metafour

How "good" he is is relative. Stuff wise, he's probably comparable to someone like Francisco Rios right now, and Rios is a fringe SP prospect. He absolutely has to get better, we aren't talking about a kid with MLB stuff today. Guys that throw low 90's are a dime a dozen.

Lane Thomas has been traded to the Cardinals for more bonus pool.

Eddyzon Moreno didn't even make BA's writeup or their Top 50 ranking, so its really interesting that Longenhagen has him ranked #21. You usually don't see that much variance in IFA rankings.

The Jays promoted 6'5" 18 year old RHP Jol Concepcion after just 17 innings in the DSL. He's starting for the GCL Jays today. He had 17 strikeouts to 3 walks and a 1.06 ERA in four DSL starts.

The new CBA imposed hard caps, so there is no blowing past pools anymore. If you read the BA summary from the previous page, it seems like they WERE set to blow well past their pool in 2017 before the new CBA put an end to that, at which point they had to adjust their strategy. They can still acquire more bonus money through trades, especially now that we are getting closer and closer to becoming sellers at the deadline.

The prospect guy before Longenhagen came on (he only lasted a bit) had Vlad Jr's. UPSIDE as like a bench player LOL. Like yeah; we spent $4+ million or whatever it was and went over our pool to sign a kid who's upside was a bench player.

This. Skoug was a healthy college Junior, so he didn't "fall" because of signability like a HS prospect would. Clearly MLB teams didn't have a grade anywhere near Top 50 on him.

Hagen Danner just crushed a HR.

Davis Schneider signed. He made his debut in the GCL yesterday (along with Danner) and went 1 for 3, 2B, BB.

BTW; the newly drafted college kids are absolutely mashing in Vancouver so far. Adams, Large, Lundquist...even Clemens who just hit his second HR.

You'd have to think the signing of Warmoth starts the chain of events which forces Bichette to Dunedin: Warmoth to Vancouver, Vicuna to Lansing, Bichette to Dunedin.

Ben Badler has the AL East forecast up and he apparently has us linked to 10 names? Someone post that article plz.

No, the comparison is really stupid. That 2015 team quite obviously had a historically strong offense. By comparison, even "when healthy" this year's offense isn't even in the same ballpark. Yes, you can use the claim that pitching injuries have hurt our run differential this year, which they have, but you need to also then go back to 2015 and realize that in the same reference point (~first half of the season) we were actually a below-average pitching team in 2015. So in reality that +87 run differential was created almost entirely by the offense. Do you want to argue that a couple of injuries to Donaldson/Tulo/etc. is the ONLY difference between the first half offensive output in 2015 and 2017? That is silly, as even with Donaldson and Tulo back we are quite obviously an average-at-best offense this year. By comparison that 2015 team was first in Team wOBA and had scored nearly 80 more runs than the next highest scoring team (which is also almost the exact positive run differential they had...) in the 1st half of the season. We are 23rd and 26th by those metrics this season, and it ain't because Devon Travis is injured.

Someone with a BA account plz post Badler's latest IFA Top 50 article from today. Apparently we're linked to 5 of his Top 50 prospects.

It has accomplished the goal of keeping costs down for owners, which is basically the only reason why it was implemented in the first place.

Riley Adams: 4 for 4, two 2B, HR Brock Lundquist: 3 for 4, two 2B Kacy Clemens 2 for 4, 2B

"Pride Night"...you know, for the whole ~5 gay/whatever Cardinals fans. Straight pandering...to no one. Do gay people even like baseball?

Most HS kids drafted in that range are going to take over-slot to sign unless you are cutting a deal to take someone a little higher than expected. Even Adam Hall, the raw Canadian SS, got over slot one pick ahead of us...and he went earlier than expected if you want to go by draft rankings. I knew that Danner would get over slot once I saw what the other HS catchers were signings for (Detroit took a kid in the 5th round that signed for $1 mill, which was basically Danner's slot value in the 2nd round).

So Yennsy Diaz is a thing. 20 year old RHP who they skipped past Vancouver out of extended spring training a few weeks ago. He's got 18 strikeouts in 11.2 IP for Lansing; fastball is reportedly sitting mid 90's and he's hit high 90's a few times.

Colton Laws signs for slot (not surprising) and Logue only goes $14K under slot. Like I said, there wasn't going to be as much savings here as people had hoped.