metafour

Atrocious career? Let's not get melodramatic. He was drafted 14th overall and managed to play in 8 MLB seasons, providing 3.3 career WAR. Good player? Hardly, but there are guys drafted every single year in the first round that won't even make as much as a significant appearance in the majors, let alone stick around for 8 seasons.

Exactly. I'll bet any amount of money that Gabriel Moreno was off-limits in any trade discussion. The fact that they were willing to move Martin, while it being collaborated through several sources that both internal AND external evaluators were down on him, means something. They likely view him as more Dansby Swanson, than Alex Bregman. I'm sure Minnesota is hopeful that they can make some fixes with him which might entirely be possible, but you can't sit there and protect every prospect. Or sit there with a finger up your ass because you drafted this kid 5th overall so now you have to marry yourself to the notion that he's elite. Arizona's trade for Shelby Miller ended up being horrible, but they wetre correct in dumping Dansby Swanson even though at the time it was unfathomable that they'd trade a guy they drafted #1 overall.

Fangraphs literally just reevaluated him at #59. Baseball America dropped him from #12 to #21, and as per their comments on him after this trade - it seems they could have made a case for dropping him even further. Either way, no, he's not a Top 10 prospect anymore. You are glossing over the concerns on him significantly. He dropped to #5 in the draft due to his arm-strength disappearing and the defensive question marks surrounding that, on top of there being worry about how much power he'd hit for. Now, both of those question marks (power and defensive outlook) look even worse than they did when he dropped from #2 to #5. Fangraphs says he hasn't looked good at either SS or CF this season (below-average arm and average speed limits his range), and his exit velocity is actually down 8 mph from college. So he has actually DECLINED in the power department. Now, this is obviously his first pro season and you can argue that he can make adjustments, but what you are looking at is a guy who's prospective outlook as of TODAY is less than what it was to start the season. That needs to be accounted for when evaluating this trade, because ultimately when it comes to scouting the most recent sample is worth more than last year's sample. Baseball America literally dropped him out of the Top 100. Fangraphs has him at #48, and I don't think Keith Law has him in his Top 100 or ever did. Again, read the freaking updated reports. His velocity has dropped this season and he has never had "elite" stuff. There is lots of talk about a future backend #4 or #5 starter or reliever outlook with him. Again, just like Martin: his outlook and value have regressed. The control issues out of nowhere are concerning because that was actually his best "skill"; because he's an average velocity and average breaking-ball pitcher otherwise.

Dude, R.A Dickey was old as dirt and coming off a season where he was doing unprecedented things with the most gimmicky pitch in baseball. There was basically zero precedent to suggest that he'd be able to remain dominance as a knuckleballer, by way of the pitch itself being completely unpredictable. Furthermore, he went from a huge season in the Mets' pitcher-friendly park to trying to emulate that success in the Rogers Centre - and similarly hitter-friendly AL East parks. Don't be stupid. The Dickey trade was bad from day one because we were praying for a repeat of fluke success. Jose Berrios, at 27 with multiple years of well above-average performance and obviously above-average stuff, is nothing like R.A. Dickey. In fact he might realistically not even be at his peak yet.

SWR's stuff has apparently been down this year.

It looks like we got 17th round pick LHP Cooper Benson signed as well for $125,000 according to the MLB Draft Tracker. He was a draft-eligible Sophomore (only eligible because the draft got pushed to July this year) who blew his elbow out after one start I believe. He should be one to watch as I believe he could have gone much higher had he not been injured.

How is reciting a stat-line "s***ing all over a prospect"? The initial talking point was that this is a bad trade because we "burned" Riley Adams as an asset. In reality, he is actually an anchor for us because we are a team that is so strong in the farm system that we're going to struggle to protect all of our interesting prospects, and Riley Adams - who is 5th on our immediate catching depth chart, is occupying a spot on our 40-man roster with no immediate use for us as anything other than "well if 3 other guys all get injured at the same time, we have Riley Adams!". "Burning" him as an asset suggests that we could have done more in a trade with him - and that's the part where his extreme flaws as a hitter and his age make me question what exactly you think makes him more valuable than what he was just traded for? Griffin Conine was traded for a rental just last season, and he is much more interesting than Adams because he actually hits an obscene amount of HR's. You can say all you want about "backup catchers", teams didn't even want Reese McGuire for free and he looks much more useful than Adams is expected to ever be (much better defense, better contact ability, and much better plate discipline as he literally strikes out half as often). A 25 year old catcher who's not even hitting .240 in AAA and strikes out 32.2% of the time better project to be an elite defender...and Riley Adams isn't even that.

