metafour

Cullen Large got slot:

Its almost as if patience at the plate isn't a learned skill........

Gurriel is back!

Again, this has nothing to do with how many pitches he has and everything to do with whether he can even physically pitch a starter's workload. Why is this in question? -Blew his elbow out at 18 throwing what was essentially kiddie-level innings (~40). -Never pitched anything near a starter's workload, or even close to it....ie: his body now has 4-5 years of adapting to a reliever's workload. -Questions arose over his mechanics potentially pushing him into the bullpen even before we rushed him up as a reliever, this also correlates with the fact that he couldn't even stay healthy back when we were babying him with that ~3 IP split-starter workload that we had Sanchez and Syndergaard on as well.

Osuna is a serious injury risk. This isn't brought up often because most relevant pitchers don't have TJ surgery at such a young age; but the estimated life-span of a TJ repaired elbow is ~10 years before the risk of needing a second procedure dramatically increases. Because Osuna was only 18 when he had his TJ surgery, this means that he could blow his elbow out again in his ~late 20's, if not sooner. The whole "he has lots of pitches" thing doesn't really matter if he completely falls apart physically while trying to pitch drastically increased innings, which he has NEVER done BTW.

He wouldn't have been drafted if he wasn't signing.

Gunner Halter has NOT signed yet. Way too much reading into a pointless Tweet by him.

Kevin Smith has signed:

Riley Adams for slot apparently:

I'm not pretending anything, I vocally hated acquiring a SS who you KNEW you'd be paying out the ass for the bad years of his inflated contract after Colorado sucked all his elite years dry. I even publicly stated that there was a high probability with that trade that we were doing nothing but rolling back a few years on Reyes before Tulowitzki became a similarly useless dead-weight contract. None of this is surprising to me; you think the rate of shortstops staying elite into their mid 30's is high? Tulowitzki had a million injuries in Colorado as well so its not even remotely surprising that his offensive decline happened faster than normal. Again, just look at the baseline of that trade: we acquired a SS that was going to cost us $98 million from ages 31-36, knowing full well that most of those years were going to be decline years. You may have a different opinion, but I am never in favour of paying top assets so that another team can pawn off the hilariously overpriced years of an injury riddled player at a position that doesn't exude typical longevity.

Tulowitzki was a 104 wRC+ hitter in Colorado and was actually a negative defender before we acquired him. He was worth a whopping 0.9 WAR at the time of the trade. What exactly am I making up? The 104 wRC+ was a clear red flag considering that he was a consistent ~130+ wRC+ hitter in previous seasons, and sure enough he has basically been useless at the plate since that trade which is just a continuation of his swift decline in Colorado.

The Cubs and Indians traded for star closers and they got that production as expected. We traded for a star shortstop and instead received a guy that was pretty good for 1.5 seasons and is now a -0.3 WAR player with $78 mill left on his deal. Jose Reyes was even better than what we've gotten out of Tulo in his 2 "good" seasons for us before he blew up. It was a fail trade.

You also have to factor in that Tulowitzki was looking like s*** the entire half season he spent in Colorado before we acquired him, on top of being an aging SS with a terrible injury history and a monstrosity of a contract. I'm well aware what the risk of prospects is; I'm also aware that every former great player who is struggling isn't simply "in a slump", which is why you have to target more sure-fire players like Adam Eaton if you are trading A-grade prospects. Anthopolous seemed to have a raging hard-on for former star players who were already in decline under the pretense that it was all just a "slump". If you remember we were also tracking McCutchen under his "team", you just know that had he stayed he would have done something stupid like traded Vlad Jr. to get McCutchen under the notion that he was "buying low". Again, it was simply poor asset management. We got poor value, period. Tulo barely outproduced his salary in the ~1.5 years prior to this season; and we're on the hook for ~$78 more million counting this year of value that may not even be REPLACEMENT LEVEL. He's at -0.3 WAR so far this season.

Exactly. It was piss-poor value no matter how you try and slice it. I don't care about dealing top prospects, but you have to add worthwhile pieces if you are going to do that. The Chris Sale and Adam Eaton trades are examples of that. Trading a potential 4-5 win starter for one/two "pretty good" years of Tuklowitzki and then a handful more wherein he's basically Jose Reyes (the guy that facilitated the deal in the first place because you had to get rid of him) is a stupid idea.

I disagree. If you make the decision to trade a talent of this upside, you better be getting a player back who is at least in their prime. If Hoffman pans out then Anthopolous will have traded two front-line starters for what amounted to be R.A. Dickey pitching at a #3-5 starter rate and the literal shell of Troy Tulowitzki with a half dozen years left on his massive contract. If prospects are currency, I'm not going to pay $50,000 for a Honda Civic and then pretend like it was a good move because my previous car was dying and unreliable. I also don't like the "well we got deep into the playoffs with Tulowitzki" argument because it implies that there were literally no other trade options available, which seems unlikely. Yes, Tulo was an important upgrade over Reyes, but he was still what, the 4th or 5th most valuable position player in the lineup on those playoff teams? Its not like he was carrying us in the playoffs.

17th rounder HS C Kolbie Russell is signing. http://khon2.com/2017/06/14/eight-players-with-hawaii-ties-selected-on-day-three-of-mlb-draft/

So Sam Carlson got his s*** pushed in today in the Minnesota state playoffs lol. Didn't make it out of the second inning and gave up 7 runs.

Pruitt was not a top talent dumbass, dont compare him to the players you are on here whining about not drafting. Wow, a player I thought would take ~$700-800K ended up signing for only $500K, CLEARLY ANY OF THESE GUYS CAN SIGN!! YOU ARE SO RIGHT! The discussion is about top talents who tell everyone not to even bother drafting them, not f***ing Reggie Pruitt who can't do anything but run fast. Reggie Pruitt was the 119th ranked HIGH SCHOOL player by Perfect Game. Not overall, HIGH SCHOOL. Yes, clearly Reggie Pruitt and Tanner Burns (unanimously ranked ~Top 50) are the exact same case. You know how we got Pruitt signed? We gave a ~6th/7th round talent 3rd/4th round money.

Anyone drafted within the first 10 rounds is expected to sign. We are the only team from the past few years who somehow made it a habit of failing to sign high draft picks.

Yeah, but its more in case of something going wrong elsewhere so you've got some fall-back options. Some of the fringy HS kids can obviously sign, but no "top HS kid" who's price tag is top 2-3 round money is going to all of a sudden say "$300K? You know what, sure!". That doesn't happen.

Ryan Borucki: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R (0 ER), 1 BB, 10 K He's suffering from really bad BABIP and LOB% in some games but is otherwise posting elite peripherals on top of strong stuff. He's really still among our best pitching prospects.

None of these teams have enough roster spots for 40 draft picks anyway.

Kevin Smith will sign. http://m.timesunion.com/tuplus-sports/article/Columbia-High-graduate-begins-his-professional-11219319.php?cmpid=twitter-mobile Physical of Friday, expects to sign by Saturday.

You didn't say anything else of value. What? Maybe they sign him, maybe they dont? OK...cool. He's not signing.