Playing Under Tony Bernazard

 

I recently had an enlightening exchange with Teddy Dziuba over at my good friend and Sand Gnats beat reporter John Mackin Ade’s blog-Macks Mets- regarding what it was like to be a Mets prospect during the Tony Bernazard era. For those don’t know, Teddy, a catcher, was selected by the Mets in the 33rd round of the 2006 draft. He played sparingly for Brooklyn that year, than made stops in Kingsport, Savannah, St. Lucie, and Binghamton in 2007, before eventually being released by the Mets.

Teddy’s been blogging there a couple weeks now. His most recent post concerning Bernazard, however, caught my attention, so I thought I’d raise a few questions:

Matt: I hate to play devil’s advocate here, but the impression I get is that most organization’s prioritize individual performance above team performance.

I see what you mean about Bernazard fostering an atmosphere that was perhaps too competitive, pitting players against each other. But wouldn’t you admit there were players like yourself, who, talented as you are, weren’t considered first tier prospects, probably did secretly hope some players failed? Maybe not a team wide failure, but a guy whom you were competing with for playing time?

IMO, there’s a fine line between team performance and individual performance at the minor league level. Numerous prospects sacrifice short-term (season-long) pain for long term gain. For instance, an A-Ball pitcher might be better off performance wise if he blows away guy’s with his fastball, but he knows that if he wants to make it past AA, let alone succeed in the big leagues, he’ll have to work on say, his secondary stuff.

I’m not condoning what Bernazard did, but his job is to develop guys capable of playing in the big leagues. I could see where a guy in the situation above could get caught up in his team’s playoff race instead of worrying about his development.

Last but not least, not looking to start anything personal, but isn’t the American/Spanish divide often voluntary? Would you be able to elaborate on that point?

Teddy: I don’t think I was able to verbalize what I was trying to say in describing the culture of the Mets minor leagues. Let me preface the following comments by saying this: I never harbored the delusion that I was on the fast trackto the big leagues and during my playing career, I was well aware that the Mets were using me as cannon fodder…not that that was easy to swallow, but I was always self-aware and new that the road was going to end at some point

That being said, my biggest gripe with how things played out was that their was really no incentive for playing “smart” baseball in the Mets system…it was a system that encouraged coaches to toss blame at the players, and truly, it was more beneficial to “not screw up” than it was to do your job properly. Praise was thrown at certain prospects for not making certain mistakes instead of actually performing well.

It’s really hard to put into words, but it was a system of evaluation that was predicated on negativity. 2 examples:

Camp in 2007, I spoke to the speedy ss batting in front of me who lead off the inning. I told him, “if you get on, I’ll get in the catchers way on the first pitch so you can steal 2b” He walked, I fake bunted (on my own), catcher dropped the ball and the runner got a free stolen base. Next pitch, i rolled over a ground ball, got the runner to third with one out, and thought I had done my job. Instead of a pat on the ass for working with my teammate and getting the runner over, I was chastised for wasting the at bat and for not getting my pitch. Am I nitpicking? maybe, but this is the kind of stuff that pervaded the system

3 Days before my release in 2008, I went 4-4 with a home run, 2 doubles, 4 rbi and missed the cycle because I slipped rounding first base on the first double. After the game, the only thing my coach said to me was “you gotta work on your turns rounding first” He was serious…no “good game Ted”, no “way to hit em”, just another negative comment in a long line of negative comments that sapped players of their confidence and desire to continue working as hard.

I like to think of myself as a likeable guy Matt, and in the realm of minor league ballplayers, an ameable kid with no ego is hard to come by, so its not like I was treated any differently for any reason, it was just a system wide dynamic that forced players to think that its better to just not screw up than try and do that little extra at the expense of potentially being called out for it

Maybe I’m biased because I went to a college specializing in entrepreneurship, but baseball was always like jazz to me, players (especially catchers) constantly need to adapt and think on the fly to perform to their fullest. I just got the sense that such behavior was frowned upon. If a coach hadn’t expressly taught a certain aspect of the game, don’t even think of doing anything otherwise.

Maybe i’m placing too much blame on Tony himself, but he was the king of pointing out the flaws in players he didn’t like, and accentuating the small positives of the guys he did like. Without naming names, there are 5-10 players in the system who are on their 4th, 5th and 6thchances with the Mets…why then are so many not even given that first chance? And I know your response is that some guys just aren’t meant to be big leaguers, but for every failed Mets prospect during this most recent tenure that was given every opportunity to succeed and failed, I feel like there are just as many kids who could have developed into the Joe McEwing’s or David Eckstein’s of the world but just weren’t given their 100 at bats to prove it

Forgive me if any of my writing is whiny and sounds like its coming from a bitter ex minor leaguer…i assure you, that is not my intention. I just think there are some fundamental flaws in the player development approach that Tony employed, or at least helped oversee

Matt:I see your point about Bernzard’s and co.’s intimidation and assertion of authority a lot better now. If anything, it hurts pd.

One question though: What do you think Bernazard’s criteria is for playing favorites? Why does he favor certain players when the talent difference is negligible? Do you think this was about him angling for power?

Teddy:  In response to your question, any answer I give would only be speculation and im not exactly the most trusted source…Christ, Adam Rubin knows more about the Mets than anyone and nowadays even he can’t give an opinion without the general manager calling him out…

But I’ll say this. Tony had a clear preference for fellow Puerto Rican born ballplayers. He would toss extra batting practice to them and a handful of the other latin born ballplayers exclusively. He was a big fan of Hector Pellot’s and supposedly he cried when Jose Castro was traded to the Reds in the Jeff Conine deal. I’m not one to pass judgement, but for a guy who is supposed to be impartial and judge ballplayers based on talent and future ability, I would think crying when one of them gets traded is not a good sign for someone who is not supposed to play favorites

B-Mets “Underage Drinking”

 

Kind of irrelevant in light of everything else, I guess. But from Adam Rubin’s zinger in the Daily News today:

While the 52-year-old Bernazard’s actions were over-the-top no matter what the motivation, alleged underage drinking on the team apparently was one motivation for the eruption, an organization source said. Still, sending players to counseling rather than challenging them to a rumble might have been a more appropriate course of action.

Apparently, Bernazard’s incompetent enough to screw up his own cop out. There have been only two players on the B-Mets active roster all year who are younger than 21 (Ruben Tejada and Jenrry Mejia). Rubin also contends that this incident occured within the last week or so. Mejia, however, has not pitched since June 23rd.

Regardless, even if Bernanzard is the new Al Goldis/Bill Livesey, there is no way I see the Wilpon’s letting him  gt away with this going public. It is a question of when, not if.