The Kansas City Royals have an exceptional scouting department; they find talent.
The Royal front office has a good minor league instructional system as the top
prospects perform well in the minors.
But then development seems to come to a crashing halt when the prospects are
promoted to the majors. Apparently, all coaching and instruction stops and the young
players wither on their own.
This pattern is happening with the Cubs.
This is Castro's 4th season. He is no rookie. He is a professional.
He has 3 hitting coaches, a fielding coach and veterans on the ball club to help him.
But he continues to regress. Some now think there are too many people talking to him.
Some others think that he has a form of ADD. A few believe that he was spoiled with his
talent at a young age and never had to work to improve his game, until now. It could
be laziness or lack of incentive since he signed a big contract last year.
But Sveum's own comments were damning of his managerial approach. He told the media
after the benching that at some point Castro "has to figure things out himself." Sveum's
inability to correct Castro's faults have been thrown back solely on the player. Sveum
is washing his hands of the situation, throwing up the surrender flag.
Which is stupid. The front office paid Castro to be a "core" player. His performance decline
is directly related to the front office staffing of the manager and coaches (this also applies
to Rizzo's massive decline in performance, and now visible fielding problems that beat
writers have just notice which I told you guys about last year.).
Dusty Baker was blunt in his philosophy: it was up to the player to prepare himself for every game.
Nothing he could say would change things. That is why Dusty was a player's manager because he
leaves his players alone. That may only work for a veteran club, but it is disasterous for a rag-a-muffin collection of cast-offs and journeymen that is the Cubs roster.
Now, in the past Sveum said that the coaches had been working with Castro. So why is their instruction not working? Has Sveum given up? Has Castro just tuned everyone out? That's the real story.
The side bar question that is starting to get raised is whether Epstein and Hoyer, the Boy Geniuses,
really know talent (since they put a ton of money on Castro and Rizzo) or whether they are slight of hand boardwalk grifters who acquire a ton of players in the statistical hope that a few will pan out. Epstein told us that Castro and Rizzo were foundational players for the future. Based upon both players offense and defensive lapses this season, one has a right to begin to question the front office's talent evaluation and development processes.
