metafour

Those guys (deGrom, Archer, etc) are harder to trade because the asking price has to actually line up. Just because Philly for instance would prefer to go "all in" for deGrom, it doesn't mean that the Mets will want what they have in their system, especially considering the asking price will be huge. deGrom, Archer, Syndergaard won't be dealt "just because", so in reality only a handful of teams can actually put together those packages, and they also have to WANT to unload their systems to do so. The Yankees can do it, but does it look like they want to give up the prospects it would actually take? Not really. Its a lot more complicated than "oh you're asking too much for Happ, we'll just add a bit more and get deGrom".

They got Zeuch, Bichette, and Biggio in their first draft. Pearson and Kevin Smith in their second. That is 5 of our ~Top 12-15 prospects in a strong farm system. Lots of interesting post-10th round players too (Chavez Young, Noda, Abbadessa, DJ Neal, Schneider, etc, etc). This past draft looks potentially elite with Groshans (huge hype building), Conine (elite tools and mashing), and Kloffenstein (potential 1st round talent). With no extra picks we very realistically landed 3 first round talents in this last draft, which is absolutely elite execution. I think that you are reaching big time. What, because Biggio and Smith came from College they were bad picks? D.J. Daniels went a round after Biggio as a high schooler and signed for the same dollar amount...who? Exactly.

They've had two "college heavy" drafts to balance out the mid-upper levels of the system which were barren when they got here, and even in those drafts they used 2nd round picks on HS players. There was absolutely nothing "college heavy" about this last draft, unless you want to count spending 73% of your TOTAL pool on two HS players as somehow being "college heavy".

Why the hell would he take the qualifying offer LMAO? He gets $30+ million easily on a two year deal, which for a guy who's about to turn 36 in ~3 months is a no-brainer.

He looked dominant tonight until a terrible error and a bunch of poorly hit balls landed in the perfect spots to extend at-bats or dribble in for base hits. He then gave up a HR on like the 50th pitch of the inning, which is about what you should expect with any pitcher on the mound. Luckily for us MLB teams do actual scouting, they don't trade precious assets on the premise of looking at box scores. His value isn't going to be shot because Eduardo Nunez hit a seeing-eye single off him.

I don't get the Stroman/Romero comparison at all. Romero would go on wild streaks wherein he couldn't even hit the strike zone, when he "fell apart" his walk rates were brutal. If anything, Stroman's issue is often throwing too many strikes ("pitching to contact").

Travolta starred in Pulp Fiction the same year Forrest Gump came out. If he was actually offered the role, that would likely be why he turned it down.

He's a real prospect now. Have you been under a rock these past few months or something?

Remember when Bickford was telling everyone that he wanted like $4.5 million and we drafted him anyway, only to offer him something like less than $3 million LOL? At this point this s*** can't just keep being a coincidence. It's as if he thinks he can seriously strong arm these kids into signing for below slot. We also missed on Singer because of some phantom injury that didn't even prevent him from dominating as a true Freshman at Florida.

Alex Anthopolous is at it again; it doesn't look like Carter Stewart is signing lmao.

Bichette and Jansen are going to the Future's Game.

I saw the Tulo trade as dumping Reyes (a dead weight contract) to get a guy who was figuratively just turning the clock back a year or so on Reyes, with an even longer contract that would become dead weight. This is basically exactly what ended up happening. It was a completely short-sighted move, which I guess you could excuse as "necessary" at the time, but anyone with a brain should have been able to foresee that a guy who couldn't stay healthy at all in his 20's (Tulo's injury history was historically bad) was going to be a complete mess in his 30's. Why the hell would you expect him to "age gracefully"? He was obviously going to fall off a cliff as no shortstop (a highly physically demanding position) can survive that many major injuries. The majority of you falsely evaluate prospects given up. Its not a matter of whether or not the guys we traded away became anything or not. Prospects are like currency: the evaluation comes from what you used your currency on. AA's biggest mistake wasn't trading prospects away, it was that he kept acquiring overpaid declining veterans that ended up completely f***ing up our payroll flexibility. The fact that no one from that Marlins trade became a star player doesn't magically negate the fact that we added something like $60 million in payroll that ended up being horribly inefficient allocation of resources. Need I remind you all that a year after that trade we actually went into the season with Osuna and Castro up from A-ball to fill the bullpen, Norris in the rotation, and Pompey in the OF? Those were desperation moves because we had no more payroll flexibility to fill holes with valid options, so we were forced to rush up a bunch of kids to patch holes on the roster. Osuna ended up working out, the other 3 were flops. Trading your farm for Chris Sale is fine; the STUPID move is trading your farm for guys like Dickey (old and a fluke), Reyes and Johnson (injury risk and obvious significant decline risk in the case of Reyes who was an all-speed type of player that wouldn't age well), and then Tulo (monumentally bad injury history with tons of years left on his deal) who was actually brought in because we had to FIX the mistake that was Reyes.

