Down on the farm

Sporting News, The, June 30, 1997 by Rob Rains

On a picture-perfect evening in early June, Jaret Wright is throwing the ball for the Buffalo Bisons, the Class AAA affiliate of the Indians. Pitching is what Wright does best. His father, Clyde, was a major league pitcher for the Angels, Brewers and Rangers, and Jaret probably was throwing a baseball before he could walk. He did it well enough in high school, in fact, to be named Player of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and become a first-round draft pick of the Indians in 1994.

Wright reached the Class AAA level after making only 55 professional starts in rookie ball, Class A and Class AA. Not too many pitchers reach the minors' top level at the barely-able-to-drink age of 21. Wright is here because of his ability, but he also is here to learn, and, for what manager Brian Graham says probably is the first time in his life, to be challenged mentally as well as physically.

In a time when an ever-increasing number of young players are skipping the Class AAA level entirely or just making a brief pit stop before being rushed to the majors, Wright's experience in Buffalo illustrates just how valuable that exposure is, and how much it will benefit Wright and the Indians in the long run.

Part of that experience includes exposure to older players, pitchers who have been through the wars, like Terry Clark and Greg Cadaret. When Wright asks a question, they listen and answer. Sometimes they offer advice without being asked. Graham considers both extra pitching coaches on his three-man staff, just as Torey Lovullo and (before he was called up) Casey Candaele were extra advisers for young infielders such as Damian Jackson and Enrique Wilson.

Graham has heard the ideas about ways to change Class AAA baseball, including Texas general manager Doug Melvin's plan to take all six-year free agents -- players who have spent six years in professional baseball but are not protected on a 40-man roster -- and put them into their own league, much like the setup the NBA has with the Continental Basketball Association, where all players are available to every team. If your shortstop is hurt, go into that pool and buy the best player available. A team wouldn't have to keep a guy on its Class AAA roster and pay his salary merely as insurance.

Those ideas have merit and support, but Graham likes having six-year free agents as part of his club. As he stands in the first base dugout at Buffalo's North AmeriCare Park and watches Wright on the mound, he has all the evidence he needs.

"The six-year free agents are very important to a guy like Jaret Wright," Graham says. When I tell a player something, a lot of times it's like it's coming from their father -- they shrug it off. But if they hear the same thing from somebody else, all of a sudden it's a good idea."

On this night, Wright is pitching against Indianapolis, the Reds' top farm club, in the opening game of a doubleheader. In a quirk of scheduling, Wright is making his fourth Class AAA start and facing the same team for the third time.

That alone forces him to think on the mound. When he sees Brian Hunter or Keith Mitchell at the plate, he has to recall how he pitched them in the past, what pitches they hit and which they missed. He can't rely entirely on a 90 mph or better fastball. The same is true when he faces Aaron Boone, another young star in the Reds' system.

A three-run homer by teammate Alex Ramirez in the second inning stakes Wright to an early lead, and he goes to the mound for the third remembering something Graham told him earlier -- that the most important inning he pitches is when his team has just scored, keeping the opponent from regaining the momentum.

"He looked at me like he had never heard that before," Graham says.

Wright strikes out the first two batters, giving him five strikeouts against the first nine Indianapolis batters, before Pat Watkins sneaks a ball just inside the first base line for a single. Eric Owens follows with a fly to center that could have been caught by Trenidad Hubbard, but he misplays it and it falls for a run-scoring double.

Facing Mitchell with the heart of the batting order behind him, Wright could have lost his composure because of the mistake. Instead, he calmly retires Mitchell on a comebacker to the mound and walks off leading 3-1.

There will be two more occasions in this game, in the fourth and fifth innings, when Wright finds himself tested. In the fourth, he strands a runner on third with one out. In the fifth, he has runners on first and third with one out, retires Owens on a groundout to second and then gets Mitchell to pop out leaving runners on second and third.

"At every level, you are there for a reason," Wright says. "At each level there are different challenges that are going to prepare you for the majors."

Wright has found the challenge at Class AAA is learning how to pitch out of different jams, especially facing more experienced hitters who won't swing at a curveball in the dirt like a lot of hitters in Class AA. A large part of what he has learned has come sitting next to Clark and Cadaret, who have a combined 32 years of pro experience.