Anyone have a update on him? When is he going to come back from the DL? I know he's in triple A and was off to a good start. i'd really enjoy seeing him in the majors some day, I know he's getting old.

He's not actually a serious MLB prospect. The trouble with him is that neither arm is overpowering. I saw him at a college baseball game and was quite impressed. But expert analysts think otherwise: he might make it to the majors; but he certainly won't dominate.

Right.
If either arm were good enough, he'd be going with that arm all the time.

If he's not, IMO it means neither is.

Because if it were, the difference between pitching with the better arm and the worse arm would completely outweigh any advantage of pitching both ways. The fact that he's not means, neither is quite good enough.

If and when either arm were to become good enough, that's how he'd pitch. But IMO don't count on it.

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Edited 6/29/2012 11:18 pm ET by marisHOF

BTW: Vindette is not the only switch-pitcher; there's also a Drew Vettleson -- who actually was thought of (back in 2010) as a more serious MLB prospect. Not sure what has become of him since; perhaps he's fizzled out by now ...

But that's how the game goes: countless players touted by scouts as the "best thing since sliced bread", "the player to watch", "the most exciting player on the rise" end up losing focus, motivation, and discipline.

It is without doubt a highly competitive field, with a high rate of weeding out (consider all the draft picks who end up not signing, minor leaguers who wait in vain for major league rosters to open up).

I think you're thinking of the wrong other guy.
The guy you mentioned is an OUTFIELDER, still playing (in the minors), and very young.
Here's his page on baseball-ref:
w ww.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=vettle001dre

Actually, he may have gottn the right guy (although wrong year). Vettleson was a switch-pitcher in HS. The difference is, his bat was so good they decided to keep him in the OF

OK.....I don't think high school counts for stuff like this.

With all due respect to high school :-) ....the level is so much lower that even if a guy pitches with his eyes closed or standing on his head, it doesn't tell us much.

It may not count, but when he was drafted there was a lot of buzz that he could throw with both arms. And it also means he may not be remembering the wrong guy :) But, even if he was better than Venditte, he would not have stayed an ambidextrous pitcher.

Oh, I'm not questioning any more if he has the right guy, just saying that if this is the guy, he doesn't count. :-)

I don't think any pitcher, that is still pitching with both arms, counts lol

I am not sure that I fully agree with your statement about that if either arm were good enough he would be going with it full time. Take a look at most players and you would see that most will hit right handed or left handed pitchers better or have enough trouble against one that the manager makes changes in the line up.

If Pat is decent from both sides he could really make managers go crazy figuring out the lineup and pinch hitting. The strategy of the whole game changes as he would be his own lefty specialist.

I have not seen much of Pat so I am not saying that he is all that but it would be funny to see how it would play out at the major league level if he was good.

he had his 15 minutes of fame based upon a YouTube of him facing a switchhitter, and watching them go back and forth -- MLB even instituted the Venditte rule about how it will be settled if there's another such case -- I think the "switchpitcher" has to "declare" which arm he'll throw with first, and then the switchhitter can set up accordingly, with no further changes in that AB

but I don't see how that gimmick is going to translate into MLB

He has been effective in every level of the minor leagues, especially in A ball. Not sure what he's supposed to do if he can't overcome the stigma of being a novelty act. There are about a hundred terrible middle relievers out there, can't imagine he wouldn't at least fit right in with them in the MLB.

True.
But what I think trumps that is: When you're pitching with just the better arm, you can WORK more on your pitches with that arm, and you can devote your thinking to it more.

"Practicing" and "working out" IMO are underrated -- in just about everything. Since I've never been a pro baseball player :-) I can only guess how it applies to that, but what I can say is that it applies to just about every other high-level performance thing.

For example, it's very true for musicians. Maybe the analogy would be a musician who's real good on both piano and violin. He won't be as great on either instrument as he could possibly be unless he basically quits one and focuses on the other -- mainly because he'll be able to practice more on that instrument, but also because of being able to give more of his thinking to it. I think only relatively few players don't have to think about their game. Most of them have to constantly be figuring out better and better what they're doing and how to approach it, plus, to adjust.

And for pitchers, I would think all of these things are extra important, even more important than for hitters, because (it seems) even just small differences in how they operate can make huge differences in the results. When a pitcher gets just a little bit tired in a game, he can suddenly start getting killed. Or when a pitcher maybe gets overused during a season and loses a couple of MPH off his fastball, same thing. Or if his breaking ball starts breaking just a little less, or if he loses just a little bit on his control....

And that's why I'm saying that for a switch-pitcher, it would never be worth it to also pitch from his slightly-worse side; it's like a pitcher who has lost a little something from his pitching. If it weren't for the factors of "practicing" and "thinking" that I talked about, I could see your point, because then, sure, at least against some batters, the platoon advantage would outweigh all else. But if we also include those factors, it just wouldn't be worth devoting himself at all to his worse arm, because of how he'd be sacrificing on the arm that he REALLY might be able to pitch with.

I gotta believe that this is what the organization thinks too, and the reason they let him continue doing what he's doing is that neither arm is really any big deal, so might as well let him do this.

I think that "hedging his bets" by using both arms makes him less desirable -- all things being near equal, he probably should have quit the novelty act and become a lefty (even if his left arm is SLIGHTLY worse) full-time, since they seem to be able to hook up with SOME team for a long time, even when they aren't all that great a lefty!

Sounds right to me.

And if the Yanks read this board, next week we might see him doing exactly that. :ha:

Seriously -- unless they REALLY think he's any kind of 'prospect' as a righty, what you said makes sense.

Todays his birthday

will he cut his B-day cake ambidextrously? ;^)

haha probably

Pinchas Zukerman can play both the violin and viola; but of course, that's not the same thing as playing both the piano and violin. It's more or less comparable to playing both the cello and double bass ...

There HAVE, in fact, been versatile musicians throughout history, capable of playing diverse instruments; but it's difficult to see that playing on the one necessarily *interferes* with his ability or development in playing on the other. If anything, because the piano and violin are such contrasting instruments, it shouldn't be an issue.

It's probably just a matter of time and economics: try working out the logistics of managing two full-time careers as a traveling world-class concert pianist (e.g. Evgeny KIssin) AND a traveling world-class concert violinist (e.g. Itzhak Perlman).

I sometimes wonder, for instance, how it is that Daniel Barenboim manages both a piano and conducting career; it's probably a matter of splitting duties. If I understand correctly, Vladimir Ashkenhazy has basically abandoned his career as a performing pianist, and devotes his full time to conducting.

Changing careers happens all the time, whether in sports or music. But one thing you almost never see in today's world is great pianists turning into great composers: in the past, it was almost a given -- and in fact, nothing really builds a legacy as writing something great. So conversely, most great composers were great pianists (notable exceptions being Wanger, Verdi, and Berlioz); it's just that their composing careers overshadowed their performing.

Many professional ballplayers who find it difficult to get away from the game, after retiring, turn to coaching, managing, or broadcasting. However, what I've noticed is that they're not always good at it -- even though they may know the game well. Conversely, a number of Hall-of-Fame (or near HOF) managers had surprisingly modest -- if not pathetic -- careers as players. Examples coming to mind are Earl Weaver, Tommy Lasorda, and Sparky Anderson.

But then, perhaps this is more comparable to how great pianists don't always make great teachers. Say what you want about the piano, but there have been noteworthy violin teachers (e.g. Ivan Galaiman and Dorothy Delay) who didn't have especially remarkable playing careers.