Mike and Tommy and Darin

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Ok, the Mike Piazza line always gets me.  The notion is this – Piazza was passed on by every team 61 times before the Dodgers took him at the end of the 62nd round.  Scouts failed to get it right on Piazza and only by “friend of his dad Tommy Lasorda” did he even get a chance. And from that, proof that scouts don’t always recognize talent, and that, in this case, Darin Ruf, (or really anyone else), might just be better than scouts think.  Let’s look at the story, from what I know of it. 

For the record, I looked at a couple general bios of Piazza online, (wiki, ask.com or something, I don’t even know, and some fan page where I found a stat nugget I couldn’t find anywhere else).  I have not read his auto-biography, and I don’t think you could pay me enough money to do so.  If you’ve read it, or know my assumptions below to be garbage, feel free to tell me I am wrong. It won’t change my overall point. Also, I’m not from his home town and I don’t care a bit about him as a man and I was never a fan of his as a player, though clearly, he was very good.

Mike Piazza was a good enough HS 1B, MVP of his league, who played a year of JuCo and posted .367 BA in one year there – that’s the statistical nugget I referenced above – and was called slow (not in dispute), and lacking a good arm (also not necessarily wrong, though a 23% CS doesn’t prove he had a bad arm, just not a very good MLB catcher’s arm). Either way, he was hardly setting the world on fire. So for all of the Piazza-as-proof-scouts-fail folks, would you have drafted him after that? More likely you’d have said, “Wait and see how he does next year”. 

But Piazza wanted out, it would seem, maybe because he didn’t want to be stuck in JuCo another year, or didn’t think he could go to D1, or for all we know hated school with a passion and a fire that burned deep inside, (hey, sounds like me).  Maybe he was using JuCo, like Bryce Harper or Ryan Garvey or so many others, as a chance to play ball and impress the scouts, but he didn’t, or maybe he just wanted to play pro ball and was connected enough to make it happen at the moment he wanted.

While the Dodgers weren’t at all interested in him, as a favor to Piazza’s father, long time friend of the family Tommy Lasorda convinced the Dodgers to draft and sign then still 18 yr-old Mike. Seems Lasorda first convinced Piazza that he needed to try catching. I’m not sure if it took much convincing, maybe it was an easy sell, maybe not, makes no difference. Piazza went to the new Dominican baseball academy for the Dodgers and learned for a year.  He came stateside, worked his way through the minors, developed his power, became good enough to catch in the bigs for a good long while, and the rest is history.

Let’s look at this thought about scouting…it’s saying that baseball people didn’t recognize Piazza had talent, and that it proves that scouts can get things wrong.  But it’s clear Tommy Lasorda thought Mike Piazza did have talent.  Otherwise, he would have had him drafted as a 1B, gave him nothing to sign, and sent him to (I feel fine objectively saying “probably”) fail in rookie ball. 

Yes, at that point in his career, “scouts” may have seen a guy not worth a draft pick. However, Lasorda, a knowledgeable baseball man beyond question, did, took it upon himself to convince the right person to draft him, and picked the career path that would give him the best chance to succeed.  That’s what teams and professional development people do all the time.

So do I agree with the statement that sometimes scouts get it wrong? Yes. Absolutely.  Scouts get things wrong. The best ones less often, but yes. Scouts make good and bad judgments every year, every month, possibly every day they’re out there watching guys play. But Mike Piazza is an example of a talent evaluator at his best, recognizing a potential no one else saw, and putting it in a position to blossom. Tommy Lasorda wasn’t a “scout”, but he wasn’t picking Piazza to sweep the floors either.

Now add this – There are vast differences between amateur scouting that led to Darin Ruf being drafted out of D1 (as a 2-time gold glover, I just learned the other day) in 2009 and the amateur scouting that “missed” a slow JuCo 1B in 1988.  And there are vast differences between amateur scouting and professional scouting at the higher levels. Mike Piazza was BA’s 38th best prospect for 1993, and certainly recognized the year prior when he hit a ton in A+ as a 22 year old.  So, yes, the scouts figured it out eventually. Will scouts who have seen Ruf in the last couple weeks change their minds and decide Ruf is a top 100 prospect? No. Will they maybe decide his ceiling is a little higher than they thought mid-July.  I’d say they have already, just based on a couple notes we’ve seen from different scouts online.

