• The calculus behind bonuses is often political and counterintuitive.Culture and language.Often, baseball is the easy part of the equation.Limited baseball experience.This is especially true in places like the Dominican Republic, where organized youth baseball is not firmly in place.As teams begin working out players in their early teenage years, they find the refinement level is quite often grossly inferior to that of kids of the same age in the United States, despite the physical gifts of the players and the cultural significance of the game itself.Establishing credible player identity in some regions in the market can be problematic.It’s not uncommon to have amateur talents falsify their identities in order to draw interest from professional baseball.Such a market creates corruption.Governmental interference and corruption has forced some teams out of the region altogether, as the price of the player comes at an even higher price in both time and treasure.It’s hard enough to navigate the complex world of amateur talent evaluation, much less to do so with the government taking a ride on your back.Player development is a partnership between the players and their organization, personified by developmental staff and coaches who have a common goal of maximizing potential for maximum value.Talent is the lifeblood of the game, but even teams with the most majestic of financial and human capital will not be able to extract physical characteristics from a player in the absence of those characteristics.Think of player development personnel as locksmiths tasked with unlocking the future of the game.Over time, as they work at their task, the individual characteristics of the lock will change, and the environment in which the doors exist won’t remain constant.The first step is evaluation.Scouts build the initial model for the player, in terms of both what he is now and what he might be in the future.The developmental staff then take their turn at the wheel.Who is the player now?What more can he become?What skills are more deficient than others?How can those deficient skills be refined?Which environments would this player struggle or succeed in?You can have an umbrella developmental philosophy, a blanket construction by which you will build the heroes of tomorrow.But every player is an individual, and if you fail to recognize the developmental idiosyncrasies required for unique growth, you might exclude the one you are trying to embrace.The developmental staff, comprised of coordinators, coaches, and front office personnel, are the unsung heroes of the process, standing in the shadows while the children turn into men under the bright lights.In order to take a closer look at some of the specific hurdles that might arise for an individual prospect caught up in that process, and the responses from the men in charge of the process when he trips over those hurdles, let’s take a hypothetical but not atypical scenario from the Dominican Republic involving a promising pitching prospect.Prepare yourself for a convoluted experience.July 2 arrives and the Greens win the day, offering José $2 million to become part of their organization, a move the team’s front office has convinced ownership is a calculated gamble based on several key factors, including projections for his baseball skills and his makeup.The present stuff on the mound was good, but the future could be great, as the fastball already touched the low 90s with some semblance of command, and consistently worked in the 86–88 mph range without much effort.The Greens loved the easy action of the arm itself, and despite being only 16 years old, José showed a preternatural feel for secondary offerings, showing both a promising curve and a slider to go along with a changeup that most evaluators graded as his best pitch.Ironically, as José’s professional education began, his education in most other areas was through.Sadly, most kids from the Dominican Republic leave school at an early age and as a result are woefully underdeveloped.More prosperous countries often allow for opportunities beyond futures consisting of manual labor, unemployment, or baseball.It’s a major hurdle to overcome.In some cases, even the players that do make it often end up without much money after their playing days are over.Unless they participated in a structured educational system or come from financial means, they will struggle to exist outside the world of baseball.In the Dominican Republic, failed players often end up back in sugar fields or become criminals.These were some of the risks José would face, but in the Greens’ estimation he had some advantages.The Greens felt that José was a developmental staff’s dream, showing emotional maturity beyond his years with a quiet yet intense fire that fueled his overall approach to the game.That fall, the team brought José to the United States to participate in the fall instructional league at the team facility.Through it all, he seemed to relish the pressure, affirming the evaluations of his makeup.Winning fans with every encounter, José was invited to stateside spring training, where the developmental staff would continue their evaluations before dictating his first professional assignment.José’s strengths and weaknesses were documented and discussed, and his ability to assimilate to a new culture and language was going more smoothly than the already confident organization could have anticipated.The decision wasn’t unanimous.José wasn’t set to turn 17 until June, but the overall maturity of both the man and his game had some on the developmental team ready to push the pitcher beyond the complex league to start his professional journey.The organization’s developmental philosophy is tailored to the individual, so the team will push players with aggressive assignments if the player is ready.If any one individual, be he a coach or coordinator, had doubts then the conservative plan was to be followed until unanimity was achieved.Just as every player is unique, every set of eyes that evaluate that player is unique.As a result, finding consensus is often difficult.The first setback for the rising prospect occurred just a few days before his first scheduled professional start.José confessed he felt some discomfort in his shoulder during a bullpen session at the team facility.To the sweet relief of all parties involved, an examination revealed no structural damage in the shoulder, and treatment would come in the form of rest.As a result, the professional starter pistol was stored away for another two weeks, with José spending more