To ask what is player development may appear to be a silly question. However it is not; this term is often either misunderstood, misinterpreted or has completely different meanings.
For example, the new owners of the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres have stated that player development is a high priority. In Chicago’s case they feel that the team already has sufficient talent while San Diego is more interested in great scouting.
In both cases, their concept of player development boils down to selection or recruitment of talented players and then playing them. In the process of playing the players are inundated with all kinds of strategy. With the Padres much of it is based on statistics, especially now with the new GM.
Improvement is not based on improving a players skills such as hitting, running, throwing, etc. But yet, is this not the ultimate objective of player development? If the player cannot execute the basic skills, and execute them well, better than the opponents, how can we expect him to become a better player?
These teams may have new owners, new coaches and new players but in all cases their “player development” will be the same. It will be based on the belief that they will be able to identify and recruit the best talent. In other words, they hope to now have new personnel who can guess more effectively than the previous ones.
My use of the term guess has great substantiation. The best scout in the world may be able to identify some future or present talent but in order to fully develop this talent it will take some scientific training. This is the concept that is still ignored in MLB. Sadly, it is not unique to baseball.
The write ups given to new owners, coaches or GM’s take up much space in the papers and magazines. But if you collect these write ups you will see that from year to year they basically say the same thing with only the names being different. Some may put more emphasis on one or another aspect but they still ignore scientific advances, advances that have been proven to be successful.
Thus they go along on their merry way hoping that this year the team will be better and that they will win not only the pennant but also the World Series. It provides great fodder for the barroom argument and for all the Monday morning quarterbacks. It does little however, to ensure success for a winning team.