Sorry, this isn't a hard hitting expose on the beauty routines of our minor league players. Instead, I wanted to talk a little bit about an often overlooked aspect in the development of prospects. While pitchers' fastballs are measured to the tenth of a mile per hour and runners' times to first down to the hundredth of a second, it's hard to measure what may be the most important quick twitch reaction: the one that triggers between the ears.
Prospect lore is riddled with tales of can't miss studs who can't handle the pressure. I'm not going to call out by name the guys I'm questioning in this post, but there are a couple of our top prospects that I really wonder if they have their head on straight. I can't help but question the maturity of a kid whose public twitter posts are mostly cryptic, passive-aggressive, whining about his girlfriend.
Then we read stories like this one over at The Grand Old Game. In this short post about DDJ, we're confronted by this question: "how much heart does he have for the game?"
I know they're just kids, but they're kids the Astros have invested a lot of money in. These are the prospects we're hoping will lead the resurgence of Houston baseball. They could have enormous arm strength or bat strength, but do they have the mental strength necessary to be the player we all project them to be?
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
