Laika

*plane

99% of the time they only add a new player to the system if he makes his MLB debut. The exceptions seem to come in spring training. Not really anything we can do about it.

Of course it's fair. 2nd tier closer for a second round pick + a veteran with fringe value. KK will probably hope to flip Yadi for another 2nd round pick near the deadline or draft. I don't think Nunez is really much of a fantasy prospect.

Visually, Hutch's slider went from an obvious plus pitch to something closer to average. I have no idea what happened. It's very weird.

CJ Wittmann ‏@CJWittJr 15m15 minutes ago Vlad Guerrero Jr 7 raw power; plus bat speed w/ leverage. Plus arm; lateral agility and avg reads. Sneaky athlete. Aggressive app. #bluejays Oh boy. Sneaky athlete? 3B actually possible?

This is amazing I just wish my mlb.TV app on ps4 would stop freezing

Naniel Dorris

They also have basically nobody that should graduate, so the entire list of noteworthy prospects will still be eligible. But 1 year is a bit of a stretch. Maybe in two years.

He says the fastball is "near-plus" (55) but then he describes something that is easily plus (60) maybe even 65. 92-95 touching 97-98 effective velocity even better "pounds the strike zone" with it Man, Greene sounds better and better each time a new report comes out.

I like how Buck Showalter can't even pretend not to be a miserable ******* for one second for a photo

They'll have to have either given him a raise, or offered him 3 years guaranteed in order to get him to sign a new contract because I'm pretty sure that as of January 1st he was already guaranteed through 2017.

There are a lot of technical differences between SS, 2B, and 3B. I think they play very differently. 3B is all reaction and athleticism. 2B is range, finesse, footwork. SS is everything - range, finesse, footwork, arm strength, rhythm, consistency. There are a wealth of players that are good at 3B, but bad at 2B (or vice versa) despite the fact that the positions are equally important. Brett Lawrie is a good example. Compare to the OF where every position entails largely the same thing - getting a read on a ball and running it down. The only real technical differences are the importance of a good arm, the fact that CF is simply bigger, and the fact that the angle changes. The amount of LF or RF that could play CF and not even look that bad to the naked eye is pretty high. Remember when Bautista played a bunch of games in CF a couple of years ago? You might not even remember because it was rather uneventful. Look at Matt Kemp - a LF patrolling CF for years. He even won two undeserved gold gloves doing it! That's how easy it was for him to fake it. Most of the top 3B or 2B would look out of place almost immediately at SS. If Toronto put Donaldson there for a whole game, or a whole series, you'd probably see a bunch of glaring misplays that a typical MLB shortstop makes. I really don't think the disparate demands of the sets of positions are congruent at all.

How can you even think that? It's absurd. So absurd that I won't discuss it further.

I think there's a difference. SS isn't to 2B what CF is to RF. OF positions are way more interchangeable.

It's honestly like a drug. The whole Gose on the radio thing was that first high, that we all continue to chase. But we know that nothing good comes of these pursuits. Only misery.

Which could just as easily support the argument that he's been one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball so far in his career, by a HUGE margin.

I saw that video of Pillar when he talked about not winning the gold glove, and he didn't really come off as dumb or ignorant. Just confident. He also mentioned the fact that they changed the rules so LF-CF-RF now get gold gloves. Both changes in gold glove voting kind of conspired to screw him out of one last year. I mean it's kind of super dumb that Cespedes and Calhoun got OF gold gloves and KP (and Cain) didn't.

Ottoneu drafts probably don't require much thought. Just line up with projected FIP and wOBA. Draft white guys preferably... more reliable. 30% less likely to get caught for PEDs and 50% less likely to have a domestic issue.

"above average vs LHP" doesn't qualify someone to be a corner outfield platoon player. Need to be a lot better than that. More importantly, if you regress Lake's platoon split and centre it over his projections, he probably doesn't even project to be above average vs LHP.

Yeah, top of the scrap heap is probably just as good as Zeke or Lake. Junior Lake is so bad at hitting baseballs that it's scary. From 2013-2015, minimum 600 PA, he has the worst SwStr% in the major by 1.5 full percentage points. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=600&type=5&season=2015&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=8,a The guy makes less contact than Zunino, Howard, Josh Hamilton and Chris Carter!!! And he's not a power hitter! Zeke I guess performed somewhat admirably last year but he is kind of the quintessence of replacement level.

Straily Dan would be a gift from the luck dragon.

He already has 88 service time days, so they don't need to manipulate him at all to avoid super 2. He would avoid it even if he broke camp with the team. For other readers, teams can avoid super 2 by limiting a player to less than ~130 days in their first season. Players who have less than 3.000 years of service time in an offseason (and therefore don't qualify for arb1) but more than ~2.130 (changes each year) qualify for super 2 and thus early arbitration. examples: Kris Bryant was kept down just long enough to make sure that he only got 171 days in year 1. He will be a super 2 player but the Cubs gamed an extra year of control out of him. I believe his agent has grieved this. The Cubs received an extra year of Kris Bryant, but they will pay for it in a somewhat hefty 4th arbitration year. Carlos Correa was called up in June and therefore got 119 days of service time in year 1. He won't be a super 2 player, and the Astros effectively received 119 "extra" days of Correa. --> with the Astros actually making a playoff run, the value that they milked from Carlos Correa is immense.

Let the record show that Grant77 deleted a comment which demonstrated that he misunderstood something

I don't think it's clearly a service time rationale because I'm not sure that Pompey is necessarily good enough to warrant that type of manipulation. There could be other decent arguments for sending him out. Since they'd have to keep him down until July to gain that "year" of control, it's hard to do too. But I don't think it matters. If there are OF issues early on then they can just call him up, right? Pompey crushed A+ in 2014 (150 wRC+), crushed AA in 2015 (175 wRC+), and although he hit well in AAA in 2014 (137 wRC+) he has had major issues translating his pop to AAA. Sending him out could simply be a developmental decision.

~183 days in a season, roughly. 172 service time days = a service time year per the CBA. Pompey has 88 service time days so far. IF they can get lucky with Ceciliani, or Lake, or Brown, or health generally, and limit Pompey's service time to less than 84 days this year, then they can gain an extra year of control. Worth a shot? Of course, he'd end up a super 2 player in this scenario and they'd have to go to arbitration with him before 2019 (and then three more times). The ideal scenario in sending him down has him developing in AAA and the MLB team doing just fine without him. Then they can call him up early July for almost three full months of developed Dalton, supplementing a World Series run. Or, alternatively, they have a mature, developed trade chip that still has a full slate of team control. But if the 4th OF isn't cutting it then they can just call on Pompey.