So are we doing the Vince Velasquez thing again?

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of coaches, broadcasters, experts (and sadly fans) doing Vince Velásquez’s dance. By now, we should all know how it goes: Velásquez is showing some positive signs, and he has undoubtedly shown some very positive signs this exhibition season, and people are beginning to believe in Velásquez’s potential. It doesn’t take long before they start saying things like, “Maybe Vinny is taking notice” or “I think Velásquez could have turned around.”

They’ve been doing this dance since that magical day in April 2016 when Velasquez struck out 16 Padres and gave Phillies fans hope that they’d discovered a new ace.

Here’s the problem: More than four years have passed since that game, and Velásquez has not even remotely come close to replicating that success. Has that prevented people from falling into the trap every year? Of course, no.

Believing in Velásquez requires us to forget about the multitude of openings in which the fifth inning fails. It also requires us to forget that even on his good start, he rarely exceeds sixth. For example, he looked good against the Yankees on Monday night, but he loaded the bases in the first inning and took 25 pitches to complete the picture.

Apparently, people are willing to forget all of that, and they’re willing to believe that Velásquez is finally ready to be part of a good big league rotation. They see that he has developed a cutter and they think it could be the second viable release he so desperately needs. I think it’s more likely that as soon as you’re in trouble, you go back to your four-seam fastball style.

Before continuing, can we all agree to stop referring to Velásquez as “young”? We are beginning to arrive in Darin Ruf’s territory where a player is considered to be a younger player even if he is not.

Velasquez has just turned 28, and while he is still quite young in the grand scheme of the planet’s history, he is certainly not young in terms of the typical baseball player’s career.

I understand why Joe Girardi and the new coaching staff are talking about Velásquez. They did not have to bear to see Velásquez accumulating three balls in recent years. More importantly, Girardi realizes that Zach Wheeler could soon go on parental leave until 2021, and that any of his launchers could be forced to quarantine at any time. When the main competition for Velásquez’s place is maddening Nick Pivetta, it’s probably wise to keep Velásquez’s confidence at a high level.

But there really is no excuse for the rest of us. Some people want to blame Velasquez’s struggles on the former coaching staff, and I’m sure I trust Chris Young to lead a team of pitchers just as much as I trust Betsy DeVos to run the country’s education system. (Wow, Smarty is getting political!) But unless Gabe Kapler’s staff incompetence was so great that it transcended time and space, the launcher has struggled under two (very) different management regimes.

The good news is that with the condensed schedule, Velásquez will only have about ten opportunities to frustrate us this season. Unfortunately, even if he fights back, the strangeness of the season could prompt Vinny fans to say he deserves another chance to prove himself. So when spring 2021 comes, we could be doing the Vince Velasquez dance again.