metafour

Blacks certainly have a sparkling record of complying with police.....

We wuz kangz n sheit.

You again haven't proven at all that these decisions are Shapiro's work in any way shape or form. The Cleveland example is simple: once his job requirements moved to more important s*** than dictating draft strategy (which is minuscule in the grand scheme of running a baseball franchise from a business, sales, ticketing, marketing, TV, etc. sense), suddenly the Cleveland drafts became much more open towards risk. So clearly whatever HIS preferences WERE, they no longer became the driving force of the team's overall draft plan. His role here is the same as it was in those years in Cleveland wherein he obviously let Antonelli and whoever else decide WTF they wanted to do with the draft. I'm suggesting that he's clearly letting his employees come up with a draft "strategy" themselves, why the hell would he care about enforcing whatever prejudice he has when its on others to find and sign talent? Shapiro also didn't do dick-all in Latin America for the most part either, has he enforced his Stalin-esque dictatorship in that realm as well? Of course not, as this team is still a major player in Latin America just like they were under AA. So clearly someone NOT named Shapiro made that call, or more precisely he's letting actual baseball operations people make those decisions. The draft would fall under the same umbrella.

Again, you ASSUME that all of these things somehow have Shapiro's little finger prints all over them. Most of this s*** is handled by the guys that he's hired to oversee these things, because the team President doesn't have time to make the call on everything from a $100 million dollar stadium renovation to determining who the AA pitching coach is LOL. Just because he's more involved than Beeston, doesn't mean that he's not delegating significant power to his subordinates. Your premise doesn't even line up with reality. The reason why so many of Shapiro's "guys" get GM or President gigs elsewhere is because he obviously empowers them to make baseball decisions which is how they get on the radar for promotions elsewhere. No one is going to hire a guy who's just Shapiro's mouthpiece to run their franchise, that is asinine. Hiring Sanders is proof that Shapiro is influencing the draft? How? Would you not assume that the hiring of Steve Sanders had a hell of a lot to do with Ben Cherington, who knew Sanders from his time in Boston? You know, Ben Cherington, the guy who was the GM of a major franchise himself and who obviously possesses the experience and aptitude to suggest a Director of Amateur scouting? Steve Sanders wasn't even the "favourite" to land that job, it was actually some other guy that IIRC DID have some "Cleveland connection" of some sort until Sanders randomly came out of nowhere and was hired. The whole thing is absurd; its been almost a decade since Shapiro handled a draft and you still think he's somehow forcing his vision on a bunch of highly regarded baseball-lifers who are employed to actually make those decisions themselves? Tony LaCava did WAY more scouting work than AA, and he's still here seemingly doing the same job.

AA was the GM, Shapiro is the President. These are not comparable roles. Are you implying that Beeston was telling AA who to draft? Or are you implying that Ross Atkins just sits around at his desk all day starring at a blank wall, because according to what I read from the majority of you on a daily basis, he supposedly has no say in any baseball decision EVER. Like I said, Shapiro became President in Cleveland in 2010, and in 2011 they drafted Lindor, and in 2013 they drafted Frazier. Those were the two highest picks they had with Shapiro as President and they were used to select HS hitters. In Shapiro's last draft as a member of the Indians they took Brady Aiken: not a college player, and not even remotely safe as he was coming off an elbow injury.

Why would that have been a Shapiro thing? More importantly, two years with a new regime isn't enough to determine any trend. The system was hollowed out when the change was made, with almost no one in the upper minors. Surely that would play a role in the push to draft more college kids who would fill the upper minors. I'm not arguing that there hasn't been an obvious change, I just don't see why every little minor baseball decision (ie: who we draft 12th overall) has to be attributed to Shapiro. He isn't involved there much, I can almost assure you. If you want to find patterns, look at what Steve Sanders or even Ben Cherington prefers. Steve Sanders doesn't have much history to look off (he supposedly values analytical drafting a lot), but his preference is much more significant than Mark Shapiro who won't see a single one of these kids in person except the off chance he runs into them at the airport or something.

You need a Valium, bruh? Its too bad Casey Mize didn't go against South Alabama; would have loved to have seen "Swaggy T" get his ******* stretched.

You realize that if he continues to hit at this pace that it is highly improbable that he's available when we are up to pick, right? Also, who gives a s*** what Shapiro's "type of guy" is. I didn't realize that he was scouting college kids in between juggling the potential sale of the team by Rogers or whatever other hundred million+ dollar matters he has on his plate. Cleveland's draft strategy changed dramatically the last few years while Shapiro was President, so clearly his preference to "his type of guys" doesn't matter a whole lot as you'd expect once his priorities become much larger than worrying about who the team drafted. Was Clint Frazier, with his plus physical tools and low floor (due to his high whiff rate and overly aggressive approach) a Shapiro "type"?

