Last Sunday’s column included several perspectives on the strike zone. Arizona Diamondbacks’ senior vice president of baseball operations De Jon Watson wasn’t one of the people quoted, but I did address the subject with him at the winter meetings.

Watson told me his club is paying attention, and is thus aware the 2014 zone was lower than it’s been in the past. He said teams need to be cognizant of everything going on in the industry, including how umpires are calling games. As for how a lower strike zone relates to player acquisition, Watson – like others in the industry – wasn’t very forthcoming.

“With each player, we assess and evaluate what they handle best and what balls they’re putting in play on a consistent basis,” said Watson. “We do our homework to make sure we’re procuring guys who fit our ballpark, our need, and really, where the game is going. We’re always studying trends.”

What Watson said about the strike zone as it pertains to player development was far more intriguing. Read the rest of this entry »

Trea Turner has his sights set high. The 2014 first-round pick wants to be more than the starting shortstop for the San Diego Padres [or, if last night’s reports are accurate, the Washington Nationals]. Turner wants to be a star.

He could have been a Pirate. Pittsburgh drafted Turner out of high school in 2011, and the now-21-year-old had no trouble picturing himself in black and gold. He told me the Pirates personnel he spoke to during the draft process were “awesome” and that he still keeps in touch with the area scout. Turner said he’d have “loved to be a Pirate,” but “needed to go to college and make myself better both mentally and physically.”

Turner enrolled at North Carolina State, and excelled. In three seasons with the Wolfpack he hit .342 and stole 110 bases. His junior year, he won the Brooks Wallace Award as the best shortstop in college baseball.

Along the way, he received plenty of attention from scouts. Read the rest of this entry »

Anthony Seratelli came into spring training with a chance to make the New York Mets roster in a utility role. Instead, the 31-year-old career minor-league veteran spent the entire season in Triple-A. Now he’s heading to Japan.

Seratelli signed a one-year contract with the Seibu Lions, and the primary reason was money. Nine years after entering pro ball, his big-league hopes slowly fading, it was time to finally earn a meaningful paycheck.

Minor-league salaries are abysmal. The standard salary for first-year players is $1,100 per month. At the Double-A level, players get approximately $1,500 per month. Triple-A players can make markedly more, depending on experience and 40-man-roster status, but some earn as little as $2,150 per month. Major League Baseball’s minimum salary recently increased to $507,500 per year.

Minor-league players only receive paychecks April through August. They aren’t paid during spring training, instructional league, or during the offseason. For seven months out of the year, they’re training on their own dime. According to Garrett Broshuis, the Uniform Player Contract “requires players to perform work throughout the year, but teams aren’t paying them for that.” A prospect-turned-attorney, Broshuis is involved in a class-action suit to improve compensation for minor-leaguers.

Each Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team has a 70-man roster and the lowest-paid player on any roster reportedly earned the equivalent of $44,000 US dollars last year. Seratelli signed with Seibu for $600,000, plus incentives. Read the rest of this entry »

Chili Davis is now the hitting coach in Boston. Josh Donaldson is now a Blue Jay. For the past three seasons they were together in Oakland, where they didn’t always see eye-to-eye.

Davis is a note-taker. He logs how his hitters are being pitched to, as well any bad habits they might be getting into. He also logs conversations. If Davis sees a player getting away from what he does well, he can reference his notebook and address the situation from there. There was a certain amount of push-back when he approached the club’s all-star third baseman.

“Donaldson was stubborn,” Davis told me earlier this week. ‘Donaldson was, ‘This is how I do things.’ And that’s fine if you’re swinging it good. But if you’re not swinging good, and not implementing what you told me you like to do, I need to bring you back to when you were doing things right.

“Donaldson, at times, would say things that contradict how I think. I’m not saying he’s wrong – that’s just how he thinks – but I had to adjust to that.”

