As top MLB prospects arrive in a hurry, spotlight only intensifies

When then-Nationals prospect Stephen Strasburg made his Class AA debut, the "most-hyped pick in draft history" did so in front of 70 credentialed media in Altoona with a portion of the game nationally televised.

When Nationals farmhand Bryce Harper homered in A ball and then blew a kiss to the pitcher, the video disseminated widely, and there was uproar in the baseball community.

When Astros minor leaguer Mark Appel threw a bullpen session at his organization's big league field, days were spent analyzing etiquette and protocol.

When Cubs rookie third baseman Kris Bryant made his major league debut, MLB Network broke into its coverage to show each of his at bats live.

All four of those players were No. 1 or 2 overall picks since 2009, and each has developed with exorbitant hype and under unprecedented scrutiny.

"I don't think about it too much, but obviously with Twitter and stuff, it's easy for fans to get that information," Bryant said. "But I think it's good for baseball, too, because there's a lot of guys in the minors that are going to have very good careers. Especially in our system, there's a lot of guys down there. I follow along with it, too. I'm just like any other fan. I'm rooting for them and want them to be up here as soon as possible. I think it's good for the sport."

In the last fortnight, three more über-prospects reached the big leagues, including Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, Twins center fielder Byron Buxton and Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor. (One of Correa's teammates, catcher Hank Conger, a former Futures Game MVP himself, posted a photo of his clubhouse arrival on Twitter with the caption, "The Prodigy has arrived.")

In all, four of the top-five in Baseball America's Top-100 prospect list have already debuted, as have 13 of the top-20.

The influx has caused prospect-heads to bemoan the stripped down talent on display at next month's Futures Game, while also eagerly wondering when one of the top young stars still awaiting a call-up - Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager, 21 - might join the youth brigade in the major leagues.

And it's also served as a reminder that a sport long framed by the ability to handle failure now puts its youngest commodities under a far more invasive spotlight.

Thirty years ago, the Brewers chose B.J. Surhoff first overall and sent him to Class A Beloit (Wisc.) for the 1985 season. A big media day, he recalled, was a visit from the local TV station in nearby Kenosha.

"Nothing like this," Surhoff said at this year's pre-draft luncheon for prospects and media, a few hours before the nationally televised event. "Quite frankly, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed this."

Surhoff, now a special assignment coach with Baltimore, said fellow players were always cognizant of who the high-pick bonus babies were, but outside the clubhouses, there was far less attention. He said that environment was helpful for him to learn how to handle both success and failure. Early success brings instant notoriety and recognition; failure is often a foreign experience for many elite amateurs just starting off in pro ball.

Players in his day would be far from fans' consciousness while developing in the minors, but now that's not a luxury afforded to top prospects.

"In my view, there's way too much," Surhoff said. "For example, when we brought up Matt Wieters in Baltimore, he was never going to be as good as the fans and everybody made him out to be. He's a very good player, but you start raising the expectations. It's very difficult just to come in and dominate the big league game. There's so much to handle."

The tenor of the hype matters. While third baseman Manny Machado, a former No. 3 overall pick, arrived in the majors as a 19-year-old in August 2012, he batted ninth in his first game and was expected merely to be an additional contributor for a club already on the cusp of a playoff spot. Wieters, on the other hand, debuted in 2009 to more fanfare and higher immediate hopes, given that the franchise had endured a dozen seasons with a losing record.

"They were marketing his arrival and that he was this great, talented catcher, and they wanted to give the fans hope that he would be a cornerstone player and help the team regain a winning record," said Orioles general manager Dan Duquette, who started the job in 2012.

It's a forward-looking generation. Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and MLB.com all have prospect ranking lists; some Class AA and AAA games are streamed live. ESPN: The Magazine publishes an issue called "NEXT." Sports Illustrated runs a "Where Will They Be" companion to its "Where Are They Now." Outside of sports, there is constant speculation about presidential candidates two-to-three years before an election.

"I guess people wanted access back then, but they just couldn't get it," said Yankees starter CC Sabathia, a hyped first-round pick of the Indians in 1998. "Now that they have it, they want to be a part of it. It's cool."

Since 2009, baseball's draft has been televised on MLB Network. Prospects are dissected in great detail, and nearly all of the high picks have highlight clips.

"There's a lot of interest," Duquette said. "They follow these kids by video. There's a video library before they even get into pro ball. People get to see them and see how their skills develop. There's just more exposure before they even get the opportunity in the big leagues."

And the exposure only intensifies when young stars live up to the hype - or at least come close. Bryant already has eight home runs, a .386 on-base percentage and an .852 OPS.

Correa, who doesn't turn 21 until September, is batting .314 and has hit three home runs 51 at-bats since his June 8 debut. He's also been dazzling in the field.

Yet despite Bryant and Correa appearing to follow the path to instant stardom plowed by Harper, Trout and others, cautionary tales still abound.

Royal lessons

In 2011, the Royals became the first organization to place nine prospects on Baseball America's

Top 100 list. Its farm system was the consensus best in the sport and widely seen as one of the greatest collection of prospects in history.