time in the training room than on the field.Already disappointed by the complex league assignment, the seemingly mature pitcher showed some emotional immaturity, sulking during treatment, focusing about as much as a student taking a test the day before summer break.This, too, was to be expected, having been seen countless other times with José’s many predecessors.The complex league coaches and coordinators had established a good relationship with the young arm, but a disconnect was growing, with José feeling isolated by his enforced downtime.Despite further examination, the medical reports continued to suggest that the sore shoulder was structurally sound.Was the player legitimately injured?A decision was made to push José back into light baseball activities despite the sore shoulder.José spent more and more time alone in his hotel room sending email and text messages to his girlfriend back home, expressing increasing bitterness at his situation.Pushing José had failed.As the heat of the summer intensified and the rest of the rookie league roster gelled with exposure to routine, José was left out, resultantly growing more detached and disinterested in baseball activities.His mouth opened more often for meals than for conversation, his only solace found in romanticizing the memories of home in private conversations with his family and girlfriend back in the Dominican Republic.After more than four weeks of soreness and setbacks, the coaching staff informed José that he would be scheduled to make his first professional appearance.It was time to encourage a step forward in the maturation process, despite the obvious resistance from the teenage prospect.The Greens had made a sizeable investment in José’s future.Despite a plume of black [smoke](https://gitee.com/uk_b6a6/sync/wikis/Nursery Management Systems) coming from their initial developmental strategy, the team wiped the canvas clean and decided to start again.José hadn’t been ready for stateside baseball and wouldn’t pitch in a professional game in his debut season.Nobody outside of the Greens knew the truth about the circumstances.A sore shoulder was the explanation fed to the media.After the reassignment to the Dominican Republic, the Greens development staff played detective, looking for clues leading up to the collapse but arriving at more questions than answers.They were left questioning their own evaluations and convictions, having put a fragile teenager in a foreign environment and asked him to execute as a professional.After spending the rest of the summer and fall of his debut season at the team facility, José grew even more attached to the comforts provided by proximity to his family, and his professional progress stalled.For the foreseeable future, José would be encouraged to crawl before being made to walk.The investment might take longer to mature, but the payout would be worth the diligence, or so the Greens were betting.The blanket developmental philosophy for young pitchers was still very much in effect despite the setbacks from year one.José would begin again at the lowest level of instruction offered by the Greens, no longer the youngest player on the circuit.A few months away from turning 18, the pitcher was now considered a veteran because of his stateside experience.For José, this was the first step in the process.Given the observed quality of the secondary arsenal, it was reasonable to expect that the pieces should eventually fit back into the puzzle.His first appearance lasted two innings, and despite giving up a few walks and a few hits, he left the game without allowing a runner to cross the plate.He sent three hitters back to the bench on swinging strikeouts.José mixed in a few curveballs, but didn’t offer much snap in the delivery, those curves arriving at the plate as ineffective slurves.The one 85 mph fastball was described as a failed changeup by a member of the coaching staff, although José denied throwing any such pitch.All in all, the first start was a very positive step, and the organization couldn’t have been happier with the results.Nearly two years after signing as a free agent, the lottery ticket had scratched off his first number.The remainder of the short season went according to plan.José built up his innings and arm strength, and continued to focus on the development of his fastball and fastball command.His secondary offerings made sporadic appearances but always sat comfortably in the back of the developmental queue.Numerous internal debates swirled around possibly sending him to the stateside complex to finish out the season, but the conservative approach again won out and José remained near his family for the duration of his second season.It wasn’t time to push him, but that time was rapidly approaching.The Greens were ready to turn up the heat on José.José was still very much a child, and the basic construct of year three would test the limits of his emotional strength.Factoring in the cost of feeding, housing, coaching, medical care, and more, the team had now invested far more in José than the initial $2 million bonus.After a few years of marginal progress, they were ready to see some answers.His focus had never been more finely tuned.The changeup is a feel pitch that takes time to properly utilize in relation to the fastball, but one that the Greens development staff felt had even more promise than the slider for José.The group of eight, carefully selected for compatibility, would arrive at the back fields together, stretch together, warm up together, throw either bullpens or toss together, run together, and, finally, eat together.As February slid into March and minor league exhibition games fast approached, José was turning heads like he had back in his first stateside instructional league.José was starting to look the part of a young ace.The Greens development staff was quite satisfied by the transformation.José was brilliant in his first two games, pitching two innings in each start, allowing only one hit, zero walks, and zero runs while striking out five in total.The slider wasn’t used in his first appearance, as the fastball was effective without complement.José’s confidence was never higher than after the second outing.The rest of camp progressed without setback.As affiliate assignments were in the process of being made, the development staff faced a serious dilemma regarding José’s destination.That night, back at the hotel, away from the prying eyes of the development staff, José felt the need to speak to his family.

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