Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 50: Travis Snider Tells All/Should the Giants Bring Melky Back in October?

Episode Date: September 26, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss what we can learn from Travis Snider’s revelations about his relationships with his former manager and hitting coach, then talk about whether they would bring Melky Cabrera back for the NLCS.

Good morning and welcome to episode 50 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Prospectus Daily Podcast. Now in episode 50 of Up and In, Kevin and Jason lined up Scott Orris as a special guest. And on episode 50 of Effectively Wild, I have lined up Scott Boris as a special guest. And on episode 50 of Effectively Wild, I have lined up Sam Miller in Long Beach, California. And I am Ben Lindberg in New York, New York. I have spoken to Scott Boris before. Yes, that's right. And you didn't think to call him to actions and see what you could do?

It wasn't, it was not so that he could congratulate me on my success that i spoke to him i remember the circumstances um so episode 50 do you have any words uh about the number 50 yeah no okay do you not really it's a short show it's it hardly feels fair to pat ourselves on the back for 50 segments this short. Yeah, it's 50 days. It's 50 days, yeah. I mean, yeah, 50, that's like two months. We've been doing it two months now. It's not that exciting. Well, congratulations to us for sticking with this for two whole months. Well, congratulations to us for sticking with this for two whole months. Can I quickly address the ongoing controversy over aces in the postseason?

Sure. We can just make it a regular segment. I have a theory that might not hold up, but it's a little bit of a theory for why teams with superior aces might not have a notable edge in the postseason, as we've talked about repeatedly. I wonder if it's the case that the better your ace, the more likely you are to pitch him on short rest, therefore diminishing his actual greatness and turning him into just a typical number four starter. That is an interesting theory. We should look into it. We should look and see how often that happens. One of us should look into it.

Yes, maybe one of us will. But yeah, that makes some sense. Some sense, I don't know. There are Cliff Lee types who don't pitch on short rest even though they are the aces. But I guess on the whole, the starters that people would consider the ace probably do tend to go on short rest more often than not in the playoffs. So it's feasible? Probably not. But it's a theory.

My guess is that it doesn't come up enough that it would sway the numbers back in any direction. But it's a theory. It's not even a theory. It's a hypothesis. We'll get to the bottom of this eventually. Someday. What's your other topic? Travis Schneider. That's a good one um and mine is melky cabrera okay yes uh snyder snyder or schneider do we need to agree on this

uh well there's no ch involved right i mean i know there's not i I think that probably a lot of people pronounce it Schneider, but shall we go with Snyder? I have always gone with Snyder. Snyder. I'm not sure I've ever said the name Snyder. No, I've never said it, but that is the way that I would say it, yeah. Shall I begin the show? Yes, and I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, so Travis Snyder was an elite prospect with the Blue Jays, bounced up and down between AAA and thedepth conversation about his development and about his time in Toronto. And the result, which is going to be published in three parts, but the first of which was published on Tuesday, is fascinating. And Travis, as well as his coaches, go into great detail about the tension, the friction, the problems that he had with his coaching staff. And I don't know that he goes so far as to blame the coaches, but he clearly feels that it was an uncomfortable situation playing for a manager and a batting coach that he thought were too critical of him, really too immediately critical of him. He tells the story of his very first batting practice as a big leaguer. And after his second round in the batting cage that day, his batting coach came over and said, you know, you'll never stay in the majors with a swing like that.

And he goes on and on about it. And in a way, I don't know that Snyder particularly comes off as the mature one here. I was going to ask you that because, I don't know, did you get the sense, it could go either way, I think, did you get the sense that Snyder came off as overly sensitive or difficult to manage, or did you get the sense that Sito Gaston and Gene Tennis, who he was talking about mostly, were in some way out of touch maybe with with the younger generation or or over managing him to some extent well when i read it i felt and i mean i don't want to put it on snyder because i i mean i wasn't there and i don't i don't want to i don't want him to be criticized for sort of speaking honestly about what the experience was like. But yeah, I mean, he comes off, I think, as a person who was, you know, when he came up as

a 20 year old, and for the next couple years, he was probably too immature to to take some of these guidances. There's a there's an example when he had, I think he had a batted bat, or he was late on a fastball or something like that, and he went back to the dugout and Cito Gaston said something to him about the bat. And he told him he would prefer to be criticized in the batting cages, not during a game, which isn't really, I don't think, a fair position for a player to have. really, I don't think, a fair position for a player to have. And he talks about how he didn't shake Cito's hand once when he was sent in. And he seems extremely sensitive to criticism.

