- MAT's $1.75 million is trivial compared to Robles's $614K, with both compared to the team's total salary. Consider how the two play and which is contributing more.
- MAT hits 8th, just like Robles. Nobody thinks Taylor is The Answer to anybody's CF. Taylor failed in Washington, which is why, months ago, I mentioned that Robles hits no better than Taylor.
- Robles was signed and promoted as a big star. As Slateman reminds us, Robles was rated high as a prospect and teams wanted him. He had four years in the minors, about what other good players have had. If it is an age thing, which is nonsense anyway, future stars of all "eras" often show they are stars before they are 25. To believe in "age" is to believe in magic over training.
(- side note: "Different eras" is not persuasive. The Joe Torre Yankee champions played baseball pretty much the same as now. A starter went about six innings, and the Yankees had a 7th inning guy, an 8th inning guy, and a closer. That first year, John Wetteland closed and Mariano Rivera pitched the 8th. Then Rivera closed. All along, they had Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, and Ramiro Mendoza, plus some extra relievers. Tonight's Nats organize their pitching staff about the same. Today, the Nats might have more assistants, more roving minor league coaches to teach prospects. I don't know for certain. Still, twenty years ago, a team had roughly the same farm system they do today. Even in 1950, the minor leagues were not so different, but there were B and C league teams rather than rookie leagues and two layers of A-ball. Stars, like Cecil Travis, showed that they would become stars in their early twenties.)
- The point, and it is obvious, is that Victor Robles shows no more sign of being able to hit MLB pitching than MAT has. If anything, Robles is getting worse, or his .255 / 17 homers / .766 OPS for the season masks that pitchers were learning to get him out. They seem to be doing nothing but getting him out by now.
- Send Robles to AAA, or even Harrisburg, until he learns to hit. That's why I mentioned Harmon Killebrew: Killer could not hit during his Bonus Baby seasons, bounced from minors to the Nats, and finally got some coaching in 1958. Came back at 23, in 1959, and was a Hall of Famer from that minute on. See if Robles can be taught. He is certainly learning nothing with the Nats. Rochester is probably a better place because he will meet a few "crafty" experienced pitchers. He might learn to hit breaking balls, and how to out-think a pitcher. Incidentally, Ted Williams, in "The Science of Hitting", says that the key to hitting is thinking, rather than perfect vision or the fastest reflexes.
- It is possible that Robles became a big-time prospect and climbed to the majors with "tools" but without baseball toughness. Billy Beane called it "arrogance" in "Moneyball". For anyone who has not read the book, Beane was the twin signing with Daryl Strawberry. The two had all the "tools" in the world. When Mookie Wilson got hurt (1986?), Beane was the Mets number 1 prospect CF, followed by Stan Jefferson. Lenny Dykstra was third, and had no "tools". The difference, Beane tells us, is that Dykstra was overconfident to the point of arrogance, a mean kid convinced that pitchers were nothing. Steve Carlton was "that guy over there". Maybe Robles, like Beane, lacks baseball arrogance? (I don't know, so I hope it is a matter of experience with Robles, but baseball is filled with talented guys who cannot compete with the best)