Ruf’s August and all of 2012 is a great story.  He’s having a phenomenal season, and might be a big league bench bat in LF, or maybe a back-up 1B. He’s an older player who will be in his (at least theoretical) declining years before he hits free agency, even if he’s called up today. He’s slow enough and bad enough in LF right now to lose you some runs, and some scouts see bat speed issues, which they suspect will be open to better tactics of better pitchers. If Ruf suddenly figures out the outfield, even despite his speed, and plays a fine LF in the first half of 2013 at AAA, and if he continues to mash in April and May, I’m sure scouts they would change their stories then as well. 

But until then, I’m glad to have been following closely this past month, experiencing the same excitement fans of this fine game have experienced for their hometown heroes for generations. September call-up or not, I hope Ruf comes back from Venezuela with outfield skills enough to keep him in the discussion. I hope he hits the heck out of AAA pitchers next year, and I hope he contributes to the Phillies in the future, as a regular, or off the bench, or in a wholly unlikely and completely unprecedented trade to an AL team to have him be their 2013 starting DH 😉

43 thoughts on “Mike and Tommy and Darin”

  1. My understanding is that it’s not that he lacks outfield skills, but that he doesn’t have the body type for it.

    Like many folks on here (I’d imagine), I do not have the athletic skill to play baseball at a professional level. If you put me on a field next to Chase Utley, I would look ridiculous. Sure, you could “send me to Venezuela” and maybe I would bulk up, slim down, or whatever the case may be, but I’m not suddenly going to become faster or taller or less of a mistake hitter.

    Just wanted to throw that out there before the Ruffian hordes descend on this thread.

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    1. I don’t think anyone is saying he will get faster when it comes to actual speed. But by playing the position more he might learn to read the ball better and react faster and as a result end up making more plays. He’ll still be well below average but not as much.

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    2. Rich, the Winter League results especially the fielding progress will be key in his progression. I wish Ruff well in his next step and MLB as he seems like a very likeable person. He is being given a chance to prove himself and the Phillies are being open minded by providing that for him. I don’t think Darin Ruff can ask for more than that chance.

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  2. There is a valid comparison here and it is not the scouting of the players. It is 2 players who played 1B and when it was recognized as good of a hitter that they were their bats were not going to be good enough to stick at 1B. Both were moved to a new position that will likely push their athleticism to their limits, but all we can hope is that Ruf like Piazza shows he is adequate enough at his new position to make up for the lack of fielding.

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    1. And that nobody steals his magic bat. Has this been discussed yet? If you’re the team chasing the R-Phils in the playoff hunt, wouldn’t you be trying to sneak into the clubhouse after dark?

      And even if that doesn’t happen, who knows what will become of the magic bat in Venezuela. They have some serious safety concerns down there. Hugo Chavez might try to seize it, split it in two, and give half of the bat to Freddy and Cesar?

      These are real concerns, you guys!

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      1. Nice and informative article Brad about how players can become regulars and scouts missing their potential.

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      2. A staff member at Reading told me te “magic” bat is actually Tommy Joseph’s bat on loan due to a lost bet in the dugout. Rugs first swing with the bat was a dinger and Ruf hasn’t put it down since. True, I don’t know 100% but it sounds good.

