By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 8, 2014
Nepotism. It’s a charge that has been falsely and moronically leveled against the Detroit Tigers over the last couple years regarding the team’s catcher, Alex Avila.
There are a lot of dumb Tigers fans out there (like, literally tons) and one of their favorite memes is that Avila is only on the team because his father, Al, is GM Dave Dombrowski’s first lieutenant.
This asinine thought process completely ignores the fact that Alex Avila is a pretty decent catcher. He is one of the best defensive backstops in either league; has a very good handle of the team’s pitching staff; and is an offensive threat versus right-handed pitching.
(Why he is starting against lefties is another article entirely. Why James McCann hasn’t been called up to platoon with Alex is another. But I am 100% convinced it has NOTHING to do with Avila’s breeding. It’s not like the Tigers employ one of Phil Coke’s hillbilly uncles in the scouting department. Some shit is just inexplicable.)
Unfortunately, Detroit’s baseball front office opens itself up to these dumb conspiracy theories because they have a propensity to do favors for members of the organization when it comes to the draft.
In the last few years the Tigers have wasted draft picks (some relatively meaningful picks and some useless late-round selections) on people like Colin Kaline, Brett Impemba, Anthony Allen (Rod’s kid), Nick Avila (Alex’s cousin) and Ben Verlander.
The team has also drafted the son of scouting VP David Chadd and Bill Freehan’s grandson. Now, I am sure a lot of MLB teams do their employees a solid and waste late-round selections on their family members, but the Tigers seem to be an extreme case; nothing sticks out like a sore thumb more than the travails of Patrick Leyland.
As you know, Patrick is the son of former Detroit manager Jim Leyland. The Tigers selected him in the eighth (8th!!!) round of the 2010 MLB Amateur Draft. This wasn’t Mario Impemba’s son getting selected in Round 49; this was a fairly early pick.
You don’t hear much about Patrick Leyland’s progress towards the big leagues for two reasons:
1) There hasn’t been ANY progress.
2) Lynn Henning only writes about the Tigers’ farm system success stories. You know, like Cale Iorg, Ryan Strieby, Mauricio Robles and Daniel Fields.
Young Leyland is now in his fifth season of minor league baseball and his statistics are so bad that he would have to go on a tremendous Ted Williams-like hitting streak just to reach Neifi Perez/Adam Everett levels.
How bad is he? Well, a .247 batting average is pretty bad, right? Umm, Patrick’s batting average isn’t .247. His on-base PLUS slugging percentage is .247!!!!!!
Playing in Grand Rapids for the Whitecaps this season, Leyland has come to the plate 82 times. He has reached home plate ONCE!!!! And did I mention he is the team’s DESIGNATED HITTER??
A guy with a .247 OPS being labeled a DESIGNATED HITTER makes the term “jumbo shrimp” look like oxymoronic child’s play!!!!
And it’s not like Patrick is just having a bad season while recovering from an offseason ankle injury. His career slash line in the LOW minors is .207/.243/.249.
Things got so bad for Patrick last year that he was DEMOTED from Lakeland to Connecticut of the New York-Penn League. The New York-Penn League? That’s a place where teams send their June draft picks to give them their FIRST TASTE in pro ball. As a matter of fact, the NYP season doesn’t start until AFTER the draft. Meanwhile, Cancer Stick’s offspring was actually sent there during his FOURTH professional season.
This was the minor league baseball equivalent of Adam Sandler getting sent back to KINDERGARTEN in “Billy Madison” without the added bonus of getting a blow job from Veronica Vaughn.
And how did Patrick perform in Connecticut while teaching his teammates that peeing their pants was the “COOLEST”?
Don Kelly’s “step-brother” had a slash line of .206/.257/.254. After that embarrassing performance with a bunch of fresh-faced prospects, I was sure that either Patrick would call it a career or the Tigers would get rid of him.
I mean, Pedro Martinez’s little friend thinks Patrick Leyland’s growth had been stunted.
The question must be asked at this point ….. Why the fuck is an almost 24-year-old with a career OPS in the minor leagues of .491 after FIVE SEASONS (while never coming close to a Double-A promotion) still keeping a spot in the organization? Is there any chance in hell that he’d still be the DH in West Michigan if his name were Sam Jones?
Keep in mind, Jim Leyland is now a special assistant to Dombrowski and part of his assignment is scouting minor league players. Here is Jim’s evaluation of his OWN son from an interview he gave MLIVE’s Peter Wallner this past June. Seriously, I am not making this shit up. Click the link if you don’t believe me …..
“Obviously, he hasn’t done very well. He has to hit because he’s not a real athletic kid. He can’t run. It’s too bad he had the arm thing because he really doesn’t catch anymore, but he is throwing better now.
“… He’s eventually got to move the ball and hit with some power … he’s been kind of behind the eight ball a little bit. I felt so bad for him. He worked so hard in the winter and then broke the ankle.”
He’s not athletic. He can’t run. Oh, and he can’t catch anymore. THAT IS HIS FATHER’S ASSESSMENT. This ain’t exactly Keith Law.
If Patrick were a thoroughbred horse that Jim owned, the Tigers would pull the curtain over him and humanely destroy him.
Yet he still is playing for the Whitecaps. And I am fully aware this is not a real, pressing Tigers issue, unlike the team’s limp-dick offense or the imbecilic decisions of Jim Leyland’s replacement, but it is pretty humorous to point out.
Just give it up, Patrick. I am sure the Tigers will give you some other job within the organization that doesn’t involve hitting a baseball with a wooden bat.
Or, as your dad said, keep waiting for that power to develop; I’m sure that it’s right around the corner for a guy who has 29 (!!!!!!) extra-base hits in 996 career plate appearances.
Yikes.