Its a very different culture. Most Japanese are content working ridiculous hours for s*** pay; because its their duty to do so. Their athletes fall in line in the sense that they behave in a similar manner, its a collectivist mindset vs. individualist. I remember reading a few years ago that the highest paid players in the Japanese league were all old former stars who were well out of their prime. I'm not sure if thats still a case, but if so, its a direct reflection of Japan's culture towards respecting elders: you make your money when you are old and have been deemed to have earned it, not when you are young and actually deserving of it based off of your play. Here people get pissed if a guy like Pujols is getting paid out to ass in his late 30's while sucking, over there its expected.

Just LOL at this moron. If you're not actively looking for a conservative girl, I've got bad news for you boyo.

12:47 John Dillinger: Is Orelvis Martinez the top July 2 free agent or just one of the top guys? Where do you currently rank him? 12:47 Kiley McDaniel: He’s one of the 5 hitters that stood out to me most at the MLB event. Luckily after day one when I showed my list to a couple scouts, they said I had it lined up pretty well, since I hadn’t done a ton of prep work before getting down there 12:49 Kiley McDaniel: Those hitters: Diego Cartaya, C, VZ Noelvi Marte, SS, DR Marco Luciano, SS, DR Orelvis Martinez, SS, DR there’s a bunch of candidates for the 5th spot, but I’ll go with the guy that ran a 6.37 in the 60: Alexeis Azuaje, SS, DR

Justin Turner was an anomaly; an under-recognized player who obviously took a huge discount to stay in LA. Yoenis Cespedes signed for 4 years, $110 million in that same free agency period and Donaldson is even better than Cespedes. Donaldson is a pretty safe bet for a contract that approaches ~$150 million IMO.

Shapiro let Antonelli make a blockbuster trade in Cleveland that he admitted he wouldn't have done, yet you think he's here making all the calls to sign Jaime Garcia to a one year deal? Yeah, sorry, but it didn't happen. "More involved" doesn't mean what you think it does. Most Presidents are "more involved" than Beeston was. By the end of his tenure, Beeston was an outlier, not the "norm". Very few teams have Presidents that are completely devoid of any duty in actual baseball decisions.

Its already started among the rabid-activists, hop on Twitter and you'll see that just changing the logo isn't enough for most of these people. Its all "cultural appropriation". Unsurprisingly, no one really gives a s*** about Notre Dame's stereotypical leprechaun logo or culturally appropriating St. Patrick's day for instance.

The logo was offensive and needed to be removed, but no way in hell should they be forced into changing the name. "Indians" is neither racist nor offensive. Is "Boston Celtics" an offensive name? How about the "New York Yankees" (which does have negative connotations)?

Olivares is a lot more intriguing than this blurb makes him out to be. There is real upside there, albeit with obvious swing/miss concerns.

What? His best tools were all in his bat coming out of HS (power, bat speed). He was a big boy (ballooned up to like 220 pounds at one point) so the assumption was that he would eventually grow out of SS as his defensive actions were always behind his bat anyway.

Aaron Sanchez put up 3.8 WAR at roughly the same age, and he was nowhere near as consistently dominant or impressive as Ohtani.

Most of the top Braves guys signed today, not with the Yankees. The Yankees are supposedly looking at the Cuban CF who defected recently.

We out

Its a joke. There was a story recently about a group of female nurses in Denver who were gawking at the large size of an incapacitated (but alive) patient's penis. When the man died, they went back and opened the bodybag to gawk some more (seriously). Needless to say they were overheard talking amongst themselves and reported, with their punishment being a couple weeks suspension, and their identities weren't even leaked. Imagine a male doctor or nurse doing something similar, they'd be tarred as registered sex offenders and publicly shamed, with zero chance that they'd keep their job. The basic procedure is to treat women like children for the same crimes that men commit (seriously, their sentences are a joke compared to a man committing the same crime). All these stories and firings about "inappropriate behaviour" yet when the Summer Olympics were on you had dozens of published and promoted articles from female and feminist outlets openly discussing "The Best Bulges at the Summer Olympics" (seriously). Imagine Men's Health penning an article titled "Best Olympic Camel-Toe's", no way that s*** flies. There was even a live segment of some hag reporters oiling up and rubbing down an athlete's chest, but again, females objectifying male sexuality is a-OK and not at all inappropriate.

I wasn't aware that there was any rumour about Tinnish hating AA. AA brought Tinnish up and both are Canadian; pretty sure they were close. Either way, this sucks as Tinnish was heading the Latin American operations and seemingly doing a good job at it.

Jeter was at least still a capable SS, whereas Maitan is just pretending at that position and by all accounts his body is ballooning even more rapidly than people had hoped. He's going to have to hit at an impact level, whereas someone like Jeter could at least still provide value by simply being a SS.

Sure, but we've already got $3+ million committed to the kid we're linked to for next season, and I get the impression that teams would rather sign the guys they've scouted themselves.