Why do minor league baseball games matter?

[gregmag]

I'm actually starting this topic because of somebody else's insight/opinion, with which I somewhat disagree, so I hope he'll speak up at least to correct me if I give an incorrect account of his views.

 

Al (Dad of Andrew) frequently opines that minor league baseball games (in affiliated leagues) only matter on the level of player development. Thus, any decision that a minor league manager or organization makes that runs contrary to the major league organization's player development strategy is inappropriate. More broadly, anyone (at least any fan of the major league organization) who focuses on the outcomes of minor league games, rather than the ultimate end of player development, should readjust his/her focus to the real task at hand.

 

I have always found this position interesting, and I'd love to hear what others think. Here's my take: Al is 100% right from the perspective of the major league organization. That's a very important perspective, because (a) the major league organization writes the checks, and (b) we here are, after all, Brewers fans. In my view, however, Al is wrong in failing to recognize that lots of other people have legitimate perspectives that might lead in different directions. I'll put this in Nashville terms:

 

-- Nashville fans have no reason to care about the success of the Milwaukee Brewers. They want the Nashville Sounds to win baseball games. We should expect them to be every bit as mad as Brewers fans are happy when the Brewers call up one of their star players during the PCL stretch run. Do the Brewers have a defensible reason for doing that? Sure, but not a reason that we should expect Nashville fans to care about.

 

-- Frank Kremblas would be behaving strangely, by any usual standard, if he didn't direct most of his mental energy toward winning baseball games. The Nashville players, even the prospects, also have good reasons to care first and foremost about winning baseball games. If the manager's and players' desire to win games gets in the way of the Brewers' development strategy, I would assume the onus would fall on the Brewers organization to make necessary course corrections. But I also assume development strategy 101 holds that, more often than not, the best way to develop players is to have them play baseball games that matter in their own right, which should usually harmonize the manager's / players' focus on winning games with the organization's focus on development.

 

-- Most interestingly in philosophical terms (but probably least in practical terms), I don't believe Brewers fans are off base to care whether Nashville wins or loses. This is baseball; none of it actually matters, in the "real world" sense. My kid won't have a happy life if the Brewers win the World Series; the U.S. economy won't improve if Doug Melvin picks up a lefthanded bat. We care about baseball, as fans, because we decide to care, and we decide to care based on a wide range of factors. A big factor, for a lot of us, is familiarity; we grow up reading about the Brewers, and watching their games, and rooting for them. Well, in this day and age, I can follow the West Virginia Power almost as easily and fully as I can follow the Milwaukee Brewers -- so why, in the big picture, is it weird for me to be happy if the Power run off a winning streak, even if the prospects on the team are regressing? (I changed the example from Nashville at the end there because I wanted to maintain some grounding in reality.)

 

I think all of this connects to an interesting discussion about how the minor leagues are organized, in particular the costs and benefits (in whatever terms you please) of big league organizations' control over the minor leagues. I don't know the history or economics of minor league baseball well enough to form a coherent opinion about that issue, but I'd love to hear the views of anyone who does.

 

Greg.

[tyguy20204]

I don't think Al would argue with you - he's simply looking at it from the perspective of the major league team. Plus, it's Al.

[kramnoj]

Well, in this day and age, I can follow the West Virginia Power almost as easily and fully as I can follow the Milwaukee Brewers -- so why, in the big picture, is it weird for me to be happy if the Power run off a winning streak, even if the prospects on the team are regressing?

 

As a Brewer fan, I don't know what the benefit is of the Power winning lots of games. To offer an extreme example, the Brewers could load up the Power roster with 27 year old non-prospects. They may win more games, but that isn't going to make the few prospects that are on the team better players.

 

I've lived in a couple of minor league towns. I went to high school in Las Cruces, NM which is about an hour from El Paso. The Diablos were the biggest professional sports team in town. But as a fan you don't grow attached to players, because they aren't going to be there for a long time. You go to the game because it is cheap entertainment, it's a fun way to spend a summer night, and there are promotions and other entertainment besides the game on the field.

 

I've also lived in Sioux Falls and Sioux City, which both had Northern League teams. They weren't affiliated, so you didn't see rising stars, but you had the same experience as you would get in going to a AA game. The main difference is that players making a comeback would use the Northern League as a way to get back. I saw a Saints game in Sioux City that featured Jack Morris and Dwight Gooden. That was a lot of fun.

[ewizabeff]

I would think you'd also have to look at this from the perspective of the manager and coaching staff. They need to manage/coach as if the game matter if they want to develop their skills to a level that will get them a managing/coaching job in the major leagues, right?

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Yeah as a Brewer fan I hardly even look at the score of the minor league games. I just look to see how everyone did individually, but if the teams are winning games then great, but it's not the most important thing when it comes to the minor leagues. The minor leagues is for player development and whatever else comes of it beyond that is a bonus.

