There is no disputing that the Red Sox have had a good business model since the current ownership group took over 10 years ago. The success on the field — 93 wins per season and a pair of World Series titles — is proof in the pudding. Ditto the sell-out streak at Fenway Park and emergence of “Red Sox Nation” as a well-established brand.
Is a segment of that model now being compromised, or even replaced?
Brendan Ryan isn’t a scuba diver or a dog catcher. The 29-year-old Cardinal-turned-Mariner is a middle infielder — a pretty good one at that — but when a little subterfuge is in order, he can be most anything. Above all, he can be one of baseball’s more engaging personalities, as adept with a quip as he is with scooping up a ground ball. Befitting a .256-liftime hitter with limited pop, he is also appreciative for the opportunity to wear a big league uniform, which he did last year in Seattle after spending four seasons with St. Louis.
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David Laurila: How did you end up attending college in Idaho?
Brendan Ryan: First of all, it was a very different experience. I grew up south of Hollywood, east of Beverly Hills, and west of downtown, so I was right in the middle of L.A. To go from that to Lewiston, Idaho, a town of 30,000, was culture shock. Things were slower, to say the least.
How did I get there? In high school I was busier playing baseball, and being rewarded with detention, than taking my studies as seriously as I should have. My family and I thought that Lewis and Clark State might be a good fit, because there would be fewer distractions. I also had an opportunity to play there on a scholarship.
DL: Was culture shock a valuable lesson leading into pro ball?
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Pat Hentgen had a lot of success against American League hitters in the 1990s, but he couldn’t solve Cecil. The Blue Jays right-hander had 19- and 20-win seasons, earned three All-Star berths, and won a Cy Young award. Against Cecil Fielder, he was a replacement-level stiff. Prince’s old man punished him to the tune of .360/.429/.880 in 57 plate appearances.
Why did the hard-throwing Jay struggle against Fielder, and to a lesser extent against Brady Anderson, Wade Boggs and Nomar Garciaparra? Conversely, why did he have success against Ken Griffey, Jr., Paul Molitor and Rafael Palmeiro? Hentgen — now a member of the Blue Jays coaching staff — did his best to answer those questions.
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David Laurila: How did you get hitters out?
Pat Hentgen: I was primarily a fastball pitcher. I elevated the ball at times, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident.
Coming up through the minor leagues, I was a fastball-curveball guy. They always instilled in us to practice throwing changeups, but that was always my third-best pitch.
When I broke into the big leagues, I realized that my fastball command was probably my best asset. For five years, I pitched with just a fastball and a curveball. In 1996, our pitching coach, Mel Queen, taught me a cut fastball. That made me a fastball, cut-fastball, curveball guy. Toward the end of my career, I started throwing my changeup more, so I was a four-pitch pitcher, with the changeup being my fourth pitch.
DL: How much did individual hitters dictate your approach?
Eric Hosmer finished third in this year’s American League Rookie-of-the-Year balloting, but you might not want to bet against his going on to have a better career than the players who finished one-two. The left-handed-hitting Royals first baseman hit .293/.334/.465, with 19 home runs, and he did it as a 21-year-old. By comparison, Jeremy Hellickson is 24, and Mark Trumbo 25.
Hosmer, who came into the season rated as Kansas City’s top prospect, made his Royals debut on May 6. A few months later he sat down to talk about his hitting approach and his early impressions of the big leagues.
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David Laurila: What is your approach at the plate?
Eric Hosmer: You can’t really think too much. It’s more about just having a plan against the guy you’re facing. You’re basically knowing his strengths, knowing your own strengths, and sticking with your plan. I try to see ball and hit ball, and keep it as simple as possible.
DL: What do you know about hitting now that you didn’t when you signed your first professional contract, three years ago?
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There is a good chance that Jeremy Hellickson will be named American League Rookie of the Year this afternoon. Whether he deserves the honor is a matter of debate, but there’s no question the 24-year-old hurler got some terrific results. The Rays righty went 13-10 and led AL rookies in starts [29], innings pitched [189] and ERA [2.95].
Hellickson talked about his pitching approach during the regular season’s final month.
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David Laurila: What is the key to being a good pitcher?
Jeremy Hellickson: You have to be able to go out there and repeat your delivery and command all of your pitches. It’s not always an easy thing to do.
A lot of pitching is mental. You need all of the physical tools, but once you’re out there it’s just you and the catcher. A lot of being able to compete in this game comes from how mentally strong you are.
DL: What dictates how you attack a hitter?
