By Kiley McDaniel

I went out to catch a matchup between the Dunedin Blue Jays and Tampa Yankees yesterday; to see a few notable pitchers and get yet another look at intriguing bat Travis Snider.

Yankees RHR Mark Melancon (pictured, right, in college at Arizona) isn’t quite all the way back from Tommy John surgery, but there were certainly some encouraging signs.

Yankees (somewhat surprising) 2007 3rd round pick RHP Ryan Pope was on the hill and prompted me to investigate the mystery of Ryan Pope.

Jays OF Travis Snider continues to play into his profile, and that caused me to launch into the age-old baseball man debate/conversation about what makeup is and how much it matters.

If that doesn’t make you want to read…well, I won’t finish that thought, just read the rest of this after the jump to see a video of Lou Piniella yelling…

(Mark Melancon photo credit: Josh Fields)

Melancon: that’s mel-AN-sin

The Yankees have a number of notable pitchers rehabbing from Tommy John surgery this season, so many so that fine Yanks blog River Ave. Blues has a TJ Rehab Watch feature on the front page. Potentially the finest of this group is 2006 9th round pick Mark Melancon, who got some (completely unfair to him) buzz of being 2008’s Joba Chamberlain.

I saw him throw two innings last night and while the feel isn’t back completely, the stuff is more than enough that a stint in the big leagues this season isn’t out of the question. After the PA announcer introduced him with a phonetic pronunciation of his last name (the right one is in section heading), he proceeded to pitch at 90-93 with some solid movement and deception from his funky delivery. His spike curve was a 78-80 and flashed above-average with some late snap while his change was a 80-81 with late sink and deception and also flashed above-average.

The pre-injury crispness to his command and stuff isn’t back all the way, but that’s just more upside for the kind of talent should move quickly.

The Pope Comes to Dunedin

On the hill for the T-Yanks was 2007 3rd round pick RHP Ryan Pope. He was chosen out of an NAIA school, the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Baseball America’s pre-draft report attempted to encapsulate the mystery regarding his draft prospects:

…He has a prototypical pitcher’s body and athleticism, which enables him to repeat his delivery. His fastball was up to 90-93 mph early in the season, though his velocity fell off as the season wore on. His command is below-average and he tends to leave his stuff up in the zone. His 12-to-6 curve is a below-average offering, but he shows feel for a solid-average changeup. One scout called the Bradenton, Fla., native the enigma of the draft because of how he jumped on the scene from so far off the radar…

That BA report doesn’t sound like that of a 3rd round pick to me, but I’m pretty sure the Yankees had more and better information than that, so I reserved judgment of the pick until I was able to see Pope in person.

On this look, Pope looked to be more of a small school guy with fringy stuff, rather than a feel-good story of an over-looked prospect rocketing to the big leagues.

He sat a 88 most of the night, dipping down to 86 and hitting 89 once. The fastball was pretty straight and he had good command of it, but the Dunedin hitters were squaring it up when they swung at it. He did flash an solid-average change, but about 75% of them were BP fastballs that Pope relied on his deception for effectiveness. His curve also flashed average, but it had loose spin and lack of snap at 69-71 mph.

Granted, it was a colder night for April in Florida, it’s still early in the season, and this was only one look, but it’s safe to say that a below-average fastball and two average offspeed pitches isn’t the guy the Yankees thought they were getting in the 3rd round last year. Here’s to hoping he warms up with the weather.

The Case of Travis Snider, Amorphous Makeup Guidelines, and the Far-Too-Quiet Park

Dunedin’s Knology Park is probably the quietest park in the sparsely attended Florida State League, and this shone through last night. After a series of questionable ball-strike calls against Tampa, a few hitters and manager Luis Sojo were letting the home plate umpire have it and the combination of a lack of noise and the stands being very close to the field let the whole crowd make out each word of each diatribe, which went on for a few innings. I can say that they did not sound much like Lou Piniella’s Aquafina commerical:

Along with this sentiment, you could hear everything each hitter said to the umpire while they were in the box because they faced right towards the stands to look back at him and voice their displeasure.

A few batters got upset with the umpire tonight and you could hear all of what they said—this got me thinking about what a guy has to do on a field to make you begin questioning his makeup.  Obviously arguing isn’t a sign of poor work ethic, but when do you start dinging a guy?

That brings me to the age-old question that was a hot topic in the MLB office I worked in, and I’m sure many other offices. What is makeup? Each team makes a definition so they have an answer, but what mental abilities a player possesses should be deemed important? Do we need psychologists and personality tests, or scouts and gut feel, or in-home visits and conversations with coaches? The obvious answer is all of these, but which one has the most weight?

I suspect the answer is simple, in that it’s different for every player, and thus there is no answer. But we all like to think, whether we’re paid by MLB clubs to know or not, that we have a special insight.

If you read this far, you probably have an opinion, let us know what you think in the comments.

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