McLean in the WBC isn’t going to be the same guy we see this season and I’m going to say it’s because of Alvy and Torrens. They know him and what he needs to throw at whatever time. They both call good games and while Smith is a good backstop Alvy or Torrens are gonna tell him to back off or amp up to get the pitches to do what they should do. McLean was hitting 99 and it’s great to know you got that in the back pocket it made all his other pitches flatter to me. He will get back to his battery mates and maybe go over what he did and be shown where he needs to be to get those whiffle balls to dance. He is a young kid thrust on the world stage playing with the stars of baseball and he wanted to not only proved he belonged but he had the added pressure of wanting to be perfect. Good experience for him for sure but it’ll be different when he has his guys around him helping him handle that pressure. That’s my two cents anyways. DeRosa is a terrible manager too. Why he didn’t have Taylor pitch instead of Whitlock we will never know.
I agree wholeheartedly. Smith seemed a bit overwhelmed by McLean’s stuff and there were multiple pitches where he seemed to stab at the ball versus framing it correctly. The TV coverage was awful but it seemed to me that this inability to frame cost McLean the count advantage on a few ABs, which could have changed some of the outcomes. My take away was not that Smith is a lousy catcher (of course he’s not) but that McLean;s stuff is crazy good. I agree that with the familiar battery mates and coaches that he will be able to make the necessary adjustments. He’s very much still learning his craft. He was a 2-way player until very recently and was a football-first athlete until his freshman or sophomore year at OK State.
McLean in the WBC isn’t going to be the same guy we see this season and I’m going to say it’s because of Alvy and Torrens. They know him and what he needs to throw at whatever time. They both call good games and while Smith is a good backstop Alvy or Torrens are gonna tell him to back off or amp up to get the pitches to do what they should do. McLean was hitting 99 and it’s great to know you got that in the back pocket it made all his other pitches flatter to me. He will get back to his battery mates and maybe go over what he did and be shown where he needs to be to get those whiffle balls to dance. He is a young kid thrust on the world stage playing with the stars of baseball and he wanted to not only proved he belonged but he had the added pressure of wanting to be perfect. Good experience for him for sure but it’ll be different when he has his guys around him helping him handle that pressure. That’s my two cents anyways. DeRosa is a terrible manager too. Why he didn’t have Taylor pitch instead of Whitlock we will never know.
I agree wholeheartedly. Smith seemed a bit overwhelmed by McLean’s stuff and there were multiple pitches where he seemed to stab at the ball versus framing it correctly. The TV coverage was awful but it seemed to me that this inability to frame cost McLean the count advantage on a few ABs, which could have changed some of the outcomes. My take away was not that Smith is a lousy catcher (of course he’s not) but that McLean;s stuff is crazy good. I agree that with the familiar battery mates and coaches that he will be able to make the necessary adjustments. He’s very much still learning his craft. He was a 2-way player until very recently and was a football-first athlete until his freshman or sophomore year at OK State.