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Bob McClure won’t be returning as Kansas City’s pitching coach next year, but that’s not for a lack of experience. The 59-year-old former southpaw reliever has plenty of that, having taken the mound in 707 games before joining the coaching ranks. He also doesn’t lack for good stories — nor is he shy about sharing his opinions on the strike zone or why pitchers do, and don’t, succeed. As for his appreciation of parables, that’s to be expected when you count Ted Simmons among your mentors and when you spend quality time with Brian Bannister.
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David Laurila: You pitched in the big leagues for 19 seasons. What type of pitcher were you?
Bob McClure: When I was brought up to the big leagues [by the Royals] they needed a left-hander out of the bullpen, so I did that for three or four years. After about 200 games as a reliever, I became a starter. That was in the early 1980s, with Milwaukee, and I did that for three years before going back to the bullpen. Around that time, my velocity dropped, which meant my location had to be better and I had to start pitching a little differently.
DL: Why did your velocity drop?
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When it comes to hitting approach, Jackie Bradley, Jr. fits the Red Sox blueprint. A common catchphrase within the organization is “selectively aggressive,” and that’s exactly the mindset the 21-year-old outfielder brought with him from the University of South Carolina.
Bradley was an on-base machine in his freshman and sophomore seasons with the Gamecocks, reaching safely at better than a .450 clip. A wrist injury hampered his junior campaign, but Boston saw enough promise in his sweet left-handed swing to take him 40th overall in this year’s draft.
Signed at the August deadline, Bradley got his feet wet at the professional level with six games in short-season Lowell and four more in low-A Greenville. He shared his thoughts on hitting during his short stint in the New York-Penn League.
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David Laurila: Is hitting simple, or is it complicated?
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Zach Britton’s rookie season was both predictable and surprising. The 23-year-old left-hander went 11-11 and 4.61, in 28 starts — numbers that could reasonably be expected from a highly regarded first-year hurler competing in baseball’s toughest division. How he arrived at them was the unexpected part.
Britton went into the year rated as the Orioles’ top pitching prospect, thanks in part to a power sinker that was lauded as “the best in the minor leagues” and a slider that graded out as plus. His 2.8 GB/FB rate in 2010 complemented his scouting report, and his 2.43 K/BB was rock solid.
In his first season in Baltimore, Britton wasn’t nearly the same pitcher. He more than held his own against big-league hitters, but in a different way. In the future, that’s probably a good thing — but only if he can recapture the worm-killing magic that led to the hype.
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David Laurila: How would you describe your rookie season?
Kelly Johnson may or may not be a Toronto Blue Jay next season, but wherever he ends up, he promises to have a better year with the bat — regardless of how many times he strikes out. The free-agent-to-be second baseman hit a respectable .270/.364/.417 after coming over from the Diamondbacks in a late-August trade — but his overall campaign was a huge disappointment. Fresh off a season in which he hit 284/.370/.496, he saw his numbers plummet to .222/.304/.413. He went deep 21 times — his second consecutive year with 20-plus — but he struck out a whopping 163 times.
During a late-season visit to Fenway Park, Johnson talked about his approach to hitting, including his K rate, his extensive use of video and how Toronto compares to Atlanta and Arizona.
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David Laurila: What type of season have you had?
Kelly Johnson: One of those learning seasons that you kind of wish you were over. It’s been up and down — mostly down. At my age [29], you feel like you should have ironed out some of the ups and downs and be a bit more consistent. It’s not been the year I wanted.
DL: Why has it been such a down year?
KJ: I don’t know. It’s just been an inconsistent year, feeling for my swing. More times than not, I’ve been 0-2 and feeling like I’m in an uphill battle. It’s been a struggle to find something that’s clicked — that’s worked — and I’ve been coming here thinking more about my swing than just playing the game of baseball.
DL: Is there anything about your hitting style that makes you prone to inconsistency? Read the rest of this entry »
I like to go outside the box from time to time, and that includes asking my interview subjects to give their interpretations of quotable quotes. I did so last year with Chris Davis — then a Ranger, now an Oriole — and given the quality of his responses, a return engagement seemed in order when his new team visited Fenway Park in September. The jury remains out on the 25-year-old slugger fulfilling his potential with the bat, but when it comes to knocking questions out of the park, he’s proven he can go deep with the best of them.
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David Laurila: Ty Cobb once said, “Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It’s no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out.”
Chris Davis: There are a lot of ways you can go with that, but I think he probably meant that it’s a man’s game. It’s definitely not for the emotionally weak. You play six months out of the year and some of the games can leave you an emotional train wreck if you let them. Frankly, I don’t know how more baseball players aren’t, for lack of a better term, wusses.
DL: According to Sandy Koufax, “Pitching is the art of instilling fear.” Read the rest of this entry »