According to Davis, Donaldson’s mechanics – he utilizes a leg kick – require “more rhythm and sync” and can “get violent at times, too aggressive.” He said Donaldson needed to focus on being under control, and not jumpy.

Davis made clear that while Donaldson could be stubborn, he wasn’t inflexible. Read the rest of this entry »

Rico Brogna’s primary role with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is to see if statistical data passes the eye test. His official title is Quality Control Coach, and he’s well-suited for the job. Brogna played nine big-league seasons and has scouted and managed in the minor leagues. He knows how to break down what happens on the field.

The 2014 season was Brogna’s first with the Angels, although he and general manager Jerry DiPoto go way back. They were teammates with the Mets in the 1990s and later worked together in the Diamondbacks organization.

Brogna began the year as a special assistant to the general manager, writing reports on players inside and outside the Angels’ system. He moved into his current role when Rick Eckstein, the club’s inaugural Quality Control Coach, departed in August for a job at the University of Kentucky.

According to the analytical Brogna, his day-to-day duties varied, but the focus remained the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyrone Taylor is happy to be in the Milwaukee Brewers organization. He could just as easily be roaming the outfield at Cal State-Fullerton. Football was another option, as Taylor rushed for over 1,500 yards in his senior year at Torrance (CA) High School.

Playing baseball for a living has always been his dream.

“I really just played football for fun,” Taylor told me. “I had a blast doing it, but I’ve known I want to be a professional baseball player since I was a little kid. I got letters from schools about football, and it was a hard decision not to go college, but once the Brewers showed how interested they were, my mind was made up.”

Taylor signed for $750,000 as Milwaukee’s second-round pick in 2012. It was enough for him to forgo Fullerton and dive headlong into the not-so-glamorous lifestyle of a minor-leaguer. Culture shock came fast.

“I’d heard I was going to Helena and expected it to be pretty populated, as it’s the capital of Montana,” explained Taylor. “But we cruised in there on the smallest plane ever and the airport was almost like a cabin. I was pretty overwhelmed by that. My first full year was in (Appleton) Wisconsin which, being a 19-year-old kid from California, was kind of lonely. There wasn’t much to do. It’s been a great experience though.” Read the rest of this entry »

Reid Nichols is in charge of a Brewers system heavy on youth. The majority of Milwaukee’s top-rated prospects aren’t yet old enough to drink. Their ceilings are high, but they face long climbs to Miller Park.

Nichols has been the organization’s Director of Player Development – his official title includes Special Assistant to the GM – since 2002. His 13 years have featured numerous success stories, with the likes of Ryan Braun, Khris Davis, Yovani Gallardo and Jonathan Lucroy progressing through the minor-league ranks. As Brewers’ fans are well aware, other highly-regarded prospects have failed to meet expectations.

A big-league outfielder from 1980-1987, Nichols was the farm director – and for one year the first base coach – for the Texas Rangers before coming to Milwaukee.

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Nichols on interdepartmental cohesion: “From my end it’s kind of been the same with the player development side. Our basic philosophy is to help make that bridge from the minor leagues to the major leagues as smooth as possible. Baseball is baseball. Nobody’s trying to recreate the game.

“I’m in the draft room with the projections of both of our rookie teams. I discuss that with our scouting director and the cross checkers, so they know who’s playing where. The first five to eight rounds, they pick the best player available. I stay out of that – they spend months working on their draft board – but I do tell them what we have and who is going to play. Read the rest of this entry »

Bronson Arroyo has a love-hate relationship with vacation mode. He loves to chill out and enjoy life – often with guitar in hand — but that all-too-familiar mound of dirt constantly beckons. The idea of not returning to it leaves him cold.

Arroyo was a paragon of health and reliability from 2004-2013. The tall righthander made at least 29 starts annually, but that streak ended when he underwent Tommy John surgery last July. Five months after signing as a free agent with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arroyo found himself in unfamiliar territory.

