BlueRocky

There's only 20 scouting reports available, 10 from each HS and College class:

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2021-mlb-draft-top-high-school-college-prospects/

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26720033/the-new-greg-maddux-healthy-hyun-jin-ryu-comes-close

The Orioles did fine. But as a fan, I wouldn’t want my team to just “do fine” with the largest draft $ pool and no. 2 overall pick. I rather get best player available than fool around getting creative, that’s how teams miss on star players. Either way we caught a lucky break.

Probably. But if Nate Pearson goes HAM I think there’s a chance to keep things close. Ryu pitches to contact and team A has some holes defensively. Team A also has a lot strikeout friendly batters in that lineup. Team B doesn’t strikeout with Martin & Kirk, and some real power with Groshans and Tellez behind. They also have speed with Wall, Davis, Martin, Alford. It’s a bit top heavy, but their outfield defense is also much more solid. Anybody has a chance against the Orioles.

What was the deal?

How close would be this intra-squad game? SP Ryu C Jansen 1B Shaw 2B Biggio 3B Guerrero SS Bichette CF Grichuk OF Gurriel OF Fisher DH Hernandez SP Pearson C Kirk 1B Tellez 2B Espinal 3B Austin Martin SS Groshans CF Davis OF Alford OF McKinney DH Wall

For the Orioles, this is where the Heston Kjerstad savings went to. Worth it?

That would’ve made sense, too bad they couldn’t come into an agreement. I was a big fan of trying the expanded playoffs this year.

One week should be enough to prepare for his inevitable ROTY AL CY Young + world series MVP season

I agree. It looks like a tough schedule on paper, but half those teams could have missing players due to covid. Anything can happen, let’s give it at least 30 games before we write off the season.

First 16 games: @Rays @Rays @Rays @Nationals @Nationals vs Nationals vs Nationals vs Phillies vs Philles vs Philles @ Braves @ Braves @ Braves @ Red Sox @ Red Sox @ Red Sox

There’s been broken promises, but it’s actually been mostly on the side of teams not keeping their promise of signing guys, rather than the other way around. This doesn’t tend to happen to the higher end guys though, like Manuel Beltre or Orelvis Martinez. The whole system is pretty flawed and they’re gearing towards an international draft in the next CBA so everything could change. But to give a little context of how things generally work now.. Most of these kids being scouted are down south in dominican republic, venezuela, cuba, mexico, panama, etc. They typically come from a very modest family, but not always (e.g. Vlad Jr), so when their kids show promise they get into amateur showcases and also join a baseball program guided by a trainer. These guys will help groom them and help promote them to teams while overseeing their development. They sometimes participate in amateur tournament too where teams will send international scouts. Of course they’ll usually be paid a commission from these kids signing bonuses. At some point a team will approach the players and trainers and come to an agreement. This can be as early as 3 years before they’re even eligible for the IFA period, 13-15 year olds, sometimes earlier. So you can imagine their bodies will change drastically over the course of their development by the time they sign. But with how competitive international scouting is now, it’s getting earlier, it’s basically a race for teams to get to the best guys first. But sometimes its very difficult to predict as you’re projecting kids that haven’t finished puberty. They’ll come in agreement with dozens of guys hoping to land the next Guerrero, Soto, Acuna, Tatis, etc. a million dollars is literally generational life changing money for a lot of these kids families. A team will even supply these kids with equipment (bats, gloves, uniforms) for years as they grow and enter IFA eligibility. So you can imagine the amount of emotional investment on both sides to see a kid grow from 13-14 to when they finally sign and enter the farm system. Sometimes there’s multiple teams interested and get to a kid before they’re fully committed, it’s case by case. But usually no, when a high profile prospect like Beltre is already decked out and advertising the team’s logo, other teams know he’s already taken and won’t be breaking his commitment unless there’s special reasons. At this point they’ve likely already agreed to a lucrative $. By the time a kid is this committed, he won’t even do showcases anymore or workouts for other teams, so they have no idea of the prospects growth and won’t throw half their bonus pool for a kid to outbid the parent team. Funny things do happen but generally it doesn't work that way. There’s a lot of these stories. Acuna was signed for only 100K with the Braves and they basically got to him really early and it was a lucky break for them, you can read about him here: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.mlb.com/amp/news/how-the-atlanta-braves-signed-ronald-acuna-jr-c283634544.html Ohtani was a weird case, but essentially the Angels got to him very early as well. Although it wasn’t a commitment, Ohtani favored the Angel due to Billy Eppler when deciding who to sign with and it ultimately paid off for them. https://theathletic.com/1880892/2020/06/25/inside-the-unheard-of-process-that-brought-shohei-ohtani-to-the-majors/

Manuel Beltre decked out in Blue Jays gear.

I wonder how his slider has changed while they continue to tweak his pitch design. He threw one around 89-92 with more velo, almost like a cutter, and a 86-88 with more spin and break. The changeup is also a devastating pitch for him when he had it under control, if he was able to improve his control and create a tick more velo separation that’s a third plus pitch for him.

His slider, curveball, and changeup got better during quarantine

Oh god

Looks like his rehab is going well.. and he’s learned to throw left handed too.

$200 UNDER BAL Orioles $40 UNDER MIA Marlins $40 UNDER TEX Rangers $40 UNDER NY Yankees $100 OVER SD Padres $40 OVER ATL Braves $40 OVER WAS Nationals

Thanks for your hard work John, editing this couldn’t have been easy.

In before Austin Martin signs for under or @ 6.8 M. That’s my guess based on what we’re seeing with Torkelson, Lacy, Meyer, Kjerstad, Hancock and Gonzales. Either way, they got it done.