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  3. I would say that every player, successful or otherwise, has a back story and you have done a reasonable job of overviewing that of Mike Piazza. Darin Ruf has a back story as well and I’m not qualified to provide it. It seems to me that too much criticism is hung on the fact that he spent a lot of time in college, to the point where’s he’s 26 yeas old in AA. That doesn’t carry a lot of weight with me — as it would if he were in the low minors. It seems to me that he is at the doorstep of a major league tryout which some (few) might get at 19 while others get it at 23-24 or perhaps 30 or 32. I don’t see Ruf as somewhere on an arc leading to a career like Mike Piazza’s. I would be amazed if he is able to approach ever again the numbers he has produced this year at AA. But to be a successful major leaguer, that’s not required. There are people on this board who clearly picture themselves as scout wannabe’s and see fit to disparage performance and ridicule fan optimism. What can’t be measured in the case of a Darin Ruf is determination to improve — the kind that Piazza displayed in converting to becoming a reasonably successful big league catcher and a terrific hitter. I’m not aware of any scout or internet expert who has a handle on that when it comes to Ruf, nor did they in the early stages of Piazza’s development. There is a bandwagon that not only fans but also media experts like KLaw jump off and on and it will be up to Ruf to make believers of sceptics if he can. In observing all this, I don’t really care much one way or the other as Ruf will be what he will be. What would bother me to the point of caring would be if the Phils looked at his age at this point and cast him aside. There are just too many examples of guys in the big leagues now or in the past who didn’t fit the profile but went on to have successful careers, even if they are 8-10 year careers rather than 12-15.

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    1. What puzzles me about Ruf’s defensive development, in 2010 the talk of moving him to OF had to be discussed since he did play a few games out there. IMO, the talked and the action should have been started in 2009 by the Phillies FO, if on a limited basis through the summer season. And then worked and practiced on more in the 2/3 FILs (’09.’10.’11) since.

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  4. Not meaning to stir a different pot, but Piazza has steroids linked all over him. I don’t think anyone disputes it with him, just like Boone, Anderson, Palmairo, etc.

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    1. Yes, I usually don’t like to throw about unsubstantiated PED allegations, but I think there’s little doubt in the case of Piazza, and that would certainly explain his suddenly development from a 62 round pick to one of the game’s premier sluggers.

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  6. That is a crock of sh!t ! Mike Piazza was a stud 1b in high school and was seen by every team. He was signed to go to university of Miami and told teams he would not sign. As a family friend of the owners of the dodgers.They took him in the the late rds. And invited him to there newly opened Dominican academy to work on his game. Mike had a change of heart and decided to sign with the dodgers. The story that scouts missed mike or that he sucked is a great inspirational story but like I said it is a crock of sh!t. And there u have it folks the truth!

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    1. This. It frustrates me to no end when broadcasters and others talk about late round picks like they are diamonds in the ruf, err, rough; they are, but no more than a 1st round pick. Cosart went in the 38th round because teams thought he was going to college, not because they were 37 rounds worth of players more highly thought of than him.

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    2. Piazza signed for 100k back then that is about a 2 million bonus in today’s world. So to ever suggest he was a favor or he sucked and then became good is nonsense!

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    3. Sorry, so he didn’t play a yr at Miami Dade CC? He’s on their website as an alum of the baseball program. Like I said, hard to get the whole story since it happened in 1987-88, (pre-internet…weird). Sorry if I missed the details. Who said he was a ‘stud’ btw?

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    4. It’s about time someone spoke about the Piazza situation in the proper context, and stop perpetuating these silly myths that scouts never heard of the guy.

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  7. Wow, I feel honored that my little response in defending the potential of Ruf and my citing of Piazza as an example of how even professional scouts don’t always get someone’s “potential” right generated so much reflection. First of all guys let me say that I don’t take any of this stuff too seriously and I respond to this site only because it’s fun. But, let me also add that I don’t write anything that I do not sincerely believe. Since I thought I had been instructed to discontinue my line of argument I had no intention of continuing this debate until I saw this response to my original post. Now I feel obliged.

    The only point I was making in my original post was that I think we should wait until someone bombs out before we say they have no chance. I think you are what you currently appear to be until you prove that you can go no further. In analyzing Ruf’s minor league record, it seems to me that he has performed well at every level he has played in so far and I see no evidence that as the competition gets better he will do worse. In fact, in what is now clearly the highest level of competition in which he has been tested i(AA), he has played his best. Why should I or anyone else predict that at the next level he will fail. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. But as a lifelong Phillies fan, I’m pulling for him and what’s wrong with that. With respect to Piazza, If his father had not believed in him he would never have become a ML player. It also helped that his father had enough money to hire Ted Williams to give him batting instructions.

