Laika

who?

he's not in Yahoo yet either

Yeah there's no official signing yet so he won't be eligible. His situation could fall under the following sentence from the MLB Roster Management portion of the rules: "International free agents that are not subject to international spending restrictions and sign during the season are eligible to be claimed as soon as Yahoo adds them to the system. International free agents that were subject to international spending restrictions but are added to Yahoo's system during the season will be treated like prospects who did not his AA in the previous season - that is, they cannot be added unless they are called up to the big leagues."

*Norfolk

I wonder if the hops will be noticeably different between the turf and dirt. Buck Showalter will probably complain about it a bunch regardless

It's not like baseball would have died instantly when PR was swallowed by the draft. The culture has slowly declined. It would have taken a generation to happen, because you'd need a new crop of youngsters who, when faced with the new system, either fail or decide to do other things. Most of the guys on your list here were teenagers when the rules were changed, so they were already invested in the baseball route to whatever extent.

oh.

naming a dynasty team after Taylor Jungmann seems like a great idea!

I think MLB can avoid the issues that maybe contributed to the decline of baseball in Puerto Rico. There are a few reasons. By being included in the MLB draft, Puerto Ricans had to wait until the typical draft year (conclusion of high school), so they competed with all the North American players. This wasn't really fair to the kids since high school baseball is almost non-existent there. Teams also no longer had any incentive to invest in academies for cultivating talent in PR, since any other team could just draft the players. Teams also had other countries that they could simply move to - DR, Venezuela, etc., and they did so. If the international draft is separate from the rule 4 draft and lets players be selected at 16, then I don't think there would be any negative impact. What would make it even less likely to have negative impact would be to simply have a money slot system where players can still pick which team they want to sign with - this would keep incentives for MLB teams to cultivate talent with academies, etc. I'm suggesting that teams be granted slots with specific dollar values like in the MLB draft, but these are treated like limitations on allowable agreements, so there is no draft per se. If the team has slot 1 with a value of $8M, then they are permitted to sign any one player for up to $8M. Heck, PR could even be thrown back into the international draft. There's also the chance that PR's baseball decline had nothing to do with the MLB draft, which you allude to.

Cleveland has a similar structure. "Principal Data Scientist, Baseball Analytics" = Keith Woolner "Senior Director of Baseball Research and Development" = Sky Andrecheck "Analyst" = Max Marchi I think it's just those three and then interns / seasonal guys, etc.

I was wondering that. I'm guessing there is a plan to hire more junior / lower level analysts, and maybe increase student programs since the team likely profits greatly from the endless stream of cheap talented labour.

kilace has seasons? that's annoying maybe you can open a side door and let me and gordie in?

You realize that ang literally has 4 cousins in pro ball and they are all s***** mexican relievers, right?

One of US with seasons tickets? lol

I don't think an international draft would have that effect. If you look at the domestic draft, bonuses range from ~$8M at pick#1 to ~$1M at pick #60. I think the international talents who sign in the $300k - $6M range would still sign for the same amounts, roughly. So no change for the vast majority of players. What you would see is the really elite talents get capped at something like the #1 pick in the domestic draft. So a few of the star prospects that pop up each year, like Moncada, Yasiel Sierra, or Lazarito, wouldn't get any of thee goofy $30M, $16M deals. It would be weird to see MLB implement a draft where the $$$ was drastically different than the domestic one

Yeah there's probably a decent chance it happens. I mean, the system they made is obviously broken. Who knows what they'll come up with though. Could always just tweak the system in some way and keep the signing restrictions. They could do a kind of merged draft / free agency where teams have a set budget that they can't go over, players have to register before July 2, but players are free to pick their teams.

So the humans are next I guess. Unless we can convert the gays

So where would unicorn babies come from?

It's a gay unicorn http://www.shopgearbox.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/e/mens-tee-gb-stallion-detail.jpg timeless

my body of work speaks for itself

I abstain

shouldn't be on the internet anyway. It's distracting to those around you.

He mostly just has bad mechanics. Classic inverted letters up and down his delivery. Pick any letter and I can find it ass up at some point in his motion.

He's been good for basically his whole career, including 2015.

minor league deal with SDP weird choice for him. I don't see why he couldn't get a big boy contract somewhere.