave up on Jason Marquis. Dunc did such a good job, Jason got a $21M deal. It was Dunc who developed Marquis, not Mazzone.
Why dont we all let a real expert like Duncan do the thinking? How could fans posting their incohate thoughts on an Internet message board possibly be smarter than somebody who has been a pitching coach for 30 years and had Cy Young winners? Yowza, lets get a grip folks.
This kind of thinking is lame. Lets see, Dunc was around for the ML success of rookie Adam Wainwright. For rookie teen-ager Rick Ankiel, before the sad melt-down. For rookie Josh Kinney, before hurt. For rookie Bud Smith’s no hitter. For all of Matt Morris’ successful years.
On the other hand, Bottenfield, Stephenson, and Simotacchi did not go on to encounter greater success elsewhere.
Is somebody a truly fan of the Cardinals or just bashing the team’s pitching coach while unable to explain why?
thanks Liam trust Im not one to make things up I spent alot of time in the heat to talk to some of the guys
Beau:
We encourage you to state your opinions and disagree, but please leave the personal shots out of your analysis. I thought you did a fine job of stating your position in opposition to the criticisms of Duncan without resorting to name calling and the questioning of others’ fanhood.
Also, for the sake of argument, I completely disagree with the premise that Duncan must be right and we must be wrong because he has 30 years in the game and we are just fans/bloggers/commenters. No amount of experience gives you unquestioned authority.
While it is of course true that baseball professionals can be mistaken on particular matters, because to err is only human and because there are often not simple answers, nonetheless fans who believe they have keener insights than anyone, not merely Dunc, working inside the Cards organization, will often be over-optimistic. No amount of inexperience yields unquestionable insights.
My point in naming the names I did was to show that Dunc can take a guy that has one last chance and try something different as opposed to developing a younger players talent.
As far as Marquis, he pitched well in Atlanta until he stopped listening to Mazzone’s advise. Sound familiar? He did the exact same thing here: 1 and a 1/2 good years, then stopped listening to his coach and was horrible until he left.
I’ve been a huge supporter of the current coach staff before this year; I don’t feel they are the type that works well with younger talent (Tony likes his players). They were prefect for the teams we had earlier in the decade, but I think it time that we head in a new direction.