UtahRatt wrote:Andy Van Slyke: EX Mariners, outfield stand around coach? Just set a bunch of bridges on fire. I gonna listen to the entire interview later, sounds like he had a lot to say.......Including candidly speaking about the Cardinals organization. Maybe he was hitting the bottle but he didn't hold too much back.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/11/andy-va ... -radio-mlb
Andy Van Slyke reveals that Clayton Kershaw wants Yasiel Puig traded.
Slyke said the "Highest Paid player" for the Dodgers went to the GM's office and asked for Yasiel Puig to be traded....When asked if it was Kershaw, Slyke said "I didn't say his name"
Four other big takeaways from Van Slyke’s chat with Cusumano:
1. Felix Hernandez is pitching with a partially torn elbow ligament.
“There’s a guy up in Seattle who has a torn elbow it’s about 25% torn and has been for the last couple of years — but he keeps pitching,” Van Slyke said while accurately discussing the fickle nature of pitcher injuries.
“Who’s that?” Cusumano asked.
“Hernandez…. Felix Hernandez,” Van Slyke answered. “Now, is it going to completely tear? Who knows? Here’s my point: How many pitchers don’t have some kind of tear in their elbow? Everybody does. The question is, is it going to snap or not? And nobody can predict that, Frank…. Every pitch he threw, we were like, ‘Is his elbow going to go on this pitch?'”
1. Van Slyke not impressed with Robinson Cano.
Cano was the single worst awful player he's ever seen. He does try sometimes. He couldn't drive miss daisy. Couldn't get a hit that mattered and the worst defensive 2nd baseman he's ever seen in 24 years in the big leagues. Robinson Cano lost the GM's job, the hitting coach then the coach and all the other coaches. His impact cost the team and peoples jobs.
3. Hitting coaches don’t do all that much
Van Slyke explained that Howard Johnson lost his job as the Mariners’ hitting coach midway through the 2015 season only because Edgar Martinez decided he wanted to return to baseball and Mariners brass did not want him coaching in another organization.
The team had a .670 OPS with Johnson as hitting coach in 2015 and a .758 mark after hiring Martinez. But according to Van Slyke, that doesn’t mean all that much. Asked how much impact a hitting coach can have, he said: Very, very little. A hitting coach is sort of like taking your kids to day care and then picking them up. They get the toys out and ready for everybody, then they pick up the toys and they close up shop. You might teach a kid how to build a block every now and then.
But you’re basically dealing with a bunch of 3-year-olds, spoiled athletes, who — unless they’re willing to listen, unless they’re willing to make themselves better — you might as well be speaking Russian to these guys, because they’re going to do what they’re going to do. I would say a hitting coach has very, very little to do with the success of a team offensively.
Here’s the thing about any hitting coach: A good hitting coach is a good hitting coach when he’s got good hitters to work with.
4. More psychology-based coaching is coming
Before Van Slyke signed off — surprised that his hour was up — he made this prediction:
You’re going to see something happen in the Major Leagues that happened about 10-15 years ago, with analytics and statistics. We’re going to get mind coaches at the Major League level. There’s a new wave of dealing with baseball players, that they’re going to start thinking they can make them better mentally. You watch, Frank. I’m calling it out right now. Every Major League team is going to have a psychiatrist of some kind, or some kind of mental coach that they think is going to change the game.
With that said.....Seattle just hired Andy McKay former Rockies mental skills coach as the M's director of player development.
I read that. He's not impressed with Cano? Dude played hurt all season. Just had surgery. And he doesn't think he's good? Cracka please.
