McCutchen: Incompetent Development?

The Post-Gazette had a couple of interesting tidbits in their coverage Monday.

The first was this quote from Tim Leiper with Altoona:

"Center fielder Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates' top pick in the 2005 draft, has yet to hit well for Class AA Altoona this season...

"He's right there. He's absolutely right there," Leiper said. "The whole league is throwing him outside, and he gets big with his swing. It happens with young players." (emphasis supplied)

That is a very, very bad sign and exactly what I have been stating in this forum has been happening to Cutch since he left rookie ball. And I vehemenently disagree with Leiper - it doesn't happen to young players unless they are told to change their hitting style from a gap hitting machine into a slugger.

I stated in June of 2006 that McClatchy had better contain David Littlefield's desire to have Cutch swing a long bat or he could lose his swing. Any idiot could see the young man's game was changing for the worse and the results are now clearly written on the wall as he climbs to almost 200 at bats and is still hitting around the Mendoza line.

At first I credited the advanced league pitching for McCutchen's demise but Leiper's statement above clearly tells me that isn't the case. Instead, the organization has tried to turn McCutchen into someone he isn't, and they failed.

The only thing Andrew McCutchen had going for himself was his self-confidence and quick hands, but the Pirates have robbed him of both. It's going to take months and months to turn him around again and Leiper might be right - Cutch might be on the verge of getting hot. But not because his approach is good, but because the better pitching is being promoted.

That certainly seems like incompetence at it's finest to me - almost as incompetent as waiting all those years to make a decision what position Neil Walker would play.

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The second tidbit was this:

"General manager Dave Littlefield said Gary Ruby, who was in his sixth season as the Pirates' minor-league pitching coordinator, resigned for personal reasons."

Hmm..

This is a guy Littlefield put in place late 2001 to turn the pitching in our system around and now he's walking away mid-year?

Hmm..

While just about every level of pitching in the system is tanking?

Hmm..

Someone that loyal to Littlefield would get time off to take care of a 'personal problem' so I have to believe there is a lot more to this story than we are hearing.

But all I can do is guess until someone with a little more knowledge emails me and gives me the scoop. (hint - hint).

Obviously one of two things is going on here - either Ruby indeed has something going on that he needs to walk away from the game, or there is discord in the organization.

I tend to believe it is the latter. There's just too much going on right now for there not to be discord. Throw in the Lincoln catastrophe, the one outing visit by Rogers, some hints about development problems with the Cuban pitchers in the lower levels, and the entire organization's ERA blooming like a rose in high heat, and you just can't help wondering.

Great.. now maybe we'll be fortunate to see Lundquist as the rover.. or Andrews. Oh my..

The org is falling apart at the seams.