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    1. Lenny, we’re never going to see eye to eye. But the key point is that your central premise is wrong – and thus everything that flows from it is wrong. You say: that “I think you are what you currently appear to be until you prove that you can go further.” That’s just demonstrably wrong. The evidence: a sample size of many thousands, which is to say the careers of every player who has played professional baseball in the United States.

      The reasons that “appearances” are often – are, in fact, more often that not – deceiving are legion, everything from context to, yes, age. If that were true, Tagg Bozied would have had a job as a big league regular in 2011 instead of being out of baseball in 2012. Conversely, after years of failure at the major league level, Alex Gordan would be out of baseball instead of a star.

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      1. Anyone remember when PP got crucified here, for suggesting we trade Michael Taylor for Alex Gordon. Everyone thought it was a massive overpay because Michael Taylor “appeared” to be a star, based on his numbers in AA. Surely Alex Gordon hitting 232 in the majors, wasn’t as good as Taylor hitting 333 at AA.

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  8. Yes piazza’s father was friends with Ted Williams. And also worth over 100 million dollars. Owned many Toyota dealerships in the state of PA. I know the point you were trying to make but piazza was a bad example. David Ortiz who was released by twins and had to tryout so the redsox could give him a shot to resign him would have been a better example.

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  9. He did attend Miami dade back then instead of using red shirts UM would send guys to Miami dade for a year and since he was learning to catch they sent him there. But he was not drafted out of high school because of the commitment to Miami and his father was so rich that teams could not buy him out of the UM commitment

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    1. I’m learning more than I need to know about Mike Piazza. Point stands. Using him as an example of scouts missing it is bunk.

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    1. That’s kind of a decent comp, IMO. A player with power, not that much else, and born to DH. Of course 1 1/2 years younger than Ruf at his AA debut as well. OTOH, in fairness to Ruf, Ruf’s other offenseive skills are better developed.

      Really the key point for Ruf, WHATEVER you think about him, good or bad, there really aren’t good comps. For better or worse, Ruf is sui generis.

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  12. The reason that their is such a disparity about thinking about Ruf is that there are multiple things going on here – it’s not just the scouts, but the scouts, plus his age, plus the difference between AA and the majors, plus the question of the extent to which some people are putting outsized weight on the dramatic difference between his August performance and his prior performance, plus positional/defense issues.

    I want to talk about the 2nd and third of these, because I think that’s where the disparity exists. If he was 22 or even 23 and putting up these kind of numbers, I would be very enthusiastic about him despite the scouts and defense. Here’s where the difference between AA and the majors comes in: the gap between the two is large, and performance far from directly transferable. A 22, 23 year old in AA is going to keep improving, more likely than not, so it’s possible that he really will put up similar numbers in the majors, a year or so down the road. That gives people the illusion that the gap between AA and the majors is smaller than it is.

    If you look at Ruf and see a guy who could bat .300 in the majors with 35 HR and BB in 10% of his PA – well, that guy would be a star, even with poor defense in left field. But if you realize that a guy with those numbers AS A 26 YEAR OLD in AA is not going to repeat them in the majors. And once we get more like .260 BA with 25 HR and a 7% BB rate … that’s still darn good, but as a poor defender in left at best … it starts to look less exciting. Especially when one considers that that is probably the upside … what he MIGHT do given a shot.

    And that’s more than half of this. A signficant portion of the readership here just doesn’t get the age thing. They think it’s about a shorter career, or somehow doesn’t matter if the player was a college kid, or was injured, etc. And if you ignore the age factor, OF COURSE you think he’s a great prospect, despite what the scouts say.

    The defense enters in here as well. The hope is he learns his routes, etc., well enough that he can be just a little below average defensively, as opposed to horrible, which is apaprently the current reality (at least in terms of range/getting to balls, which is the most important element of outfield defense). And that’s not an unreasonable expectation. Except the age thing enters in again. It doesn’t seem likely that he is going to transform himself into an adequate defender overnight, even with winter ball. But another summer in the minors, which might do it … well then, he’s 27 all of the sudden, even older.

