Being and Finding Late Bloomers in the Era of the Prospect Hype Machine

The topic at hand is infielder and Milwaukee newcomer Oliver Dunn, trying to make the team after coming over via trade from the Phillies organization in November. Dunn is 26 years old, which the 65-year-old Murphy hadn't even known prior to this confabulation. The question: do players like Dunn face a tougher scramble, as the minor leagues contract and teams face a newly tightened limit on players they can keep on their rosters, even in the minor leagues? He thinks the Brewers are the kind of team where such lost souls can find refuge and opportunity.

"We might have to—where some of the major-market teams with lots more resources might be able to acquire more international signees and things like that," said Murphy, speaking just hours before his team would take on the Chicago Cubs. "But why is a guy done at 26? Why is 27 the age where you can’t be a prospect anymore, when you’re just learning how to play our game? There’s a lot of guys that came on late in their lives, that established themselves later and are now a really, really good baseball player."

Murphy doesn't seem to be thinking that way, and would probably stop himself cold if he were, but he could be talking about himself, too. Effectively a managerial rookie at an age beyond those at which Sparky Anderson, Earl Weaver, and Davey Johnson (one of Murphy's million and one familiars within the baseball world) each retired, he's a shining exemplar of the fact that not everyone becomes ready for their shot--or gets it, even when they're ready--on the same biological timeline.

"Justin Turner wasn’t always Justin Turner," Murphy said. "There’s a lot of guys that acquire the knack of playing the game at a high level by a couple of small adjustments when they’re 26 or 27. I think [Turner, and Dunn] is a prime example, and I think there could be more like that."

Dunn, the lefty hitter with some versatility who enjoyed an offensive breakout in Double A after being scooped in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft from the Yankees the previous winter, has impressed Murphy to no end in camp.

"I love the guy. His dial is up pretty high right now," Murphy said. It's the highest form of compliment, from a skipper who wants his less experienced players to force the veterans out of their comfort zone and get both groups to learn from each other. "Competing. I love his intensity, I love his focus, I love his preparation. I love his swing. He got two tough balls yesterday and he was credited with errors, but I think a lot of guys would have struggled with those balls. I’ve liked everything about this kid. He rises to the occasion. He ain’t afraid. He’s prepared."

Dunn is just one such player in camp this spring, though. Much of the same--about career path, and about dedication to his craft--can be said of Janson Junk, to whom Murphy has also taken a shine.

"In Junk's case, it's a way of life for him," Murphy said. "This guy's just super prepared, super physical every day with himself and gets after it."

Those observations inform Murphy's belief that peripatetic talents like Dunn and Junk can still find a foothold, even in an increasingly competitive and unforgiving environment. Still, he acknowledges that more players will have to navigate the waters of minor-league free agency and try to hang on in independent leagues, and he does believe something is lost in the process.

"We lose a lot of guys, a lot of potential coaches and things like that, because we’ve cut the minors down so much."

After more than a decade in professional baseball (with the majority of that time spent riding buses in the minor leagues, after being a seventh-round pick in 2011), Eric Haase understands why those cuts are being made, but also knows he might not be in MLB if they'd been in effect when he entered the game.

"It got a little wild for a while. There was seven minor-league teams, two complex leagues," Haase recalled. "I think that’s kind of where the cutback came from. When I was coming up, the draft was a little bit longer, but the free-agent signing pool for the Latin guys wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is today, so there’s definitely just more people available for these teams."

Haase was drafted long before NIL earning potential changed things (however incrementally) for collegiate athletes, and as a catcher signing out of high school, he knew he was in for a long apprenticeship in the minors. In his view, the modern game is unfair to some of its young stars, shortening that apprenticeship at every opportunity but refusing to allow for the resulting growing pains.

"Unfortunately, I think we get mad at some of the younger guys now, that they’re in the big leagues making mistakes, but we were all in Low-A or High-A making these mistakes," Haase said. "It’s tougher to hold the younger guys to the same standards, because some of them might only have one or two full years in the minor leagues. 

It’s kind of an all-inclusive problem. The game is getting younger. Fans like the more exciting stuff, and having the big prospects."

There has always been a tension between allowing players to live out their dream as professional baseballers, and the risk of exploiting their hunger to fulfill that dream, by paying them sub-living wages and stringing them along past the point when any hope remained for real progress. When minor-league players unionized, they put themselves in position to halt some of that exploitation and ensure fairer treatment, but the owners were never going to let that happen without claiming their share of turf in exchange. That has taken the form of contracting the minors, first in terms of total teams playing games and then in terms of players organizations can carry even outside of specific roster assignments.

Haase, whose big-league dreams almost never materialized and still live day to day, doesn't regret anything about his decision to go pro as a teenager, though, and he sees tremendous value in the path he waked to this point, even if it will be harder to travel it for players just now reaching the decision he faced almost 13 years ago.

"Oh, I don’t regret it one bit, at all. Just life experience, off the field," Haase said. "You sign that contract, you’re a grown man now. You’re taking care of yourself. You’re doing everything off the field completely on your own, finding housing, all that stuff. In college, you still have a little bit of that extended bubble. You have people who are in place to take care of you and to make sure everything is going good. You have a lot of other guys that are trying to the exact same thing [that you’re doing] in pro ball, so it’s, show up to the field and figure it out."

Haase's own roster spot is in some jeopardy, after the signing of Gary Sánchez as an alternative option at backup catcher. There's no easy path to an immediate role for Dunn, who faces a crowded infield mix that includes Brice Turang, Andruw Monasterio, Joey Ortiz, Vinny Capra, and perhaps Sal Frelick. Junk is one in a farrago of options for the final place on the Brewers' pitching staff, but nothing is promised to him. In the Golden Age of player development, though, and with a manager who understands the value of mixing tenacious work toward improvement with stoic patience, there might be bright futures left for each of them--and for more, similar players, too.

This piece rescued from inaccuracy by @Mass Haas.