metafour

Shulman didn't raise anything past pure conjecture. "He's a strong personality and I'm not sure thats what they want to bring into the clubhouse". As far as I can tell Bauer's "personality" has never had any clubhouse implications. There's a guy currently in the clubhouse (Grichuk) who has gotten into open spats with former players (Stroman) and opposing players (Anderson). They also brought in Ken Giles and his "personality". It would seem to me that one of the most analytically driven teams in the league (the Blue Jays) would be naturally interested in THE most analytical pitcher in the league. Maybe they actually don't like his "personality", but nothing Schulman said is backed by anything more than typical baseball media/analyst jargon. Trevor Bauer is not Marcus Stroman. The difference between those two is that Stroman seems like the type that leverages the fanbase against their own team's front office which absolutely no team likes, on top of being insufferable to deal with in the clubhouse with his "look at me" bravado. Trolling idiots on Twitter is not the same thing.

He got frustrated and hurled the ball where absolutely zero fans are sitting. If thats your example of "on field problems", then I'm not sure what to tell you. Yes it was incredibly childish to lose his emotions like that, but imagine using that as your logic for not signing one of the best pitchers in the game...

Its necessary because the "YAAAAS QUEEN" "meme" is among the lamest and cringiest memes of the past decade. Issa joke. YAAAAAAAAAAS!

YAAAAAAAAS QUEEEEEN! Girl poooooweeeeer! J/k; she seems like a good candidate.

Uhm, what? Literally no one said that they "aren't made for baseball". The claim, which is an obvious one, was that they don't have a MONOPOLY on the genetics required to become professional baseball players. In basketball and football, they absolutely do. The NBA and NFL aren't predominantly black because only black people want to play basketball and football - they are predominantly black because the fundamental nature of those two sports require physical tools that blacks of West African genetic origin just so happen to EXCEL at. Baseball is a significantly more mechanical game which means that brute "athleticism" is less important for success - it has far MORE variables. This makes it a considerably more egalitarian sport - which is why you see elite players of all genetic ethnicities in high quantities. More specifically, baseball is not a sport which enforces maximum importance on the lower body - hence Billy Hamilton can run in the outfield for days, but the fact that he can't hit makes him a role player. Put it this way: if you trained Usain Bolt for a year or two, you could probably build him into at least a good NFL WR because his athleticism and explosiveness is a 1-1 match between sprinting and playing football. The same can NOT be said about giving him a bat and asking him to become an MLB player. Being an elite sprinter doesn't mean you can hit an MLB pitch. It doesn't mean that you can catch a football either, but that in itself isn't a particularly difficult thing to learn.

It isn't an absurd argument at all. The MLB had 31.9% "Latino" representation in 2017, and "Latino" also obviously includes non "Afro Caribbean" players. So even WITH an entire region that has a lot of people of West-African genetic origin who almost only care about baseball athletically, the amount of genetically "African" players (ie: African American + Afro Caribbean) is still not a "dominant" representation like you see in basketball or football. Yes there is a considerable amount of them because no one said that they possess NO genetic predisposition to be good at baseball, but its a much more egalitarian distribution because they don't have a monopoly on the genetic tools required to be good at baseball. Use some common sense: the vast majority of African Americans in basketball have no place on a baseball field. The last data-point I could quickly find (2017/2018) put the average height in the NBA at 6'7. Where in the f*** on a baseball field does 6'7 fit? SS? CF? C? There is some truth that height = velocity in pitching, but even in that regard there is no shortage of tall white people in America. The reason why they aren't in the NBA is because they lack explosiveness at that height. That doesn't mean that they can't throw the ball extremely hard however. You'll see the same thing with football where there is a huge demand for tall, THICK, and explosive players players on the OL and DL. That tool-set once again offers little to no value in baseball. A 6'5 300 pound man can basically only DH or play 1B. And that again is fully dependent on whether or not they even possess the hand eye coordination to hit the ball. That "skill" isn't a requirement at all to be a dominant OL or DL.

Has anyone stopped to consider that not every African American can be a professional athlete? If that subset of the population is grossly overrepresented in the NBA and NFL (which they are), then that overrepresentation has to be pulled from somewhere. The MLB's 8% African American demographic is in fact actually much closer to America's overall African American demographic (~13%) than either of the other two major sports. The real reason why the African American demographic in baseball more closely resembles the actual demographics of the country is simple: the requisitory athletic predispositions in baseball (ie: hand eye coordination for hitting and and the mechanics of throwing a baseball for pitching) are not things that African Americans have a genetic dominance over. They don't have superiority because baseball is so highly mechanical and the "gifts" required are not skewed so heavily in their favour, unlike in basketball or football wherein their height and lower-body explosiveness advantage gives them a massive advantage. As I'm sure everyone knows, being 6'4 with a 40" vertical doesn't really do anything in baseball. Both basketball and football are essentially governed by this height/size/explosiveness ratio which is more or less useless in baseball unless you can actually hit the ball. The nature of baseball actually makes it much more genetically "fair" than the other two major American sports. That is why you can see elite East Asian players in the MLB, and zero of them in the NBA and NFL. NBA basketball is in fact hugely popular in China and even in Japan/Korea - the fact that they have virtually zero representation has nothing to do with lack of interest.

Of course, but they've already set the precedent and therefore this should only logically follow suite. There WILL be a "champion" crowned for this 60-game season; it seems silly to then turn around and say that 60-games isn't enough to determine the draft order for next year.