    Look, I wish him well, and I do think he may be able to contribute as a bench guy next year. And who knows? He gets a shot at a regular job somehow, and he could surprise us. He likely is a major league hitter. But the age is working against him to a much greater extent than many people realize.

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  13. I “don’t get the age thing” but in fairness to myself, I don’t get alchemy either. With a small amount of searching, here are some late arrivals (non-pitchers) to the show:

    Chris Coste (33), Randy Ruiz (32) Maury Wills (26), Geronimo Berroa (29), Walt “Moose” Moryn (28), Matt Stairs (28) and Rich Thompson (33).

    Some better than others but isn’t it always like that? It’s not like a passenger train service, no station manager’s there with a stopwatch determining who or what arrived on time.

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    1. There are always late arrivals (normally they are exceptions who beat the odds). The big thing is that they rarely, read almost never, become regular or above average players. The reason as has been stated is they arrive as finish products, there is no room for growth because they are done maturing physically and in most cases have already passed their athletic peaks. This makes it harder to survive in the major leagues in terms of pure athletic ability as well as the ability to make adjustments.

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    2. That list … if anything should make you realize just how wrong you are on the age issue. That you couldn’t come up with better/more names should tell you someting. Three of those guys had marginal careers as reserves. Two of them don’t belong on the list, really, hitting AA at 22 or 23 and the majors at 24, but just taking a long time to get established in the majors. Wills … well, if the best example you can come up with is 53 years ago, that, too, should tell you something about the strength of your argument. And even he was in AA as a 22 year old, albeit overmatched. (He also was blocked at SS by a HOFer.) Moryn you need to go even further back; if your argument depends on him, you’re really reaching. And even he was in AA by the age of 23.

      The point is that a few rare players manage some degree of late arrival success. Out of hundeds and hundreds of players who have success in the minors at a late age. Ruf is not even unprecedented in that regard, aside from the HRs in August. Every year or so you have an older player in AA or AAA with comperable overall success. And they don’t, with incredibly rare exceptions, go on to major league success.

      Which doesn’t, of course by itself rule out the possibility that Ruf will be a rare exception. Even i am, by any objective measure, wildly optimistic about the man. But OF COURSE the odds are against him, largely but not entirely because of his age.

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  14. How about converting Ruf to catcher? 🙂

    Nicely done, Brad. This comparison between Ruf’s standing with scouts and players who were skipped over in the draft is giving me headaches. Let’s link to this post whenever it is used.

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    1. We already have a guy at catcher who can hit major league pitching and has been hitting home runs at a rate that we would can only hope that Ruf could match. He is also pretty good behind the plate defensively with a great arm. His name is Erik Kratz, homering every 12 at bats and hitting .287.

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    1. Trevor May’s comments on Joseph’s ability ‘how solidly he catches the ball and how well he holds it’ is an indictment on the one catcher that has caught him for the last three years, Seb Valle. Scouts had said Valle drops balls and that will tend to annoy a pitcher. Not sure why Trevor had to go there with that staement. I guess when you are 22-years old you say things wothout thinking them all the way through..

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    1. I just posted the same link in General Discussion … Brookover says it is “likely” that Ruf gets a look in Philly in September.

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  17. Righthander Ken Giles, a seventh-round pick in 2011, went 3-3 with a 3.61 ERA in 29 games, including six starts, at Lakewood and finished the year at Clearwater. He projects as a future late-inning reliever, according to Jordan. “He has the best arm in our system,” Jordan said. “There is not one pitcher in our system who has made any more progress He has a special arm.”

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  18. The important thing with regards to Ruf is that the Phillies are trying to give him a shot by moving him to left field. Whether or not he gets a callup this September, he will start next spring in AAA, hopefully in LF. If he continues to rake, I’m sure an opportunity with the big club will follow. What he does with that opportunity, nobody knows.

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