metafour

I'm not sure why people assume that "Trump" would scare away a player from Japan. I see this posted all the time, and it really doesn't make much sense if you know anything about the Japanese. Japan as a whole is fairly conservative (especially compared to the modern leftist lunacy of most white Western nations), and they are EXTREMELY xenophobic when it comes to protecting their borders and nationality. The chances are significantly more likely that someone like Ohtani has immigration views that are considerably more in line with Trump than they would be with someone like Trudeau. Because of their isolation, Japan has not succumbed to the PC culture which dominates Western popular culture. Hence why when every self-hating white blogger was outraged when they cast Scarlett Johansson to play a "Japanese" character in the live-action Ghost in the Shell remake, the popular opinion in Japan was that it was actually really cool that a famous white actress was going to play a Japanese anime character. They love when foreigners take interest in their culture (you know, what is now referred to as "cultural appropriation").

It doesn't have any defense, but dont think for one second that Ohtani looming around in the background didn't influence the severity of this punishment. This is a warning shot to any front offices that were even thinking of circumventing the rules in hopes of landing Ohtani; which was probably every single one considering that there is absolutely zero logical reason as to why a player like Ohtani should be bound to the same rules used to deter the bonuses of 16 year old Venezuelan and Dominican kids in the first place. A player like Ohtani breaks this whole system, so you know full well that teams would cheat to get someone of his talent. The precedent of a lifetime ban changes the dynamic.

RHP Jol Concepcion, LHP Naswell Paulino, and RHP Juan Jimenez popped for Boldenone and suspended 60, 72, and 60 games.

"The players will have restrictions on their free agency. They will be eligible to sign with another club for another signing bonus beginning on Dec. 5 up until Jan. 15. After Jan. 15, the player is still allowed to sign but cannot receive an additional signing bonus. Only the amount of the signing bonus beyond $200,000 will count toward a team’s signing bonus pool. Players are allowed to re-sign with the Braves, but if they choose to do so, they must wait until May 1 to sign with them and can’t receive an additional signing bonus."

How much cap have the Yankees already acquired? Seems strange seeing them right there with the Rangers in available cap space when the Rangers really weren't players in the IFA class this year (they signed BA's #24 prospect with the rest being unranked), whereas the Yankees did drop a several mill (probably at least $4 million from estimation).

Neither one of them are SS's moving forward. Maitan was more hyped ("best prospect in years" label being thrown around before he signed), but as we are seeing that doesn't always translate. He certainly didn't look like a "special" talent this past season. As mentioned, there doesn't seem to be much logic in him waiting until next July anyway as only 1 team can sign Ohtani (if he can even come over) which means that there WILL be teams left to pay out Maitan.

It is allowed. They have to turn 16 by a certain date (before the end of the year?) to still be eligible in this class. Every year there are a few 15 year olds who can't officially sign on July 2nd because they aren't 16 yet. The Yankees already signed Ronny Rojas for $1 million and he didn't turn 16 until September I believe.

Yes.

Have the Yankees officially signed all of their kids that were still 15 on July 2nd and therefore had to wait until they turned 16? I knew that Ronny Rojas was one of them and he signed in ~September, but I thought there was another one or two of them?

Look at this swinging from my nuts again, "low-key" LOL. High-key, I'll f*** you till you love me.

I knew some clown would chime in with this. Exploiting a loophole and drafting well are two entirely different things. The poster I was responding to outright said that his DRAFTING RECORD was "elite"; thus I was responding to that statement and ONLY THAT statement. Even the worst drafting team in the league can draft well if you give them enough picks, that doesn't make them an "elite" drafting team. It is incredibly important to differentiate between those two realities, because in our case there was a clear correlation between when we had an ass-load of picks and when we were pumping out results. When the picks went away, suddenly our success was no different than anyone else's. How can you possibly argue that our drafting was "elite" when almost every position player we drafted with a top pick flopped (Thon, Sweeney, Hawkins, DJ Davis, that OFer that was permanently injured, etc)? Yes, we hit on some pitchers, but we missed on just as many (or more) than we hit on (which should be expected, I'm not knocking them on that). Overall, we were a good drafting team, but far too flawed to consider "elite". Teams like the Cardinals who enjoyed no extra picks and picked much lower than us every year yet still produced MLB contributors were better "drafting" teams than us.

His drafting record was elite because we had a couple year run wherein we could horde picks, thus we had drafts wherein we had 3-4-5 first round picks. Almost all of his top prospects came during that period wherein we were enjoying ~7 picks within the Top 100. After the MLB closed that loophole, our drafting record became much more average (just look at the last draft or two which were nothing special). Don't get me wrong, his high-upside approach coupled with a ton of picks produced a lot of good talent, but any time you have that many HIGH picks shouldn't you already expect that to produce results? Its not like every pick we made panned out either, as for every Syndergaard we had a Tyler Gonzalez or other uber-flop.