He didn't "fall", he went in the range where players like him typically go in. Brent Rooker put up MUCH better stats than Beer did in the strongest conference in NCAA baseball (the SEC) and no one was hyping him up as anything other than a ~Comp 1st-2nd round pick. Sure, you can make the case that Rooker was older, but even Gavin Sheets put up roughly similar stats and he went in the 2nd round. Seth Beer really wasn't doing anything overtly mind-blowing as a 1B/DH college masher; there's guys like him in most drafts, and they typically fall in that range.

Holy s***: https://prospectstorm.com/2018/07/03/toronto-blue-jays-2018-mid-season-top-15-prospects/

They are signing other players, guys that will be six-figure bonuses. OF Amell Brazoban and C Javier D'Orazio were two that we were connected to prior to today, and we just signed another kid.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fringe-five-baseballs-most-compelling-fringe-prospects-107/

From Ben Badler's new Top 50 article I take it:

Three pitchers combined for 8.2 innings of perfect baseball in Bluefield today before Matt Harris gave up a HR on the last out

No, because they are quite obviously inferior to both of those teams.

Reality doesn't matter anymore. Everything is social media and the army of internet "social activists" will tear Rogers a new one if the allegations are true and they back a woman-beater, its just not worth the P.R nightmare. The CEO of Twitter just had to come out and apologize because he ate a Chic-fil-a sandwich, the issue being that Chic-fil-a has kind of made bad press due to apparent pro-Christian/anti-gay viewpoints, so any association with that company is like a no-go zone. Look at what Starbucks had to do because two black people in ONE of their multi-thousand or whatever locations were wrongly mistreated, they figuratively took it up the ass as if company policy dictated that all blacks that enter should have the police called on them. These companies are all walking on pins and needles, its comically pathetic how spineless they are when it comes to kneeling for these professional victims who control public opinion on the internet.

Situations like these show the most extreme example of priority differentiation between front offices and ownership. Obviously, very few in the front office would be in favour of dumping him for his alleged crimes. On the other hand, with a publicly traded corporate owner, optics and maintaining brand reputation will always take precedence over things like "are we dumping a guy for ten cents on the dollar". I cant imagine any way that Osuna lasts here with Rogers owning the team. Baseball goes on and they'll find someone else to close games, they aren't going to take the heat with standing behind a woman-beater, not in a country like Canada where this s*** has taken precedence over almost everything.

Also, player placement absolutely means something, hence why Vlad Jr. and Eric Pardinho skipping the GCL entirely and going straight to Bluefield was an obvious tell by the organization that these two were believed to be extremely advanced for 17 years old. The GCL and the DSL are not comparable leagues, not even close, hence why most top IFA signees skip the DSL entirely: its not a challenge.

What in the f*** are you even talking about? They gave Jimenez more money and assigned him to a higher, more challenging level. Coaching and development? You think that the f***ing dirt fields of the DSL where half the pitchers walk 50% of the batters they face is somehow a BETTER situation for Hiraldo to develop in, versus the GCL where the team plays at the SPRING COMPLEX of the organization and has access to far better coaching, medical, and nutrition? You just wrote one of the single dumbest diatribes I've ever seen posted on this forum. The Dominican Summer League is s***-tier baseball. To state that they sent a player that they supposedly like more down to play in that situation as some sort of "player development" decision is absolutely retarded. Miguel Hiraldo is learning nothing facing DSL pitchers. Its a league wherein you can pretty much just not swing the bat at all and still get on base at a ~30% clip.