Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Pirates didn't coach John Van Benschoten

Just saw this over at Charlie's blog. It's a link to a story on the Pirates' site about John Van Benschoten's side throwing session today with this quote buried inside of it, where JVB talks about his minor league career with the Pirates:

"Coming up through the system and being the No. 1 pick and no one really stepping up because no one wants to mess you up," said Van Benschoten, who was the team's first-round selection in the 2001 First-Year Player Draft. "They have a big organization and they need to take care of other people, so I think being almost left alone has just come to a head this year with a crash course here."
Umm. I don't have a lot to say here. This certainly speaks for itself. I posted a little more at FanHouse, but most of the stuff there you already know. Let me just reiterate that a first round draft pick, a guy that was mainly a hitter in college and drafted as a pitcher, said that he was mostly not coached in the minor leagues. This is incredibly unacceptable. Someone should literally be fired on the spot for this.

I'm patiently waiting for the article later this week in which JVB tells us that the quote was taken out of context.