And it seems as though more than them losing his trust, he just simply chose not to trust anybody else. Although, I guess you could say some of the other examples he gave, Gaston wanting him to brief him before every at-bat about his game plan at the plate, which I could see as maybe being a little burdensome. It could be, but on the other hand, if you're a 21-year-old kid and you have seen 30 major league pitchers in your life and you haven't been doing all that well while you're up there, it doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me that you would talk to your – I mean, I guess we would have to know what the expectation was of the briefing, but it seems reasonable that you would talk to a coach between at bats even during a game well we know mike trout does we know mike trout does and uh voluntarily and probably annoys everybody because of it um but it doesn't seem like an outlandish um an outlandish situation to me i mean it's always hard to say you could you

could you could look at almost any example in here from either perspective. And there's the case where he was sort of platooning with Fred Lewis, but they were both lefties, so there was no real platoon there. So basically, they were just sharing the spot. And Cito Gaston brought them into the office and said, would you guys rather play every other day, or would you rather play two games at a time? And they both thought that that was weird and unprofessional. I mean, on the one hand, sure, but on the other hand, maybe he was just trying to make him feel comfortable.

It's really hard to say without being in the room. What I really liked about this piece is that it gets you a lot closer to being in the room. I don't know that I would draw any real major conclusions about Travis Snyder or about Cito Gaston, and I don't know that that's really the point. I think the point was just that it was really interesting to see the dynamic. I don't think you really think about this dynamic all that much. And I think I think about the dynamic even less because I have a hard time remembering that baseball players are younger than me.

I still think of them as all being older than me. And so to be reminded that, in fact, Travis Snyder was the same age that I was when I first got my job. And I bristled against an editor who, for many of the same reasons and who in retrospect i look back at and think oh well you know he was pretty good at his job i was just you know i was too sensitive to see that is is interesting and um i also don't know how much we can conclude about travis snyder's development because of this there are all sorts of reasons that players fail. This was an interesting look at it and it's suggestive, but I don't know. I mean, Snyder hasn't, I don't know. I don't know that I would pin it totally on this. It's interesting that the Pirates really aren't even playing

him right now. He's only started seven games this month. And I don't know that the change of scenery is going to be the uh, the, the fix that everybody was kind of hoping for. I didn't get the sense from the piece that there was really a lot of looking back on his part and, and having that realization that maybe he had been overly sensitive or immature at the time. Um, I don't know if it seemed that way to you, but it didn't seem to me as if he was, if he felt any differently than he did at the time, really.

Not that it was all that long ago, and he's only 24 now. Yeah, he's only 24 now. You can't say it enough. It's just incredible. I wonder whether that will follow him around. credible. I wonder whether that will follow him around. You don't see players coming out and being that frank about their managers and coaches that often. Now, both of those guys are retired at this point, and he has changed teams, of course. But you don't really often see players divulging that much of the manager-player relationship and what goes on among teammates and that sort of thing. I wonder whether anyone would conclude anything about his makeup from that article, whether how he comes off in it or just the fact that he was willing to talk that much about it.

Oh, I think there's no doubt that people will. I mean, as a person who has asked thousands of people to speak on the record to me over my career, I'm grateful any time somebody speaks on the record about these things. However, as a non-journalist, I read this and I think it sort of feels a little bit bitter. It's surprisingly candid. It happened. I mean, he was just traded two months ago, so it's very raw. I am surprised that he did it. I do think it'll probably stick to him a little bit. If I were his batting coach right now, I would certainly wonder about it. Um, but Snyder is interesting too, because makeup was a huge part of his prospect status coming up. It was his hit tool and his power and his makeup. Those were the

three things. And Jason Parks, when he wrote about, uh, Snyder earlier this year in his kind of retrospective of Snyder's failed development, he said his makeup was said to be special and his work ethic was championed by all those who were able to participate or observe his immediate environment. If you spent any time around Snyder, you probably ended up giving his makeup some additional hype. He was that guy. So it's interesting to see him kind of describe himself as a very fragile and sensitive and, um, you know, in a lot of ways, bitter person. And, and I think he's, I think he's pretty candid about that. He, I think you're right that when he starts talking about, um, the, when he sort of starts self-assessing himself, uh, it's less candid. It becomes a bit more cliched. And one thing Jason often writes about

is that struggling can often either be a good thing for a player or it can possibly reveal some cracks in their makeup that we didn't know existed. And Snyder, really before he got to the major leagues, had never struggled. He was a first round pick. He pretty much hit all the way up. He hit in his initial exposure to the majors. And so I wonder, maybe he's just a guy who people thought of as a good makeup guy because they never saw him go through a tough time. And when he went through a tough time, he perhaps didn't handle it in the best way possible. I don't know whether that's why he then continued to struggle.

