It's a shame that it happened this way. This kid was supposed to be the next big thing, but I can't help but think about Bill Masse when Phil Hughes name comes up. Don't know who I mean? Bill Masse was a minor leaguer who never made it pro for the Yankees, and eventually he was coach in the Yankees minor league system. A few years ago, he was critical of the way the Yankees handled the pitching in the minors.
Masse said to that: "“We get so ridiculous with this dumb pitch count stuff… Somebody came up with a pitch count thing (like) this is going to decide if a kid’s arm is going to be healthy or not. It’s like predicting the weather sometimes. ‘If he throws 66 pitches, he will be fine, but if he throws 81, he is going to get hurt.’ No one can predict that... he never learns how to pitch when he is tired. He never learns how to pitch when he is a little bit fatigued. I think you run into those problems because he is always fresh. Also, he is never in trouble. He needs to learn how to pitch out of his second or third jam in the seventh inning with two outs and he’s throwing 90 mph instead of 94.”
Masse was fired. It was never clear if he was let go for his critical stance or they just wanted a change, but I always found that fascinating to me.
Now, fast forward to today, a tweet from Ken Rosenthal reads like this:
Source: As of yesterday, the #Yankees had not received a single trade offer for RHP Phil Hughes.Hughes and his stock has fallen. It's been an interesting journey for Hughes, but whenever I see Hughes struggling, I think about Bill Masse.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 29, 2013
He was onto something and I believe that now more than ever.
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