OT- Poor Travis Snider

[rdtx2005]

ESPN harping on him

The action was his first since July 27, when he went on the DL with a toe injury. It doesn't appear Snider missed many meals while he was out.

[s e n s i]

he really does look like he packed on a lot of weight. his heavy eating habits have caught up to him or so it appears.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.js ... y_30300283

skip to the 12 second mark to watch his fat giggle. not that i'm reveling at this or anything, but he has somehow managed to post a -0.6 fWAR in 96 games this season, and barely better than replacement level in 388 total games as a pro. i think this would explain why we only got lincoln log in exchange.

[J-Roc]

He always did used to brag on twitter about how much he can eat. But still, his team is better than ours.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

Always had sympathy for the guy - guy went through a lot and was rushed way too quickly.

[Attonitus]

If he wasn't a tragic figure already he is a few cheesburgers away from it now.

[Hoopstarr]

I never understood why his eating wasn't a bigger issue when he was a Blue Jay. His Twitter was non-stop with it and everyone just cheered him on with the Meats Don't Clash stuff.

[Gibby]

Sad to see what looked like a promising career end up like this

[YogiStewart]

those who blamed it all on the Jays "rushing" him should, by now, realize that there's more to Snider's story than being rushed.

if only he'd be rushed when eating his 4 meals a day

[torontoaces04]

those who blamed it all on the Jays "rushing" him should, by now, realize that there's more to Snider's story than being rushed.

if only he'd be rushed when eating his 4 meals a day

It's a story of a guy who got a bite of the finer things in life...and REALLY liked the taste.

[Avenger]

Always had sympathy for the guy - guy went through a lot and was rushed way too quickly.

Snider's problems has literally nothing to do with being "rushed too quickly" nevermind the fact that he wasn't. Part of being an elite prospect is the fact that you perform well against tougher and older competition compared to mediocre prospects. Snider did that until he got to the big leagues at which point something went wrong, its not at all unusual, MLB history is riddled with stud prospects that fizzle out in the majors, its just the way it is.

[satyr9]

Always had sympathy for the guy - guy went through a lot and was rushed way too quickly.

Snider's problems has literally nothing to do with being "rushed too quickly" nevermind the fact that he wasn't. Part of being an elite prospect is the fact that you perform well against tougher and older competition compared to mediocre prospects. Snider did that until he got to the big leagues at which point something went wrong, its not at all unusual, MLB history is riddled with stud prospects that fizzle out in the majors, its just the way it is.

Okay, how wasn't he rushed? Drafted and played Rookie ball, check. First full year of pro at A ball, check two. 2nd year aggressively pushed to Dunedin, gets in like a dozen games before promoted to AA, then a good chunk there before another handful at AAA and September in the bigs, wait what?

I don't understand how anyone could call this anything other than rushed. What exactly could he have proved about his ability to handle A+ and AAA in like 70 ABs each in the same season?

Compare this to an overly slow, but not unrealistic, development. 07 at A- instead of Lansing, 08 at A, 09 at A+, 10 at AA, 11 at AAA with a cup of coffee, '12 called up in June for good. That would've made him a rookie the same time as guys like Middlebrooks, Simmons, and Alonso and they're all within a year of his age. Or somewhere closer to the middle of those two poles, like Desmond Jennings, who was drafted the same year, although he's older as a JC guy, and he got his first cup of coffee in '10. Obviously you can be more aggressive with some players and I'm not suggesting that curve is by any stretch ideal nor that I have any idea what would've been best for Snider's development - maybe the rush turned him out better than he would've otherwise for all I know - but he was obviously and definitively rushed.

[Nolan]

Well Brad Lincon's not looking so bad.

[Avenger]

Okay, how wasn't he rushed? Drafted and played Rookie ball, check. First full year of pro at A ball, check two. 2nd year aggressively pushed to Dunedin, gets in like a dozen games before promoted to AA, then a good chunk there before another handful at AAA and September in the bigs, wait what?

Like you acknowledged there is no ideal developmental timeline for hitters, there is nothing wrong with challenging a player, it just has to be done on a reasonable basis and i think what we did with Snider was unreasonable. Letting a player develop at a normal pace and allowing him to fine tune his game might be a good idea but you might also get make bigger gains simply challenging him against tougher and older competition. At some point(and i admit i don't know what it is exactly) you don't learn a lot by facing competition that doesn't challenge.

