I thought this passage from a Joe Posnanski article on the concepts behind the Oakland A's success was relevant to the Souza situation.
"The A's called Donaldson up for a trial in 2010 ... and he bombed. It was only 34 plate appearances, but he looked helpless at the plate. He hit .156 and left indelible images in the minds of the A's decision makers.
Of course, it was only 34 plate appearances. The A's are too shrewd to put too much stock in that; most teams are. They gave Donaldson another chance at the start of the 2012 season ... and their image of Donaldson being overmatched was confirmed. After 100 plate appearances through June, Donaldson was hitting .156 with one walk. That would be: ONE WALK. It was over. The A's sent Donaldson down and, at age 26, there seemed no reason to believe he would be back.
"One of the things that people forget about Billy," Zaidi says of Beane, "is that he played in the Major Leagues. People refer to his failings as a player a lot, but he reached the Major Leagues a few different times; you have to be a great player to get to the Majors. People forget that, and I think one of the most misunderstood parts of Billy is that he still sees the game as a player. That is a part of him."
In other words, Billy Beane's first reaction to Donaldson is the same reaction almost anyone around baseball would have: Donaldson can't play. But then something happened -- Donaldson went back to the minor leagues and, in 2012, killed the ball for two months.
System One might ask: So what? You saw the kid with your own eyes -- he can't play. And baseball history is littered with players who destroyed Class AAA pitching and could not hit at the Major League level -- it has happened so often that those players have their own name, Quad-A players.
But here's the point: That A's try not to believe in fuzzy concepts like the Quad-A player. True, some great Class AAA hitters failed multiple times in the Major Leagues. But the A's think many more were simply written off too soon. "Billy has us ask one question all the time," Zaidi says. "In this case: If Josh Donaldson were on another team, would he be the sort of player we would really want to trade for? The answer was yes."
The A's called Donaldson back up in August and made him the everyday third baseman. He hit .290 with power the rest of the way ... and he has been one of the best players in baseball ever since.
Are the A's the only team in baseball smart enough to put away personal feelings and popular groupthink and trust in overwhelming Class AAA numbers? No. Other teams would have been smart enough to give Donaldson another chance. But only they can answer the simple question: Would they?"Here's the link. (There's also a section on Tommy Milone.)
http://www.nbcsports.com/baseball/mlb/oakland-wayThe thing about Souza is that it doesn't matter if you already have three guys in the outfield who are doing okay (and Span isn't even doing that). Souza has shown his skills for three straight years. He's leading the International league in OBP & Slugging Pct., so he's leading in OBP by 74 points. Oh, and he's leading in batting average. He has as many walks as strikeouts, and his K rate is down around 16%.
There's a damn good chance he would be a significant improvement to the lineup. There's a better-than-damn-good-chance he would be an improvement to the bench. Let him platoon in the outfield and see just how good he can be. Don't waste the entire year with h im languishing at AAA, only to find out next year that he was ready to contribute.
I sure would like to know what Rizzo's thinking is. I know you guys have your ideas, but I don't necessarily agree. I wonder if he's close to pulling the trigger.
(The other thing I wonder is when all these experts who rank the MLB prospects will realize what's going on in Syracuse.)
