Rookie Of The Year?
Tomorrow afternoon 23 year old Dansby Swanson will start his first full Major League Baseball season for the Atlanta Braves. I predict great things for this kid, starting now. I would like to see him win the 2017 National League Rookie of the Year Award. I believe he will someday be a perrenial Allstar as short stop for the N.L. I'm not claiming some special insight, scouts have been touting him for years. Baseball insiders love this young player.
Swanson was drafted in the first round of the 2015 draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks, not my team but my home team since moving to AZ in 2002, an organization I've come to loathe over the past 15 seasons. They're truly a dysfunctional franchise from top to bottom but especially at the top. Owner Ken Kendricks is impatient, short sighted and incapable of providing continuity in his managerial ranks. Consistency is a vital part of a winning program. Arizona is not a winner.
Tony LaRussa took over as President of Baseball Operation of the Diamondbacks a few years ago. Fans were excited a long time baseball guru had taken the reins of thier floudering team. LaRussa's record in Oakland and St Louis speaks for itself. During his years as Cardinal's skipper they won year after year and as always, since the dawn of baseball, the Cardinals drafted and developed great young players. It's the key to long term success in MLB.
During his time in STL they a selected young pitcher named Shelby Miller. As Miller worked his way through the St Louis farm system he was seen as a front end starter by the team, maybe a #1 but certainly a #2. Not all MLB scouts agreed but one guy really loved him, manager Tony LaRussa, and that's the only opinion that mattered.
Miller made the MLB team roster for opening day 2013 a full season after LaRussa had retired as manager. He had a very good rookie campaign starting 31 games with 15 wins, 9 losses, a 3.06 ERA, 173 innings pitched and 169 Ks. These stats supported the opinion of LaRussa and others who saw him as a front of the rotation arm. Sadly for Miller 2013 is his only good MLB season to date. He dropped to 10-9 in 2014 with every statistic falling into mediocre range. He was traded to the Atlanta Braves before the start of the 2015 season.
During this time Dansby Swanson was a star at Vanderbilt where he was named Most Outstanding Player leading Vandy to the 2014 College World Series Championship. He was drafted in 2015 but a pitch to the face delayed and shortened his first minor league season.
LaRussa never stopped loving Shelby Miller, even as he suffered on a super shitty Atlanta team with a 6-17 record. To be fair his stats bounced back in 2015 even with that horrible record. He started 33 games, pitched 205 innings with a 3.02 ERA and 171 Ks. Those are stats of a winning pitcher. So, Tony LaRussa made a trade before the 2016 season.
Arizona traded the #1 ranked prospect at short stop, Dansby Swanson, along with a solid everyday OF Ender Inciarte and another minor league prospect ... for Shelby Miller and a minor leaguer. I believe this will someday prove to be a horrendous deal for the Diamondbacks. I'm just your average fan, what do I know? Many baseball insiders agree.
At that point in his career Miller was seen as a #3 starter by most talent evaluators, some thought him a #4 starter in a good MLB rotation. For some reason LaRussa still viewed him as a #1 or #2 starter and since the Diamondbacks had signed Zack Grienke as their new ace, #2 stats for Miller would be great.
Swanson has been compared favorably to Cal Ripkin Jr as far as his tools go, minus the power which may come later. I think that's crazy talk. You can't project that kind of impact on a young player but the fact they even mention Ripkin when discussing Swanson says all you need to know about the kid. His skills are obvious but best of all ... and I truly believe this is the deal maker ... Dansby is a young man of exceptional work ethic and character. I've always said, "You can't coach character." and I adore high integrity players who work hard and hussle.
The Diamondbacks paid a horribly high price to obtain Shelby Miller. It was 'trade rape' as we like to call it when one team gets screwed hard, but they made the deal because Tony LaRussa LOVES the kid he drafted many years ago when he was with St Louis.
Swanson had a great 2016 in the minor leagues and was called up to the MLB team on August 16. He made his MLB debut the following day going 2 for 4. In 38 games Dansby hit .302 with 39 hits, 3 HR, 17 RBI, 20 Runs and a .803 OPS ... a good start for a kid with less than a season of professional baseball playing on a bad team.
I have nothing against Shelby Miller, he's a fine young man who will likley have a respectable career when it's all said and done, but you don't trade a super highly ranked every day short stop who hits for average for middle of the rotation starting pitcher. Miller had his worst season last year with the Diamondbacks, 3 wins, 12 losses, a disasterous 6.15 ERA and only 101 innings pitched, the lowest of his career. Injury made it a brutal season. He opens the 2017 season as the #4 pitcher in the starting rotation.
Dansby Swanson is at the very beginning of what may be a fantastic career in Atlanta, which happens to be his hometown, while Tony LaRussa starts the season with a new coach and general manager. Dave Stewart, the GM he instructed to make the Swanson-Miller deal, was fired by LaRussa after the 2016 season along with field manager Chip Hale ... the latest victims of owner Ken Kendricks' impatience and poor insight. It's another example of why the Arizona Diamondbacks are not a good franchise. They have a revolving door in their front office with bad deals and lousy management creating chaos year after year. It's not the players, they have solid talent throughout the organization, but without steady management on the field and upstairs they continue to flounder.
In the 16 baseball seasons since I've been in Arizona, including 2017, they've had 8 managers and 7 general managers. Of those 8 field managers 4 had never managed a MLB team prior to taking the job in Phoenix. That's not a recipe for continuity and consistency in an organization.
I wish I could like the Diamondbacks, I really do, but if there's one thing that makes me dislike a franchise in any sport it's bad management and the appearance that they only care about making a buck and winning is not necessarily part of the equation.
I hope Dansby Swanson wins NL Rookie of the Year and a lesson is learned in Arizona that helps them recover and become better at the business of baseball. I also hope Shelby Miller has a great 2017 and beyond so he doesn't become a footnote in the tale of a bad deal.