[dadofandrew]

Greg sums up my views very well, as does kramnoj, as non-prospects win a lot of games. How would we feel if Salome was DHing because they had a fine defensive roster filler catching (though I think Angel is probably doing quite well for a kid at that level)?

 

It's all about the kids getting better. Wins and losses are not the point until you get to the bigs.

[Mass Haas]

Al is more right than wrong in his thinking, no doubt.

 

That doesn't mean we can't enjoy a long winning streak, or some exciting last at-bat victories, or the top five affiliates all making the postseason last year. The Link Report would be boring without those things.

 

But beyond some happy home fans and the experience of playing additional and more pressurized games in September, the reason the farm teams exist is to produce future Brewers -- that's priority # 1 through 99.

[logan82]

Mass Haas wrote:

the reason the farm teams exist is to produce future Brewers -- that's priority # 1 through 99.

I guess that the Brewers agree or we wouldn't see Turnbow starting games in AAA.

[TheCrew07]

I think it's different for every team... if the team is loaded with prospects like Huntsville, they should win and get better all at the same time. When you have a team like Nashville this season, well there's a reason no one educated on the minor league side is complaining about the results, other than Nelson and Rottino there's no one prospect worthy that I'd follow daily... therefore we just hope that Rottino is making strides behind the plate and Nelson has turned a corned in his career. On the flip side we know very little about the AZ kids, and that team never wins, so I'm looking for the couple of guys that are playing good ball in the middle of the storm down there. My expectations will differ with each team.

 

Winning isn't the ultimate goal, but it still matters, and the managers should put their teams in the best position to win games. Their jobs are much more complicated than we give them credit for because they are juggling limited pitch counts for pitchers while trying to even out playing time for position players, all while doing their best to win games. It's not an easy job and it's a tough lifestyle for anyone. Like any baseball game it's going to come down to the pitching and while the organization sets up the rules, the managers still have latitude to shake things up and use guys in different situations. If a manager isn't making a difference with his players, what chance does he ever have of coaching at the MLB level? What may be true from a player development point of view, may not be true from a coaching point of view. From a player standpoint wins and losses don't matter, but I garuntee that if a given coach isn't getting the most out of his players he's not going to stick around very long. It's pretty easy for people who aren't directly involved to throw around opinions, but it's quite different when you're at ground level working with the young men.

 

I guess the best analogy I have is that our coaching staff tries to go right by all the kids and getting them all playing time until they reach Varsity where wins and losses truly matter. We joke all the time about "JV State", and since there isn't such a thing we're going to keep as many kids interested as possible. The flip side though is we do care about wins and losses because we're comparing the relative talent level between our kids and theirs... maybe wins and losses was a bit extreme, we want our kids to be competitive... if it's a close game and our 3rd string JV Corner gives up a touchdown and we lose... well no one is going to lose any sleep. However we do evaluate our Frrosh and JV talent relative to the rest of the league, you always want your kids to be competitive.

 

Of all the managers in the system Kremblas gets the least talent to work with every year, and he's consistently gotten results. Nashville's record certainly hasn't been a reflection of being prospect laden, anyone who succeeds there doesn't last very long (with the exception of Hart). I like what Kremblas does. he pushes the young men to become better all around players, and teaches them the games within the game. I find the notion that he's a "whiner" because he wanted a game called earlier misplaced... when you read the whole story you find out he was mad because the pitchers could not grip the ball and it was sailing on them all, some hit the backstop on the fly, so he was forced to use extra relievers. To me that's not whining, that's DiFelice getting hurt and Kremblas having to burn through the whole pen with 2 more games the following day, in my opinion Kremblas was being practical about the situation. Kremblas has his character flaws for sure and I'm curious about his actions surrounding the all-star game, but he's not a "whiner".

 

Wins and losses are not meaningless, it's a good measuring stick to see how our kids compare against other talent in the leage, and it's an easy way to see where the talent is in the system if nothing else. In my time here and from reading his blog I've noticed Al tends to run very black and white, there's not a whole lot of gray in any of his opinions, and I suspect in his life. It's just the way he rolls.

[kramnoj]

I think another thing here that matters is how teams stock their farm teams. The lower levels are clearly about development. But the AAA team is often used as an extended bench for the majors to stash players who will be called up in case of injury. There are probably a few Huntsville players that are better than their AAA counterparts, but there isn't a drastic difference in AA and AAA in terms of opposition faced. There is also an intangible in keeping a bunch of propsects together in AA, they will form a bond that hopefully leads to a better clubhouse when those players get to the bigs. I remember reading Gammons say when Vlad was coming up that the Expos kept Vlad in AA longer because the AAA team was filled with a bunch of miserable veterans, and the positive friendly atmosphere in AA was more important than the minor bump in talent faced in AAA.