First baseman Eric Hosmer was hailed as a Joey Votto clone. Third baseman Mike Moustakas led the minors in home runs and was projected to mash in the majors, too. Shortstop Christian Colon was seen as a high-floor, sure-bet. All three were top-four overall picks and, even though former No. 2 overall pick Alex Gordon — hailed as the next George Brett — didn't turn into an All-Star player until his seventh big league season, many thought these core group of Royals would become immediate stars.

"It puts a lot of extra pressure on them, a lot of higher expectations," Kansas City manager Ned Yost said. "A lot of our guys, specifically Moustakas and Hosmer, got here with a lot of expectations put on them, and they had to fight that expectation the first couple years. It makes it more difficult for them. They're on the cover of magazines, and they're these tremendous players in Triple A coming to the big leagues. Then they struggle, and it's an adjustment period."

Rare is the superstar hitter— Ryan Braun, Buster Posey and Mike Trout, to name a few of recent vintage — who excels in his first full season. It's a little more common among pitchers, but those precocious talents spoil the experience for the players who require a more normal development curve.

The fourth overall pick out of Cal State Fullerton in 2010, Colon spent nearly four full seasons developing in the minor leagues before debuting in 2014. He has played 45 big league games with a commendable .347 on-base percentage but had the misfortune of following Harper and Machado in the draft order — those two high-school players both reached the majors in less than half the time Colon did. Feeling such pressure was unavoidable.

"I was aware of it," Colon said. "You know that everybody wants to follow and see what kind of success or impact you're going to have. But every player is different. Every player takes his own steps to the big leagues and their own development as a player. I think sometimes it's unfair to put some expectations out there, just because everybody is different."

When Votto signed a 10-year, $225-million extension in early April 2012, he had won an NL MVP, played in two All-Star Games and twice led the league in on-base percentage. At the time, Hosmer had played only 128 games, yet Kansas City radio pundits were apoplectic at Votto's contract because, to them, it signaled a certainty that Hosmer was due the same payday and would be priced out of town — even though he didn't yet have a full year of service time.

When an on-air guest dared interjecting patience before making that comparison, the host sounded hurt and asked, "Do you even like Hosmer?", as if to answer in the negative was akin to hating puppies or chocolate-chip cookies.

Hosmer ultimately had a disappointing 2012 season but has made himself into a very good player, one with two Gold Gloves and a .342 OBP the last three seasons. He said the attention was inescapable — but thought it a net positive for the sport and a source of hope for a losing team.

"Definitely, man. That's the thing, too, if you're an early pick like that, obviously the team had a rough year the season before," said Hosmer, the third overall pick in 2008. "Growing up in Florida, I watched the Marlins [but] you never really hear about the minor league guys. Going through the system in Kansas City and just realizing how many fans knew about what was going on with the minor league teams was pretty cool.

"I think that's a big deal when you have guys like Kris Bryant floating through the minor leagues, and fans can't wait for him to get up. It's really cool what it's done to the game, and it's cool because you've got kids that are so young doing what they're doing professionally."

Moustakas struggled to get on-base consistently in his first four big league seasons and endured a red-faced demotion to Class AAA in May 2014. Kansas City remained confident in him, however, and now — still only 26 — he has a .382 OBP that ranks sixth in the AL.

He also returned to Kansas City well in time for their playoff push, and hit five postseason home runs.

"Especially for the Royals, they gave us a lot of time to develop in the minor leagues, and they gave us a lot of time to get our feet wet up here and figure out how to hit in the big leagues," Moustakas said. "For me, it took a little longer, but at the end of the day, they did a great job of sticking by us and letting us go through those growing pains in trying to figure it out. That's just a tribute to the organization."

'I don't think it'd be like this'

Some current stars are glad they were born when they did, noting that it was easier to develop in relative obscurity. A couple bad games in the minors weren't immediately broadcast to the masses.

"Of course it was, yeah," Sabathia said. "To not have Twitter and worry about the things you're doing in the offseason, yeah, it was a lot easier back then, of course. You get in trouble for tweeting something during the offseason, and there was no such thing back then."

At the time of Strasburg's debut in 2010, Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman — the No. 5 overall pick in 2005 who debuted three months later — bemoaned the overwhelming hype surrounding his teammate.

"It's almost unfair," Zimmerman said then. "Young guys shouldn't have to go through that stuff that early."

Padres rightfielder Justin Upton, a No. 1 overall pick in '05, reflected on his journey to the majors at the time the Nationals first promoted Harper, a fellow 1-1 selection, in 2012. Upton said he eventually learned to tune out everyone else's expectations.

"The older you get, the more you realize those words actually don't matter," Upton said then. "What people are saying doesn't matter. It's all about what you prepare yourself to do and how successful you want to be."

Harper, who appeared on the cover of SI at age 16 with the headline "Baseball's LeBron," was asked recently what he thought the experience of a young star was like a few decades ago.

"I don't think it'd be like this," Harper said while gesturing toward the 17 reporters crowding his locker to discuss his first game at Yankee Stadium. "It was definitely hard to play back then, but we have so much social media now — Twitter, Instagram — and everything is so blown up. There are definitely a lot of differences with that kind of stuff, but there was so much great talent back in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s. It's just a different aspect, but the game's still the same.

"There's a little bit more attention and little bit more of a target on players that come up."

For the truly elite, they'll know nothing else.

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