“It’s been a weird experience,” Arroyo said earlier this week. “That first month, watching the team on the road, was the first time I’d been separated from a ball club. I’d be watching these guys play in San Francisco and I’d be sitting in the house in Arizona. It wasn’t cool.”

Arroyo didn’t spend all of his time in the house. When I semi-jokingly asked how long he was on the guitar disabled list, he said he was playing in his cast two days later. He then related how hard it is to keep him cooped up inside.

“After I got out of the hospital, the doctor called my girlfriend and asked ‘How is Bronson recovering?’” said Arroyo. “She said, ‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s at the casino playing Roulette right now.’ He was like, ‘What?’ So it didn’t have me down that long.”

Positive attitude aside, Arroyo realizes recovery from Tommy John surgery is a long and winding road. His therapy sessions last four hours and he won’t begin throwing until January. While his recovery is going well, he admits his arm can’t be deemed fully recovered until it is battled tested.

Until that time, Arroyo will cross his fingers. Being on the shelf for the first time in his career has been a stark reminder that no one plays forever. In all likelihood, he would if he could. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Ziomek carved up Midwest League hitters in his first full professional season. In 123 innings at West Michigan, the 22-year-old left-hander logged a 2.27 ERA and an 11.1 K/9. His top-flight numbers notwithstanding, he created surprisingly little buzz.

The Detroit Tigers took Ziomek in the second round of the 2013 draft out of Vanderbilt University, which helps explain the paucity of plaudits. When a high-round pick from a high-profile college program excels in Low-A, the reaction is typically “That’s what he was expected to do. Let’s see what he does at the next level.”

Despite his dominance, Ziomek’s chance to pass that next test won’t come until next season. (Tigers farm director Reid Nichols gave a non-specific answer when I asked why Ziomek wasn’t promoted.) One possible reason was an opportunity to spent the entire summer working under the tutelage of Whitecaps pitching coach Mike Henneman.

Ziomek, whom Baseball America ranks as Detroit’s second-best pitching prospect, discussed his under-the-radar 2014 performance at the end of the season.

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Ziomek on his high strikeout rate: “Making pitches early in the count can put you in position to strike people out. What (the Tigers) want is for us to try to get people out early in the count. Then, if we get to that two-strike count, we can try to get that strikeout. Every pitcher – I don’t care who you are – likes to get strikeouts.

“Guys coming out of the college game have a tendency to throw a lot of pitches that are unnecessary. Keeping my pitch count down is something I improved on over the course of the year. I threw first-pitch strikes and got ahead, and as a result my strikeout numbers went up. In a way, I got more strikeouts because I wasn’t trying to strike people out.” Read the rest of this entry »

As Detroit’s director of player development, Dave Owen is in charge of a farm system seemingly short on sure-thing talent. The team’s top prospect (according Baseball America), Devon Travis, was traded to Toronto for Anthony Gose. The No. 2 prospect, Steven Moya, struck out 161 times in Double-A. No. 3, Buck Farmer, had an 11.57 ERA in a four-game cameo after being promoted to the big leagues. No. 4, Derek Hill, is 18 years old and hit .208 in rookie ball.

It would be a mistake to dismiss the potential of the Tigers’ system. Moya had 35 home runs this year and has light-tower power. Farmer’s failure followed eye-opening performances in the minors. Hill was the 23rd-overall pick in this year’s draft.

The trio doesn’t represent the only talent in the pipeline. Jonathon Crawford, the Tigers’ first-round pick on 2013, had a 2.85 ERA in low-A West Michigan. Kevin Ziomek, last year’s second-round pick, had a 2.27 ERA and an 11.1 K/9 on the same club. A number of other players possess potentially promising futures as well.

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Owen on the organization’s approach with first-year players: “We let them play. We want to give the kids a chance to breathe. I don’t think it’s right to do much with them the first year. We don’t have all the answers. How can we start making adjustments the first time we see a kid play? That first year is such a whirlwind for them anyway, with the draft and everything going on. We want to see them and evaluate, and we”ll eventually work in a few tweaks here and there.”

