Welcome to DK Sports Radio and a new Daily Shot of Pirates, my every-weekday, half-hour program on the local baseball franchise. Today's episode: Blake Cederlind's never pitched in Class AAA, but the kid’s got the stuff to strikeout big-leaguers now ... if he gets the chance.
Also, hey, just below, you'll find a full transcript of the opening segment:
If you haven't already subscribed, here are some good links to do so:
• Apple
• Google
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• Overcast
Thanks for listening, and expect more to come!
THE TRANSCRIPT
So let's say the Pirates have this kid who throws, oh, 100-plus miles an hour. Wipeout slider. Menacing presence. Got it all.
But he's really, really young. And you're not crazy about the concept of starting his clock too early.
What do you do with this individual in 2021?
If it sounded like I was describing Blake Cederlind there, give yourself a tip of the cap. Once Nick Burdi went down in the 2020 season, along came Cederlind. I don't want to say he was Burdi's equal because Burdi's older, but he was right up there in terms of performance and in terms of potential. Back in Spring Training 1.0 in Bradenton, Cederlind was just phenomenal. It wasn't just what he was doing on the gun. He was flooring people with his command of his offspeed stuff, which is hard to even call offspeed stuff because it was coming in there with ridiculous speed. He's a real talent.
He did end up getting a cameo in the strange 2020 season, but that didn't really mean all that much. I mean, everything was really weird. The Pirates were almost completely out of arms, the Altoona satellite camp was almost completely out of arms, and they would've reached the point where they were just picking up people off the street. But Cederlind wasn't to be laughed at not at any point. He's the real deal. He does things on a pitcher's mound that most pitchers aren't capable of doing. They're not even capable of fantasizing about throwing a baseball the way he does. That's some rare air.
Now, he hasn't pitched in Class AAA. And that's where things start getting a little bit ... ominous, I guess, if you're Ben Cherington? Do you risk messing the kid up? By having him just jump into the majors because he's immediately your best relief option, which he might be? He might be. And I'm not just saying that because this team has no closer right now. But he might be your best bet, or Derek Shelton's best bet to come into a bases-loaded situation and just whiff everyone. Or, for that matter, he could be your closer.
You don't make decisions based on the 2021 team. Let me make that part very clear. So this isn't about that. This isn't about what gives these guys the best chance to win this year. They're not going to win this year. They're not even going to be competitive this year. But what does matter is the kid's progress. If he's ready to strike out major-league hitters, you've gotta let him do it.
And this isn't just about Cederlind. I really hope that one of the many things that changes moving forward under Cherington, compared to under Neal Huntington and Kyle Stark, is that young players who are ready for the next level -- legit ready, not surface ready, not statistically ready, but legit ready on all fronts, including stuff that people like me and you can't see -- that they absolutely should be promoted. I just don't believe in clock manipulation. Not because of unfairness to the players, heaven knows. There's so much stacked against a team like the Pirates in Major League Baseball's economic system that I really don't care what the Pirates would abuse to gain an advantage for themselves within that system. So this isn't about that this isn't about how the players should be up earlier to start their clock earlier so they can make more money. I couldn't care less. I care as much about that as the players do about the Pirates as an organization having a fair chance to compete for a World Series.
No, my thing with the clock is this: Let's say Cederlind came up. Just for fun. Let's say Cederlind makes your bullpen in 2021. And you do the obvious clock manipulation, meaning the thing where you keep the guy down for a month or whatever it is, like they did with Ke'Bryan Hayes last season, a move that makes a lot of sense and everybody does to gain a full year full additional control. Yankees do it. Red Sox do it. Cubs do it. Dodgers even do it. But the bigger manipulation is more along the lines of what Huntington and Stark did with Josh Bell. Bell was ready to be in the majors a lot earlier than he was, and I could argue that maybe his staying down as long as he did instill some bad habits. Because a player figures out, whether it's a hitter or a pitcher, a way to succeed at that level. And once they figure that out, they constantly operate with their get-out-of-jail-free card.
Did I ever tell you the story about Jameson Taillon in the low minors?
With that ridiculous curveball that he's got, every time he'd get in trouble, he'd throw this majestic Bert Blyleven, Steve Carlton level curveball that'd just nosedive under the bat. And these minor-league hitters had never seen such a thing. It was as if Taillon had landed from outer space throwing this thing. So he never had to really struggle to get out of a situation by leaning on his other pitches. This was his parachute. He would just push a button and walk off the mound. Well, the Pirates' development people at the time told him that was it, that there'd be no more curveball, that he needed to use the fastball to get out of situations. Not even the greatest curveballs of all time get you out of a jam if the hitters know they're coming. Not in the majors. They'll size it up, and they'll hit it a long, long way if they know it's coming. It was a good lesson for him. It was also a rare good instance of smart development by the previous management.
This is the year that Pirates are going to reset in a lot of different ways. From a record standpoint, that's fine. But if Cederlind comes up and starts his major-league career now, the same way Hayes will, he'll still be the Pirates' property for the next six years. So don't worry about the clock. Don't worry about what the Pirates will look like in 2028, for crying out loud. Because if this thing takes that long, oh, my goodness, we don't even want to carry this conversation any further.
