Coach Them Like You'll Lose Them
We drafted him knowing we'd probably trade him
We took him early in the draft. A teenager with raw power, speed, and a slick glove.
He was good. Everyone in the draft room knew it.
He was also stepping into the one position on the field where we already had two players who could start in the big leagues. Not projects. Real players, already blocking the path.
We took him anyway.
In baseball, you don't have the luxury of drafting for need. The path from amateur to Major League is too winding; the attrition rate too high. You take the best player.
We didn't take him hoping a spot would open up. We took him knowing it probably wouldn't. If everything broke right, if he developed the way we thought he could, we'd have three players for one job. You can only play one.
So the plan, from Day One, was never just player development. It was: help make him great, and if we're right about him, trade him for something we need somewhere else. We spent draft capital and big bonus money on a player we knew would most likely never play for our Major League team.
One of the scouts asked the obvious question in that room. Why pour real development into a guy we're probably going to lose. Fair question. Wrong instinct.
We surrounded him with quality coaches whose jobs it was to make him great. Real reps, real instruction, a plan built around his ceiling. Every person in that building treated him like the future.
And in a different room, we were treating him like an asset we'd likely move.
You can develop someone fully and still be building the case to lose them. That's not a contradiction. That's the job. Great organizations almost always have talented people leave to go do great things elsewhere.
Most people can't hold both at once. They pick a side without meaning to. They either overinvest and pretend the roster math doesn't exist, or they quietly pull back so the eventual loss won't sting. Fewer stretch assignments. Softer feedback. A little less of themselves.
It feels like protection, but it's actually the fastest way to guarantee the outcome they were trying to avoid: a talented person who can feel themselves being managed down, walking before you ever get their best.
We didn't pull back on that kid. Two years later we traded him for a piece we needed more, and he was good enough by then that it hurt a little to let him go. Even though though that was the plan all along.
That's the point, though. It's supposed to cost you.
You have a version of this on your team right now. Someone talented, sitting behind someone who isn't going anywhere. Not a performance problem. A seat problem. And some part of you has already done the math on how long they'll last here.
You can't control how long they stay. You can control whether they got your best while they did.