On Derek Hill: “We got Derek this year in the draft, so I’ve just seen him a little bit. It’s a small sample size, but this guy is exciting. He’s fun to watch. He’s just a young kid – he’s just out of high school – but he can really run. He’s a glider who runs easy and can really cover some ground. He’s a true centerfielder. At the plate, it looks like he’s going to be able to use all fields. I can see him being a base stealer. This kid has the raw potential to be a really good major-league player.”

On Steven Moya: “He’s got a chance to be a special guy. He’s got great power and it’s not just pull. He’s got power all over the park. He can go out to left field and center field. It’s a nice package. He’s a big, young man – a big, strong kid. He’s got a great body.

“Sometimes he is (too aggressive). He’s still learning himself as far as strike-zone discipline and pitch recognition. Mo’s working on that. He’s learning how teams are going to attack him – how they’re pitching him — and he’s learning how to make adjustments to compensate for that.

“It’s important to be realistic and know you have weaknesses that you need to make better. Mo does. He has a tremendous idea of what he needs to do and he’s very diligent about working on them.”

On advancing players through the system: “Our role is to get these kids in spots to gain experience and have success. We want to give them an opportunity to grow as players. Movement, as far as promotions from one level to the next, is really… a lot of it depends on success. A lot of it depends on how they’re playing. You want to keep challenging these guys. Let’s say a player is in Grand Rapids, our (West Michigan) low-A ball club, and he’s tearing it up. If you don’t feel that league is challenging him anymore, you push him to the next level. You keep doing that and hopefully he ends up in Detroit.”

On aggressively promoting Buck Farmer: “Sometimes it just comes down to timing – specific needs our organization needs at a specific time – and at that time it was Buck Farmer. It very easily could have been Jonathon Crawford or Kevin Ziomek. There were quite a few guys on that Grand Rapids team that are good-looking prospects.

“As a group, we just felt like (Farmer) was a kid who had the weapons to compete. Not that the other guys don’t. This is definitely not any disrespect for any of of other players, it’s just that we felt it was the right time to give him a shot.”

On Jonathon Crawford: “Jonathon has tremendous ability. He’s a kid who was our top pick, so we expect really good things out of him. He’s kind of in the same mold of a lot of those guys – with Kevin (Ziomek), with Chad Green, with (Austin) Kubitza, with Buck. It’s about consistency with his pitches, consistency with his delivery, commanding his fastball and his secondary stuff. When he’s right, man, he can dominate. He has power stuff. It’s really exciting. And he’s a good athlete. He’ll find his place.”

On Kevin Ziomek: “Kevin has a great feel for pitching. I’m really looking forward to him continuing his growth. He’s got three average-to-plus pitches, and he’s got some deception in his delivery. He’s a good-looking kid. He’s got that first full season under his belt and he’s been through a spring training, so he knows what to expect next year. I know we expect a lot out of him.”

On Robbie Ray: It’s hard to go to the big leagues and stay. A lot of guys will go to the big leagues and then get send back down. They’ll use that to help them and Robbie is one of those guys. He understands now what it’s like, and that are adjustments to make. Baseball is a game of adjustments. You get there and see what it’s all about – you get in the mix – and find out ‘this wasn’t working as well as I thought it should be.’ You work on that and get it right. You make yourself better so you’re more prepared when you go back. Robbie has a tremendous arm. With him, I think it’s more location and repeating his delivery.”

On the Devon Travis deal: “Dave Dombrowski is very smart and he’s always going to ask for a lot of opinions, not only of me, but of other people in our organization. We all have our opinions of what a guy is going to do in the future, and how he fits. It’s ultimately Dave’s decision – he’s the boss – and he’s going to do his homework before he makes this kind of move.

“I talked to Devon after the trade was made and told him how much we appreciate what he did for the Tigers. He’s a young man who is very professional. We do everything we can to help all of our guys grow as players, and I wished Devon continued success.”