I don't think the September call up should count as a aggressive considering the minor league season was over, getting a taste of the big league and facing the ultimate competition is not worse than sitting home is it? Having him on the big league roster the season after that is not that crazy, he was 21 years old with more than 350 professional games under his belt where he did not look over matched at any level.


A lot of what you said is fair but you must admit that Snider could have failed even if we left him in AAA for a whole year before bringing him up. My personal opinion based on real data is that the cream eventually rises to the top, would Jose Fernandez really be more dominant if he went through every level and might Matt Moore have done better than a 4.25 career xFIP if the Rays challenged him more?

[satyr9]

My only point is Snider's push was beyond any reasonable development curve. There's fast and slow and he's beyond the fast. There are a few players who've been pushed that fast and succeeded, but it is a very very small and very elite group (Griffey, Cabrera, Harper types).

I'm saying each move on its own made some sense based on the previous one, but as an organization you ought never put yourself in this situation. Personally, here's where I think most GMs would've forestalled the cascade before it could get rolling. At the start of the season at A+, he could stayed there at least 50 games (17 games is nothing) and then he doesn't get enough time at AA to feel comfortable pushing him again to give another handful at the end of AAA, to then say hey why not see what he can do in the bigs.

The second point is even if you push him that fast through AAA, there's the AFL instead of the bigs, which would've been a perfect and aggressive strategy for a 19-20 year-old kid with 18 games at AAA instead of September with the Jays.

He comes to camp the next year, gets 50 games at AA before proving he can get promoted and there's 100 games at AAA before you consider giving him a Sept call-up. That is pretty much my absolute limit for how I'd approach a h.s. hitter's development path. That's very very aggressive IMO and anything beyond that, whether you want to count September, it did lead to stories in camp about can he make it and the constant wondering and the beginning of 4 years of yo-yoing him back and forth. Even 1 year slower could be considered an aggressive, but not insane, trajectory. What they did with Snider went just beyond that into a land that maybe 3 guys a generation can pull off.

[Avenger]

My only point is Snider's push was beyond any reasonable development curve. There's fast and slow and he's beyond the fast. There are a few players who've been pushed that fast and succeeded, but it is a very very small and very elite group (Griffey, Cabrera, Harper types).
.

This is extremely misleading, Hitters who dominate A/A+ as a teenager and AA as a 20 year old(you know the ones that you can push aggressively) are extremely rare and that's why very few big league players took that route not because pushing players against tougher competition somehow leads to failure in the big leagues. Also, Griffey, Cabrera and Harper were all considerably younger than Snider. Harper and Griffey weres teenagers in their first full seasons in the bigs, Snider was 21 years old, where is the comparison exactly? Miggy was mid season call up as a 20 yer old, Snider only got a September taste

What Snider did in the minor leagues was special and his September promotion is completely if you look at in that context. Snider was 20 and half years old when he got that September promotion and he played a fair bit(120 games) in the upper levels of the minor leagues, there's nothing even remotely unreasonable. When we promoted him for good the next season he was 21 years and 2 months old, that's young but not crazy young.

[-MetA4-]

Snider was pushed aggressively, but it was not anything obscene. In my opinion, the guys that have the skills and mental fortitude to "make it" are going to make it regardless if they are "hurried" or not. A half season to a full season longer in the minors isn't going to determine failure or success. Jose Fernandez just pitched a full season as one of the best starters in the league and he did so while being promoted after a whopping 55 innings in High A.

It is clear that Snider had obvious attitude/personality/work-ethic problems. Was punching away at minor-league pitching going to fix this? Perhaps he was pushed because they thought the experience/professionalism of a Major League clubhouse would rub off on him and potentially humble him?

Starlin Castro of the Cubs is a similar case. Is he failing because he was "pushed too fast", or is he failing because he is an immature idiot who probably lacks the "it" fundamentals needed for success at the top level?

[Schad]

I don't think that we ruined Snider, but I do think that he's a possible example of the distorting effect of Las Vegas. His 2008 numbers in New Hampshire were good, but not spectacular: .262/.357/.461, but with a major red flag in terms of strikeout rate (27.4%). He then got to Las Vegas and blew the doors off, but he was a hitter who sometimes had issues with good breaking stuff playing in an environment that prevented breaking stuff from breaking. We had no option but to call Snider up with those numbers, but he came up without completely fixing the issues that began to become apparent in AA.

[akakalakin]

Travis who? you'd think the smell of his strap would have worn off by now