re young catchers in article blue cis pitt edu genetic pitt edu david m tate writes as for rushing if there really is a qualitative difference between the minors and the majors that requires a period of adjustment and i don t believe there is then wouldn t you rather waste lopez s year old good season than his year old very good season or his year old excellent season the sooner you get him acclimated the more of his prime you get to use can anybody name a player who was rushed to the majors let s for argument s sake define rushed as brought up to the majors for more than a cup of coffee prior at age or younger and performing below expectations whose career was damaged by this rushing i m serious i tend to agree with david that bringing the player up sooner is better but i d like to look at players for whom this theory didn t work if there are any i d prefer players within the last years or so because then i can look up their minor league stats it s important to distinguish between players who legitimately had careers below what their minor league numbers would have projected as opposed to players who were hyped and failed but actually had careers not out of line with their minor league numbers let s kick it off with an example of a player who was rushed although there doesn t seem to have been any damage to his career jay bell was given pas in the major leagues at age and performed well below what you would expect from his aaa numbers the same season he got pas the next year at age and still underperformed however the next year at age his performance improved and he won the everyday shortstop job and has been there ever since it s really hard for me to see where he would have been better off staying in the minor league where he was performed quite well in aaa during this time rather than being rushed cleveland might have been better off i suppose because they might have been less likely to give up on him yes if you bring a player up early he s likely going to struggle but does that delay the time at which he stops struggling and starts performing up to expectations sherri nichols snichols adobe com
