metafour

Kevin Smith: 3 for 4, 2 doubles so far tonight. Average up to .299 The strikeouts are real, but the power is coming through and he's showing more Cape Cod contact than Maryland contact early.

Warmoth batting 3rd for Vancouver tonight.

Ryan Borucki: 7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K 10 groundouts, 1 flyout. 94 pitches, 61 strikes.

Having the "highest ceiling" is a relative term and isn't something that you can actually measure. Several players on that list have ceilings that are obviously as high, if not higher. Tatis Jr. for example is drawing Machado comps. I don't see a problem with that Moncada placement given what he's shown and the fact that he's still largely tools-over-substance with some worrying question marks. Is he even going to be as good as Bellinger who was ranked below him and yet is already crushing MLB pitching?

A guy like Quintana can just be traded later if needed to recuperate whatever you gave up for him.

Ryan Noda has another HR tonight...

The Yankees' quick turnaround has everything to do with the shrewd acquisitions of guys like Castro, Hicks, and Gregorius for virtually nothing and seeing them blossom in New York; not "blowing their brains out" in the IFA market which has largely produced nothing significant for them yet. You keep bringing up the failure of not going "all in" in the 2015 IFA market without considering that the Cubs spent $15.53 million that year and could do so because they were in the penalty the previous year and thus had the whole year to reach agreements for the 2015 class. The Dodgers also spent $7.88 mill that year (this is looking at just the 16-year old kids, not Cuban signees). The point is, there are other teams signing these players as well, so its not as simple as deciding to "blow your brains out" and then everyone signs with you. I mean, we could have easily signed a bunch of $300-500K kids for $1+ mill and made it look like we were getting sweet talent, but spending a ton of money and actually signing the best players are two completely different things. If you look at that class, the top ~8 or 9 guys all signed with different teams, and while the Cubs went crazy, they didn't land ANY of the Top 3-5 elite guys. Why didn't they sign Vlad Jr. if they were going all in? Probably because he had a deal with us for maybe 1-2 years prior.

Yeltsin Gudino 3 for 3 with a double and a walk. Now pushes his line up to .270/.342/.323. Still more work to be done, but his year-to-year improvement is very evident. Apparently he's been hitting .338 since the MWL midway point.

Can we interject some personal responsibility here? If your lifelong goal is to become a professional athlete, and you've so far succeeded enough to become a PROFESSIONAL minor league player, the idea that you don't have the resources or "knowledge" to know that you can't eat chocolate bars and chips all day is a total joke. Do you need to wipe their bottoms after they've gone to the bathroom as well? If you can't spent half a day learning about nutrition when your career of choice is entirely athletic, then just give the f*** up.

Most of these people who want to try and scrape out a second wildcard spot don't realize that we close out this season with something like 22 of our final 30 games being against AL East opponents. Because of this, the AL West and AL Central teams that we'd be competing with for that spot have a significant advantage because they are more competitive within their own divisions than we are within our own division. Regardless of our "2 of 3" series win against the Yankees because Betances couldn't throw a single strike, we have one of the worst winning percentages against inter-divisional rivals in the entire league. Going into that series against the Yankees I believe only Oakland had a worse winning percentage. The reality is, just how confident is anyone that we'll go into those final 30 games (which WILL be what decides the wild card spots) and come out with a sufficient winning record? We haven't managed to beat up on a single AL East team this year, and that includes the Orioles.

Except that Donaldson is almost certainly outside his "MVP window" already, and even still, the novelty of having an "MVP caliber player" on a non-competitive team is just that: a novelty. In a completely fair-weather market, the idea that you need to keep Donaldson around during a rebuild to "appease fans" or anything of the sort is a complete joke and serves no actual discussion in a strategic setting. No, Toronto 'fans' will not fill a stadium to watch Donaldson play on a ~70-80 win team.

Morales still has a positive WPA and one of the higher Clutch ratings in the league this season, so he hasn't been completely useless regardless of what the batting metrics indicate.

The Northwest League wherein Vancouver plays is a league wherein virtually every newly drafted College player begins their career. The average age is not "artificially inflated" as very few newly drafted College players are skipped straight to full-season ball, and in fact, the "gap" between Vancouver (A-) and Lansing (A) really isn't that significant for that reason. This only becomes an issue if you are looking at a College aged kid who is REPEATING short-season ball.

Virtually every top drafted college bat from this draft is in short-season ball. I get what you are saying, but apart from Noda and Kevin Smith, these guys ARE in an "age appropriate" league. Riley Adams is still 20 and is in a league wherein the average age is right around ~21. Even Kevin Smith is still 20. Edit: Nevermind they both just turned 21 in the past ~two weeks.

Welcome to yesterday.

Riley Adams 2 for 2 with another 2B so far. Hitting .400+ in Vancouver so far. Not sure how many have clued in, but this kid has massive upside if he can make contact. This whole draft class is off to a fast start.

Vlad is 18 years and 3 months old and already garnering "future best prospect in the game" discussion from virtually everyone who's seen him. By comparison, Meadows was only two MONTHS younger than Vlad is today when he was drafted. And suffice to say, he wasn't anywhere near this level of a prospect as an 18 year old. So yes, Vlad absolutely has a higher ceiling, due to his near flawless offensive profile (more walks than strikeouts at 18, plus bat speed and hand eye coordination, 70 grade power) which overrides whatever positional advantage Meadows has. The "gap" between Meadows and Vlad TODAY in terms of prospect ranking is virtually nonexistent, and Meadows is 4 years older.

The GCL Jays are putting on a beating today. Davis Schneider: 2 for 2, 2B, 3 BB (this kid has 4 extra base hits and 7 walks in 5 games now) DJ Neal: 3 for 4, BB, SB Roither Hernandez: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K

Yeah right. Vlad has the higher ceiling and is only ~2 years away himself. That trade would be retarded, and completely pointless.

HS 1B PK Morris signed today.

Bichette: 3 for 5, HR, 2B

Govea signed for $200K. We're at $4,305,000 so far.

The GCL Jays are going against Shane Baz making his Pro debut today. Intredasting.