re: Why is Monster Milam not getting love from MLB ?

Power over fielding every time....

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The absolute worst player on the absolute worst team is still a baseball phenom.

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Guys like Ryan theriot or Austin Nola weren’t phenoms. Hunter Feduccia was a nobody at lsu. Positional value matters. Luck matters. Intangibles matter.

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Positional value matters. Luck matters. Intangibles matter.

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So true. Part of the luck is the right person in an organization taking note of what a player has to offer or simply "falling in love" with the player. Sometimes that turns into an unlikely feel-good story, and sometimes it does not.

Serious question: Why is being short such a bad thing in baseball? Would think the strike zone is smaller, right? I assume it's bc a SS needs longer arms to get to more balls.

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Most people don't realize the insane amount of talent required to make a Major League roster. The absolute worst player on the absolute worst team is still a baseball phenom.

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This is true. And a lot of people don’t realize just how many people play baseball. So other factors come into play. There are plenty of guys with the talent to make a big league roster who never sniff it. There’s work ethic, ability to adapt to different social settings, different cultures, different coaching, etc…ability to overcome adversity, determination, etc…but 1 that a lot of people really underestimate is luck.

And you can combine that with timing. What club takes you, how good their overall system is at development, how many people they have in their system ahead of you that play your position/positions.

Take Milam, the organization that drafts him is probably going to always value him more than most because we’ll, 1) they’ve already invested in him with draft capital, money, time/development, but more importantly, 2) they get to see him play everyday. They will see him do things that don’t show up in the box score or in analytics. Call it what Skip did—“How to Win Awareness.”

He does little things that are valuable that you have to watch him every day to really understand just how valuable it is over the long term. I don’t think any of us think he’s just gonna go out and crush minor league pitching. Maybe. But chances are he’s always going to have more perceived value to the club that takes him, meaning he’s likely to not ever have a whole lot of trade value. So his best chance of making it to the bigs is going to be with the club that drafts him. But if they have guys better than him blocking him, and they stay relatively healthy, he might age out before he ever makes it. His organization would rather have him as an insurance policy instead of just giving him away for a bag of balls. And they may wind up never having to cash in that policy.

Which brings me back to injury luck. It might be the most important factor of all. Not just injury to the particular player, but to the guys above him that play his positions. Some guys just need an opportunity and will run with it, but unfortunately, might not ever get it.

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But thats the entire point of my post! If he announces a switch now he could potentially save himself years of “riding the bus” in a balls and shoot up the ladder quicker as a catcher. Just a thought!

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How many major league catchers have you seen at his height?

Blue jays almost won the World Series with a 5’6” catcher

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Milam is a way better defender than Theriot or Fontenot.

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One could argue that the ball was hit harder than with those bats. One could say Smith had the advantage of more “dead bats” before ball changes.
You only know what Milam could get to and how he finished on the play.
I get that.
But you’re arguing something I didn’t post… I didn’t say he was as good or better defender than those other 2. I did say that both were faster from home to first including Smith.
Since I know you never watched Fontenot and Theriot, I’ll give you a pass.

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Milam is a way better defender than Theriot or Fontenot.

One could argue that the ball was hit harder than with those bats. One could say Smith had the advantage of more “dead bats” before ball changes.
You only know what Milam could get to and how he finished on the play.
I get that.
But you’re arguing something I didn’t post… I didn’t say he was as good or better defender than those other 2. I did say that both were faster from home to first including Smith.
Since I know you never watched Fontenot and Theriot, I’ll give you a pass.

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size with the same or similar abilities will always win in the eyes of the scouts/evaluators, there are lots of kids playing on the streets, sandlots, community basketball courts wilth abilities equal or better to what's in the pros but don't get the look because of size