I think Maddon said, and enforced, much of what I've tried to write about the handling of young players and their often fragile psyches:
"“When you're a young player and older players start making derogatory comments like that, you're sitting in your stall and you're just like, ‘what does that mean?’ and ‘how do I process that?’” Maddon said. “You're asking how that impacts you and if you did something wrong. There's not even a thought of, 'how can I make this right?' or 'how can I make this better?' because you can't."
"Maddon’s main concern Wednesday was that his young players would internalize exactly what they heard come out of Montero’s mouth"
"Stage 2 people [mainly kids], in any profession, are just there to try to avoid making mistakes,” Maddon said. “They're not there to try to make things happen in a positive way. That's the natural order of things. You've got to get them out of that stage to the ‘longer I can do this’ phase. Some guys get out of it earlier than other, but to me it's about how you internalize what you hear."
Clearly, Maddon would not publically throw Odubel under the bus or allow his pitching coach to do that to Rupp. He wants the young players to get past the stage of focusing upon making mistakes and gain the confidence to move on to trying to make things happen. He would privately council Odubel on better base-running, tell him a stop sign means stop for now, and ask him to talk to the team physician about Adderall. What Maddon talked about in terms of negative reactions by younger players seemed to happen with Odubel last season and with Rupp this year. It doesn't help the player. It can destroy them.