There's no way really for us to say that. Sadly, there's no way for us to say anything. Yes. We do it five days a week. It's hard to know. It's hard to know. It's impossible to know his future, and yet it's also surprisingly difficult to know that much about his past. This was enlightening in a lot of ways.

It adds more detail but also raises more questions. But I would recommend anybody read it because it gives you an intimate look. Where can they read it? I don't know. Should we post it on our – Yeah, we can put it on the blog post that we put up. It's on Sportsnet, which is I guess a Canadian ESPN kind of a thing? Yes.

Okay. And as for Melky, the Giants are planning to announce his fate in the next couple days, probably before Thursday or so. And it sounds like, according at least to a Washington Post report I read, that they aren't planning to bring him back

for the playoffs. He is, of course, eligible to return after the Giants' first five games. So if they were to make it to the NLCS, he would be able to come back. And of course, the NLCS, he would be able to come back. And of course, there are a lot of variables here. The on-field performance, of course, how it would affect the team off the field, all that sort of thing. So it looks like they will make a decision in the next couple of days. And I'm wondering what you'd do. Oh, I would play him. I mean, no doubt about it. I never, I mean, I'm going to sound all cocky here. I never doubted that Melky would play in the postseason if the Giants made it. And of course, there's probably still a decent chance that he won't. So I'll look stupid. But it seems to me pretty obvious that they would play their best players in the postseason when they get there.

Yeah, of course they have played extremely well since Melky was suspended. Everyone has hit really well. They've scored over five runs per game. They've gone something like 25 and 12. So, of course, I don't know whether it's safe to say they haven't missed him, but they have done very well in his absence. And I guess he would mostly be replacing Gregor Blanco if he were to come back, who is OK, I guess you could say. He won't really hurt you, but he he's certainly not Melky before the suspension.

Of course, I don't really think Melky before the suspension is what Melky would be like now. Um, regardless of, of what he was taking at the time, I think it's very unlikely that he would have continued to play at that level if he had not been suspended. And even if he had continued to take whatever he was taking. So I don't know that they'd be getting back the Melky that they lost or that they had before they lost him. And I wonder how big the difference is or the difference in win expectancy or championship expectancy,

putting Melky over Blanco for, you know, 10 games or so. And then there's the whole off-the-field issue. The players will, of course, be forced to answer many more questions about how it will affect them. Even if it wouldn't actually affect them, the questions would affect them. So you don't believe that Melke's a.346 hitter. That's fine. But do you think that there's any reason to doubt his 2011 season?

No, I think he could be that guy. Because that's a really good player. He was really good. Yeah, there's a doubt that he's better than whomever would be starting in his place. starting in his place. So I guess I would say I would start him too, unless I had some perspective from being involved in the team where I felt like the players would object to it on some level. But I'm guessing the players would probably be okay with anything that would increase their chances of getting a World Series share. Yeah, I mean, the argument against using him is not an on-the-field argument.

It's the idea that you don't want to spend the rest of your life apologizing for playing with Melky Cabrera in a tainted season. And I just don't think that that's going to really be an issue. I remember when Anthony Weiner, the congressman in New York, was in that Twitter scandal, you remember, everybody remembers. And I remember somebody writing about the way that you survive a political scandal is you simply don't resign. And if you don't resign, nobody ever gets forced out for

a sex scandal. But a lot of people cave in the days or weeks after and they resign, and then it sticks to them for a while. But if you simply just don't apologize and don't resign and just keep doing your job, it just goes away. And there's all sorts of congressmen and senators right now who have had similar sex scandals who are just going about their business and getting reelected every four or six years. were just going about their business and getting reelected every four or six years and i think that the giants if they just don't apologize if they just put the guy on the uh on the field and play um everybody will get past it pretty quickly i mean you just don't hear about ryan braun and very much and ryan braun is a much higher profile player uh nobody really believes that he was innocent last year. And the Brewers just didn't apologize.

They just plugged him in and played, and they won a lot of games because of him. And I think that the Giants would be perfectly fine. I could be wrong about that, but if I were a consultant, an image consultant, that's what I would say. I would say stand proud, do your thing, don't apologize, don't back up. Because when you start looking defensive, that's when you look weak. Well, it sounds like they're going to look weak.

Do you think that he looked weak with his batting title or his complicity in the batting title decision? Yeah. Yeah. I do. Okay. Well, there's your public relations advice of the day. Never apologize.

Never apologize unless you want to be a good person. I also would recommend apologizing a lot if you want to be a good person. But if you want to be a winner. If you want to win, just stand strong, everybody. All right. So that's 50 episodes in the can. We will be back with another show tomorrow.