But honestly, his walk rates still concern me a great deal. I suppose he could end up as a left-handed Ryan Dempster, a guy who also has troubling walk rates. But the thing is that by the time Dempster was Veal’s age, he was in the majors and winning 14 games with the Marlins.

I’d really like to see more than seven games this season. Last season was pretty bad and set him back a ways. This season he looks like he’s back on track, but I want to see more.

I don’t think the predictions of Veal being a #2 starter in the majors is realistic at this point. But I do think Veal will have a major league career of some sort. Certainly the pen is a possibility, but starting is still the most likely outcome. I’m trying not to make a prediction at how good he’ll be because I just don’t think we know yet.

even though i think you are a little pre-disposed to be anti lou, i agree that piniella has not handled this well at all. i mean, on april 18 rich throws 5 inn, gives up 3 hits and 1 run yet lou takes him out of the game “to keep his confidence high.” next outing, same story.

does make sense to anyone? all that does is scream to the pitcher, “i dont trust you to keep the score as it is, im glad you gave us 5 good innings, lets not screw it up now, hand me the ball.” that just plain stupid.

Let’s look at the last (and only) time the Iowa Cubs won a championship—the 1993 Iowa Cubs.

Let’s see who’s on that team. Steve Trachsel, Turk Wendell and Jose Hernandez are the guys from that team to have long playing careers, and none of them were very special, nor did any of them really exceed their expectations. If anything, Wendell was a bit of a disappointment. Actually, that’s not quite true—Tuffy Rhodes had a Hall of Fame career in Japan, if there is such a thing. The rest of the team is guys like Matt Wallbeck, Matt Franco, Doug Jennings, Jim Bullinger, etc., etc.

Or the 1999 Lansing Lugnuts who won a lot of games but lost in the playoffs. Zambrano and Wuertz were big hits from that team, but Corey Patterson, Hee-Seop Choi, Dave Kelton, Nate Frese and Jeff Goldbach have all disappointed.

I do agree with you, however, that developing a positive attitude and approach to the game is a very important part of minor league development. It’s not just about the numbers, which is where you and I agree (and why I’m higher on Samardzija than a lot of people are). But I’m not sure winning develops that. For some players, sure. But for a lot of players, these are guys who hit .650 in high school on teams that went 35-4 their senior year. These guys actually need to lose a few games and to know what it’s like to struggle!

If teams in the minors are winning games because their players are developing and playing better every game, then great. But the easiest and most common way to win games in the minors is to stick a bunch of minor league veterans, too old for their level, on a team and let them pound away. Or overuse that young closer or let the starter go out for another inning. Or even just sit on minor league fastballs when you need to learn to hit a breaking pitch (Yeah, I’m looking at you, Ryan Harvey.)

It’s more fun for the fans to see winning teams in the minors, but unless I know why a team is winning or losing, it’s not something I really care about and I don’t think it helps development.