Riley Adams is a low BA, extremely high K% hitter which means that he is EXTREMELY flawed at the plate, and he's old - so the likelihood of him "figuring something out" isn't that high. The fact that he doesn't make contact also means that his plus power is going to be very hard to tap into at the MLB level. He hit .258 with a 31.6% K-rate in AA, and he's hitting .239 with a 32.2% K-rate in AAA. Unsurprisingly, he hit .107 with a 40% K-rate in his small MLB sample. What do you think he reasonably projects as? A .220 MLB hitter who strikes out ~35% of the time? You seem to be over-exaggerating his potential upside as well as his value, because once again: teams aren't lining up for an OK defense backup catcher who looks like he's going to hit .220 and strike out 30%+ of the time. He's not "nothing", but this is about his value: a one-for-one flip for a rental reliever who's been elite in the past and hasn't been great this season, or as like the 4th piece (essentially a throw in) in a bigger deal. He's not headlining any other trade. There is also value in getting him off the 40-man roster for us, because we have too many catchers on there - and his "role" on this team is basically only as the emergency backup to the emergency back LOL. Had Moreno not been hurt, he would have been a better option over Adams to play even today.

No, he hasn't - but then you need to ask why he's striking out 3 batters fewer per 9 despite throwing harder than he has in each of the previous two seasons. I'm sure that there is optimism that they can make an "adjustment" of some sort and potentially got elite production out of him for the remainder of the season.

I mean, Riley Adams' "value" is what? As a throw in piece in a bigger trade? He's 25 years old and like 5th on our catching depth chart. He's not a top prospect - this is about the price for a rental reliever who's had obvious success in the past. One interesting bit: Brad Hand's velocity this year is actually higher than each of his prior two seasons. He's been OK, but I'm sure there is hope that we can get better performance out of him during the remainder of the season.

Those guys are all having huge seasons statistically. I'm not sure on the actual prospect status/grades, but Hauver was a 3rd round pick in 2020, and Smith was a 2nd round pick in 2019. Glenn Otto is 25 but he has 115 strikeouts vs. 17 walks in 75.2 innings this season.

Palmegiani is signed!

Also, Jud Fabian isn't signing:

It'll be tight, but I think they get done, just because this regime has been extremely proficient in draft-budgeting. With regards to Palmegiani: he's committed to Arizona, but their HC just left to take the LSU job.

The official Tweet from Callis just came through:

Where are you seeing this? I haven't seen any Tweets from Callis, Mayo, or Collazo.

I thought it was interesting that the Jays were supposedly all over Solometo, and then he ultimately went to the Pirates with Cherington/Sanders. I imagine there's probably some cross-evaluation that happened there given that the scouting departments of those two teams are "related".

Nope, Tiedemann (3rd round) and Connor Cooke (10th round) are still unsigned among our Top 10 picks. Cooke already has "Toronto Blue Jays Organization" in his Twitter bio so I imagine that he's been signed but it probably hasn't been "officially" announced yet. There are obviously still other draftees from a 11th to 20th rounds that haven't been signed/announced yet either.

That's not how that works. The team calls before the pick is even made and confirms/comes to an agreement in principle on the bonus amount. That's why his family was celebrating before the pick was even made and knew that he was about to be selected at that very moment - they had an agreement in place with the Blue Jays to select him there. So of course he's going to openly say "I'm signing" after the fact, because he wouldn't have been drafted there if he wasn't signing for a pre-agreed upon amount. That amount that was pre-agreed upon is almost definitely going to be over-slot, based off of his leverage/standing in the draft. Now, we can more or less estimate the realistic amount that it would take to sign a HS pitcher of his ranking, and the numbers around that estimate don't really give much room for Holman unless there is some EXTREME savings in the remaining Top 10 picks. Keep in mind that the 19 year old JUCO kid we took in the 3rd round might also get a bit over slot, and we also took a HS OF as well who while unranked, might have also struck a deal for a marginally over-slot bonus (he did have a scholarship to Notre Dame). I think you're reaching pretty hard in trying to find a "reason". The Rangers also drafted Will Taylor in the final round, and his realistic price tag is probably in the $4+ million range (hence why he ultimately wasn't drafted in the 10-20 range despite having the talent to go there) and the Rangers most certainly didn't save up $4+ million to give him. There were also other obvious "this kid is going to school" selections from other teams too; like Gage Jump to the Padres.

I still don't see how or where that money would come from. Irv Carter's slot value is only $350K; I can't imagine that a HS prospect of his caliber is signing for anything below $700K - so a $110K haircut on Hoglund's bonus probably doesn't do anything to help us go even more aggressively overslot on Holman.

He's a real prospect, ultimately it will come down to how much they can do with his swing to get him to hit the ball on the ground less (which is what they're working on with him). He's one of those guys who with a successful swing adjustment could tap into completely unexpected upside because his feel for hitting is really good.