Why is that f***ed up? They literally just decided the playoffs based off of 2020 standings. They have already decided that this is to be a "full season", therefore the draft position should follow the same line.

Wrong. They correctly concluded that a 1st round compensation pick for a team that had depleted its farm system and was heading for a rebuild (the pick which turned into Nate Pearson by the way) was worth more TO THE FUTURE OF THE TEAM than bringing back Edwin Encarnacion for his age 34+ seasons on a team that wouldn't even be competitive. At no point in time did they conclude that Morales was a "better player" or anything of the sort. Morales was literally just a f***ing stopgap on a transitioning team, how is this concept hard to understand? The POINT is that Morales at $30 mill + Nate Pearson made more sense for the state of the team than bringing back Encarnacion for age 34-38 seasons on a team that had no chance of competing. By the time the team would be "good" again (ie: now) Encarnacion would already be useless to the team. And in reality they were absolutely correct in their interpretation: take away Morales and insert Encarnacion and those Blue Jays teams STILL come nowhere near even sniffing the playoffs. Yes, Morales didn't even end up being worth anywhere near $30 million himself...but the point that you all miss is that the team was shedding longterm payroll and rebuilding, so in reality Morales' $30 million didn't even prevent them from doing anything (and from Rogers' perspective throwing Morales' $30 million in the trash is still saving money comparatively to paying $80+ million for Encarnacion on a non-playoff team).

No, they just knew what Edwin was gunning for and made sure to offer less because he was insistent on testing the market after being on a team-friendly deal during his entire peak here. It was very obvious that they wanted to move away from the Bautista/EE "core" due to their age and the fact that they knew the team needed to be retooled. It sucks that they had to throw out a token offer for semantics instead of just saying "we want to go in a different direction", but thats basically what they had to do considering the climate they walked into which was extremely irregular.

It WAS a PR move because Edwin was seeking $100 mill or more. He turned that down (as expected) but the market ended up being completely dry and he ultimately had to sign for even less than the offer we gave him. That was kinda the year when everyone in baseball collectively decided that past-30 DH only players weren't going to be getting $100+mill 5+ year deals anymore.

I don't get it, does Vlad still suck because he's fat, or what's up? I'm kinda confused considering that this even fatter guy is now all of a sudden the talk of the town?

Syndergaard was already showing considerably better stuff at the same age, so your comparison is stupid. That was the entire point. The fact that he's 6'6 doesn't mean s*** about his velocity (ie: no, it doesn't mean we just gave up a guy who going to throw 100mph). Also: while we haven't seen Kendall Williams pitch this year because the MILB season was cancelled, would we not expect the Blue Jays front office to HAVE seen him pitch behind the scenes? If it looked like he was showing anything near Syndergaard level ability, he wouldn't have been traded for Stripling.

I saw someone else post something brilliant: If a team is winning by a large margin and that team's pitcher is throwing a no-hitter, why is it considered kosher for that pitcher to "keep trying" in the 8th and 9th innings? I can't imagine that being a batter on the team that is being no-hit is a good feeling, so if its say 7-0 in the 9th inning, should that pitcher not be deliberately laying off the batters to preserve their dignity?

I get what you're saying, but the net effect isn't likely to be that drastic IMO to actually warrant worrying over it. For example, as I expect most if not the entire 2020 season to be played out, I can't imagine that 2018 records will be brought into any calculations whatsoever. If they do some combination with last year, we still picked 5th a year ago which is more likely to help us in any "combined" draft order than hurt us IMO. A combinated draft order would obviously hurt a team like the Red Sox, as you mentioned.

Sure, in which case the selection would be legitimate.

Under which scenario? I can't imagine any situation wherein the team with the worst record doesn't get the first pick that doesn't include a lottery-situation wherein random chance plays a factor. I mean, I guess you could argue that they implement a lottery and then fix the results. But otherwise, I really don't see any situation wherein Manfred just makes up the order in his mind. Why? For the obvious reason that he'd get crucified for any decision that implies even the slightest favoritism.

Teams not finishing the season would kick-in a draft lottery of some sort. Otherwise, since this is being billed as a real season, expecting anything other than standard procedure is farfetch'd. A complete collapse of the season would bring forth a draft order that combines whatever games were played this year with last year's standings, most likely. What is it that you think Manfred is going to do? I'm aware that he has power to dictate the draft order. He has also been completely shamed by the media over the handling of COVID - so to expect him to do something wild with the draft order is silly. He isn't THAT dumb or incompetent. The way you guys are talking its as if you seem to think he's going to walk out and announce that the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox get the Top 3 picks. Yeah, that isn't going to happen.

There's no Torkelson/Martin, but Jud Fabian is likely right there with Gonzalez if not probably higher due to his greater ceiling (CF > 2B and greater power potential). Its hard to say with no baseball season being played. Brady House is also getting some Kris Bryant comps on the HS side.

If all teams play the majority of their games, the draft order will be determined as it always is. It's pretty silly to assume otherwise.

Furthermore, if the Yankees had some "secret formula", why didn't Drury and McKinney flourish with them? Both were obviously talented/capable hitters.

I agree! We're so blessed to have such a great authoritarian voice to guide us ) Dear leader sets the best rules )

No, thats not what its about. But believe what you wish.