KingKat

Yep. This has been a problem with the Jays roster construction for some time now. When one of the selling points of a player is "he won't get that many plate appearances anyways" then maybe that's not such a good investment of a roster spot. Every year under both J.P. and AA, the Jays have been forced to give way too many plate appearances to scrubs and last time I checked, the Jays had an infield featuring Reyes, Lawrie and TBA so it's going to happen again in 2014.

You're probably right although if it does happen it would be a pretty epic derp. - AA drafts Beede one pick ahead of Wong - AA drafts Stroman with the compensation pick - AA trades Stroman for Beckham What could have potentially been Wong becomes Beckham. The circle of derp is complete. I'm glad I don't actually believe this will happen.

The reds gave up Grandal + garbage to get Latos so I think the notion that acquiring Latos required an over-payment is a flawed one. From what I understand the Jays has a package on the table that was arguably better than the Reds one but the Padres did something stupid. Maybe AA could have made an even better offer but I don't think you can pin this entirely on him. You can't make trades without a willing trade partner and sometimes the other team accepts an inferior offer and you just have to move on. Darvish is another story. That was a truly unique opportunity that won't come back. AA's aversion to the FA market pretty much backed him in a corner where he had to make that move. The opportunity to essentially purchase an exclusive negotiation window for an elite player will probably never come back.

Let's hope Mottola returns to coach the minor leaguers although this is probably good news regardless of that.

If you substracted the comp picks and trade, all you'd be left with is a terrible draft record. AA seems to go out of the way to make non-Ricciardi picks (Deck McGuire excepted). He's filling the system with high school pitchers and athletic guys with questionable hit tools, basically anything that could be qualified as high risk. There's got to be a middle ground somewhere. Notice that the Cardinals make what on the surface look like conservative picks year after year and yet unlike Ricciardi or AA, they consistently get good returns.

This makes me realize that I forgot to add positional adjustment when I made my total. Take these calculations, substract Nicolino and Blackburn then add in Maikel Franco and the results are decent. That being said, I agree that the system is serioulsy dumb. It treast every league as if they had the same depth and as if there weren't big gaps in talent between certain spots in the ranking. It's bad science if I've ever seen it. [TABLE] [TR] [TD] Player[/TD] [TD] Pos[/TD] [TD] League[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD] Rank[/TD] [TD] Top Hitter / Pitcher[/TD] [TD] Points[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Jurassic Kats (KingKat):[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD]40.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Maikel Franco [/TD] [TD] 3b [/TD] [TD] EL [/TD] [TD] AA [/TD] [TD] 4 [/TD] [TD] FALSE [/TD] [TD] 8.4 [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Chris Owings[/TD] [TD] SS[/TD] [TD] PCL[/TD] [TD] AAA[/TD] [TD] 8[/TD] [TD] FALSE[/TD] [TD] 9.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Eduardo Rodriguez[/TD] [TD] SP[/TD] [TD] CRL[/TD] [TD] A+[/TD] [TD] 8[/TD] [TD] FALSE[/TD] [TD] 7.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Jose Ramirez (CLE)[/TD] [TD] SS[/TD] [TD] EL[/TD] [TD] AA[/TD] [TD] 17[/TD] [TD] FALSE[/TD] [TD] 6.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mookie Betts[/TD] [TD]2B[/TD] [TD]SAL[/TD] [TD]A[/TD] [TD]8[/TD] [TD]FALSE[/TD] [TD]5.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Dan Vogelbach[/TD] [TD] 1B[/TD] [TD] MWL[/TD] [TD] A[/TD] [TD] 17[/TD] [TD] FALSE[/TD] [TD] 2.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD] Mike O'Neill Victor Roache Michael Fulmer Chris Okey[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

“The moment just got the best of him,” Matheny said. “And, yeah, it affected him, because he’s human and he cares.” http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-kolten-wong-cardinals-20131028,0,4177150,full.story#axzz2j4j0HKYd Doesn't really make him sound so bad.

[TABLE=width: 369] [TR] [TD]Prospects[/TD] [TD]B.A. Ranking[/TD] [TD]Pts[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Dan Vogelbach[/TD] [TD]#17MWL (A)[/TD] [TD]2.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Chris Owings[/TD] [TD]#8 PCL (AAA)[/TD] [TD]7.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Maikel Franco[/TD] [TD]#4 EL (AA)[/TD] [TD]7.4[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Ed. Rodriguez[/TD] [TD]#9 EL (AA)[/TD] [TD]6.4[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Jose Ramirez (CLE)[/TD] [TD]#17 EL (AA)[/TD] [TD]4.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mookie Betts[/TD] [TD]#7 CL (A+)[/TD] [TD]5.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]Total:[/TD] [TD]34.8[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Non-ranking: Mike O'Neill, Victor Roache, Michael Fullmer, Chris Okey. Edit: Postional adjustment missing. Fixed below.

