This is the comment that is telling about organizational philosophy:
“He was told early in the year, ‘you’re not going to the major leagues this year. The plan is to keep him all year, and he’s out of options next year, so he’ll be in the big leagues with somebody, hopefully, it’s us,” Wathan said. “He was told that in May; we sat down and talked about some things and we were as forward as we could be about it. He’s here to work on things so he can be as close to a finished product as you can be when you get to the major leagues next year.
This is why Klentak doesn't want to rush prospects, why push a kid to the majors, start their clock, watch them struggle and maybe have to send them back and waste a developmental season.
I think he'd have liked to keep PIvetta and Lively in Lehigh all year, and give Williams more time to develop.
Joseph is a good example, I think they would have preferred to keep him in AAA last year. He's been going through on the job training and it hasn't been pretty at times.
Kingery is close to ready, but it won't surprise me if he spends a couple months at Lehigh next year,
Cozens needs another full year to work on his swing and hitting LH and breaking balls.
It's harder for players to work on things in the majors because failure might cause you to be sent down (which costs the player a lot of money besides the ego slap), so young players press, and rely on what they know will work instead of working on what needs development. When a young player masters the basics, it's usually obvious, when they get by with a great tool without refinement, they're often exposed at the next level.
And you can't ask a ML manager to "lose" games with 20,000 paying customers.
A good example is Pivetta, his best bet is to throw FBs, b/c his curve is erratic and his changeup is a work in progress, in AAA you could require him to throw 40% curves and changeups, do that in the Show and he's in trouble right now. So there's an obvious conflict between what is best for the player's long-term development (develop the two secondary pitches) and winning now (rely on the FB).