That trade single-handily destroyed our payroll flexibility, so much so that we were forced to start the 2015 season relying on several rookies who had no business being asked to start on a team that was supposed to "compete" (Pompey, Osuna, Castro, Norris). Osuna worked out, the rest flopped and we were in an absolutely terrible situation depth wise. You clearly have no idea how to evaluate trades because there is much more to consider than simply who was sent and who was acquired. We got old and expensive after that trade, and the premier player we acquired (Reyes) had to be shipped out just a few seasons later just to get rid of his terrible contract (bringing back a new terrible contract in Tulo) because surprise-surprise a player who's value was dependent on speed ended up collapsing after his legs went (this should have surprised no one). Even Buehrle, the "saving grace" of that trade was performing on a contract that was paying him ~$15 million a year. He was a pretty good ~#4 starter here, but lets not pretend like we were getting any sort of great value out of him considering that the Marlins payed out the ass to sign him. As a team with obvious payroll parameters, he got the chance to infuse a s***-ton of salary onto the payroll and he did so by adding a slew of declining and over-paid "past stars" on long-term deals that basically prevented us from adding further difference-making talent unless Rogers opened up the pocket-book a second time, which they obviously weren't going to do.

Sure, except the post I was quoting seemed to be chastising the guy to not do what he did. Why? "*******s" serve a vital role when it comes to counterbalancing sugarcoated responses.

He's not abusing anything; he has the job because his shtick works. If you don't like it, then don't pay him any attention. There is no societal law that requires him to be "thoughtful", nor should there be.

You mean just like every other top international prospect?

Why would that get it done? Yoenis Cespedes, a vastly inferior player, just signed for 4 years $110 million a year ago. Donaldson isn't signing for a discount. Please don't get David Price'd here (remember that? "Oh I totally wanna stay with the Jays!!").

Everyone's fav. writer had a question about this today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpr_KaaRjW0

You can't go above your bonus pool anymore, this was introduced in the new CBA. Again, if Otani only cared about the most money, he wouldn't be coming over now when his expected bonus revolves around measly pennies handed out to 16 year olds. Whoever signs him will be doing so under the gesture that they have a future deal in place which compensates him to his worth. $1 or $2 million more "IFA money" isn't going to be the difference between signing him or not.

Responsible how? If you go back to the departure of John Farrell, he was extremely vocal about the lack of attention to player development in our system, which may have been the reason why we failed with so many position prospects during that tenure. One of the key early additions under this new regime has been a drastic increase in this department with the additions of Ben Cherington and Gil Kim. The point I'm making is this: who gets "credit" for Danny Jansen? Virtually all of his newfound development has happened during the past year or so under this new regime. He was just an oft-injured middling prospect with some upside under the previous regime. Yes, he was drafted under the previous regime, but that doesn't mean that his development would have happened in the same way had there been no switch made. The same could even be argued with regards to Vlad Jr. Does he pan out the same way? Maybe he is just "good" instead of "elite" under the care of the previous regime? The point is; this is a very complex question that doesn't boil down to simply who drafted who and attributing credit based off that.

No, he really didn't. Go back and actually do some research. The vast majority of the players who came up during this supposed "restocking period" were drafted or signed BEFORE any of those two major trades were made (the Marlins and Dickey trades). There is this giant myth circulating which suggests that we made those trades and depleted our farm, and then went out and "restocked it". Wrong. Pretty much all of the prospects which replaced the guys we traded as top prospects, including Alford and Osuna, were ALREADY IN THE SYSTEM at the time of those trades. They were simply in the low minors. That entire pool of prospects was acquired during the period wherein heavy exploitation of the amateur systems (draft and IFA) were possible. What you see is that once those avenues of exploitation were tightened, our ability to produce prospects drastically declined. There is a false narrative constantly propagated which suggests that it didn't matter that AA kept trading prospects because he proved that he could "restock the system" with the proof being our resurgence of prospects after those two major trades. Again, the majority of those prospects weren't acquired after those trades, they were already in the system. Anthony Alford was drafted just two years after Noah Syndergaard. They came during the SAME WAVE.

The Northwest League is a big power suppressing league. Look at the league leaders and you'll see that only two hitters slugged above .500 this season. Pavin Smith who went 7th overall slugged .415. Drew Ellis slugged .403 and Riley Adams slugged .438. Warmoth has pop.

So Nate Pearson has 9 strikeouts through 3 innings......

How is that rushing him? Zeuch started in Dunedin in his first full season and he was nowhere near as dominant in his Vancouver assignment. Pearson just turned 21, he's really not that young despite being a JUCO.