Line drives for days. It's the Cardinals way.

Great, uncharacteristically short, column by Joe Posnanski on the whole Red Sox fiasco: http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/let-the-players-decide/

Think Cecchini takes over next year? If not they can always trade for David Freese.

Red Sox supporters will complain about the obstruction call but the real beef they should have is the Beltran hit-by-pitch that eventually scored.

How brutal is it that he went one pick after Beede?

What a tool. Craig tripping on Middlebrooks is undeniable.

The obstruction call will overshadow-it but Farrell blew this game.

Holy hell!

Truest of Cardinals.

So Farrell end up going with Uehara anyways but he wasted an opportunity to give Napoli and at-bat and Uehara has to come in with a runner on instead of a clean slate. Bad decision even if there's a good chance Uehara bails him out.

Allen Craig with a chance to pull a Kirk Gibson.

Can't believe Farrell is keeping Workman here. I think this backfires badly.

Ironically, the player we have that the Cards would most need is Rasmus. Maybe Gose+?

Especially when they are wearing padding to boot.

I actually had much higher hopes for Diaz.

If you go back to the threads from those years on the old board, you'll find plenty of fapping over guys who didn't amount to anything not just Snider. Fan bases always look for silver linings and they always find prospects to get excited about.

The Valbuena Valbuena Valbuena guy from Cleveland when on quite the pro Farrell rant earlier this year. I'll see if I can find it. Edit: O.K. It wasn't that guy (Bruce Drennan), it was the broadcast crew. Anyways, DJF had it on their blog. http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2013/05/02/farrells-treatment-a-travesty-and-smug-blue-jays-cant-lose-enough-says-cleveland-radio-broadcaster/ The audio is gone but the transcript remains: Guy #1,” is the play-by-play guy, Tom Hamilton, making “Guy #2″ analyst Jim Rosenhaus. Guy 1: When does the countdown begin for John Gibbons to get fired a second time up in Canada? 8-0 Red Sox in the 7th. Mike Napoli’s hit 2 homers. John Farrell has Boston at 18-8. Best record in majors. Red Sox drilling Toronto 8-0 in the 7th. The Blue Jays can’t lose enough. Boy the smug attitude they had when we were in Canada to open the season, it was like a coronation. “Yeah, I guess we gotta play 6 months of baseball but everyone knows what what we did in the off season makes us the greatest team in the history of baseball.” Guy #2: It was amazing after the first 2 games of the season and they were asking Gibbons about if he was worried about the season and it was just two games in at that point. Guy #1: Yeah they’ll be deep into their Labbatt’s in about half an hour. The ice is just starting to thaw in Canada and they’re already mathematically eliminated. Obviously they’re not going to be mathematically eliminated but if they lose tonight they are 9 and a half games out of first , and you’re basically one month into the season. The old adage that you can’t win the pennant in April or on May 1st, but you sure can lose it. Guy #2: What has to be concerning is their pitching has really struggled and they were counting on that to be a strong suit. It sounds like RA Dickey is hurting right now. Guy #1: Mark Buehrle has not been very good coming back to the American League. We had a member of the blue jays organization tell us, Opening Day!, that in the next 5 years the Blue jays will be in the playoffs a minimum of 3 times and the world series twice. That was before they had played one game and this was a member of the blue jays organization. Guy #2: Confidence was not a problem. Guy #1: You know though, Buck Martinez, the outstanding television broadcaster, and former manager in Toronto said, “Look, as Herb [score, longtime voice of the Clevelands] used to say ‘This is why we play the games’ but as great as it looks on paper it hardly ever works in baseball, doing what Toronto did in the off season.” Basically go out and try to buy a title. Guy #2: And the fact that they were trying to do it with players that Miami tried it with the year before and then got rid of after their disaster. Guy #1: Then again, it is only May 1st, And they certainly can get hot, but we’ll be rooting against them. Guy #2: Keep those cards and letters coming folks, from north of the border. Guy #1: Nice people up there, but.. what they did to John Farrell was a travesty. Guess that’s where my bitterness comes from. They threw John Farrell under the bus. They blamed john for everything including their current medical plan in Canada. And now John has Boston in first with the best record in baseball. But the shots they took at John Farrell this off season, were way below the belt.