metafour

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The one in which we're paying $9 million for Maicer Izturis to barely ever play. Rogers is cheap, but they're not that f***ing cheap. This trade was made to reduce penalties to one year instead of two which is a big deal.

How is that nothing LOL? Its the driving force behind the trade. You seriously think we're pinching pennies over a million dollars for Rogers LOL?

It saves us from the two-year penalty. Worth it? Not up to me to decide....

I think its simply a situation wherein the player now is worth more than the guys next year. Ultimately you can't control what other teams do next year anyway, so you take the top guy now because if 10 other teams all decide they want to go on a spending spree next year then what do you do?

It is obvious that the international directors league wide don't really see the penalties as being anywhere near as morbid as the fans do. Most of these guys are very comfortable with finding players for $300K and below, to the point where they'll gladly live with that reality in exchange for what they believe is a special talent. I think its obvious that Rogers wouldn't fund an "all-in" spending strategy at this point in time anyway, so that alternative really isn't even worth discussing.

If you can get Marco Estrada out of a 5th round pick, then you won. I don't agree with your premise however. He can have legitimate MLB success throwing 89-92 if his fastball has movement. Estrada's problem is that his fastball is flat.

This deal was reported to being as high as ~$4.5 million at one point. Anything up to that number shouldn't be a surprise at all.

They won't. Everyone already knows who's going where. Its not like we're going to all of a sudden flip 5 other guys at the last minute who had deals in place with other teams for months.

Classic.

Who's got the BA team forecast from today?

You should definitely be surprised. Just because he was seen as a near-lock to sign, doesn't mean that his negotiation tactic would be to accept the first deal thrown at him. Maese had multiple potential suitors in the supplemental first to 2nd rounds, Chris Crawford even mentioned that he had heard that we were considering him with our FIRST pick. The other big "pop-up" HS pitcher was Anthony Guardado who was drafted two picks before Maese, and he ended up signing for $550K or just barely under slot at his pick. So you're Justin Maese and you're hearing your name now solidly associated as a ~top 3 round talent, you've hit 96mph, and you've got a pretty decent Texas Tech scholly. You get drafted in the 3rd round (again, the range within which you expected) and you almost immediately sign for what is essentially the slot value of the first pick of the 6th round? It doesn't add up from a logical sense at all. The Jays only have those excess funds if they go right up to their taxable limit, which is far from a certainty. Look at the news about Marrick Crouse turning down $500K, and then Pruitt signing right after for that same amount. Why would they turn down Crouse over a measly $100K if they were still operating under the impression that they have $400K+ left? If anything, it makes it look very much as if it came down to Pruitt/Crouse getting that one big $500K offer, with it being a "first one to take the offer gets it" approach. I think that Maese's deal is definitely relevant because if you look at the overall flow of money, the savings almost perfectly line up with the $500K excess that was spent on Pruitt and Christian Williams, with some wiggle room in there to throw a bit more at Singer if its required or maybe another ~$100K overslot type deal (ala C. Williams). I don't think those scenarios match up at all. Alford was drafted in the 3rd round; as a kid who had told everyone not to draft him and that he wasn't signing, that high of a selection was a pretty strong indicator that the Jays knew they could get him signed (although it ended up taking a super-generous offer for Alford). Brentz and Tellez were similar cases as Pruitt (late round flier picks), but in those two scenarios we knew well ahead of time that we'd probably land at least one if not realistically both for the sheer fact that we knew well ahead of the deadline that Bickford wasn't going to sign. In this scenario, I'm confident that Maese's savings made this Pruitt signing an actual possibility, and no matter what you try and argue, Maese signing for only $300K (less than HALF his pick value) was a very shocking move. Like I said, don't be surprised if we find out that Maese has a partial tear in his elbow or something down the line, with that being the reason why he was so willing to take so little money.

It never made much sense for Maese to be so quick to jump at what was essentially late 5th/early 6th round slot money. Even accounting for his desire to turn Pro, the kid had enough "hype" to warrant bargaining power of at least slot value at where he was drafted (3rd round), and with a Texas Tech commitment it isn't as if he had no place to go college wise. Its starting to look very realistic that he took a discount because his physical revealed some sort of injury. I mean, he ended up taking less than Jose Espada, the Puerto Rican kid who barely anyone even knew about publicly.

You talking about me LOL? Don't try and talk it up as if you foresaw this. This signing is pretty much entirely dependent on Justin Maese shockingly signing for only $300K, which no one on here could have predicted. I am surprised that it "only" took Pruitt $500K to sign because Vanderbilt kids typically price themselves way above their talent-level, but make no mistake that this signing almost certainly doesn't happen if we don't save nearly $340K on Maese. I'm starting to think that we may have found something wrong with Maese's elbow given the drastic underslot deal combined with the fact that he still hasn't thrown a single pitch in the GCL despite being on the roster for a while. His draft-profile would mesh with this as well: sudden velocity spike, followed by a conclusion to his senior season in which his velocity fell back down to high 80s/low 90s.

Wow! Didn't expect that.

Supposedly, yes.

Rivera is retarded for sending him. Just pure stupidity.

There goes $100K in saved allotment:

Great series of events for Kelyn Jose:

Puerto Rican 5th round pick Jose Espada made his GCL debut today; a clean 2 innings with 0 hits, 0 walks, and 3 strikeouts. He was relieved by Juan Meza, our top IFA signee from last year's class. Meza currently has 1 inning pitched with 0 hits, 1 walk, and 2 strikeouts.

Brentz was a lot better pitching at a lower velocity last year. We'll see how the reports progress this year, but I don't expect a "lefty throwing 98mph" from Brentz.

I don't know why people keep trying to bring this up, it really doesn't mean much. Pompey was a near unknown when we drafted him, I vividly remember the only "film" on him being a home video on Youtube of him shagging fly balls at some park (not a baseball field, a public park). The point? He was a blank slate and therefore his skills were a projection. To claim that Orimoloye is "miles ahead" doesn't all of a sudden mean that he's a much better prospect. Orimoloye has been on the elite circuit for ~2 years now playing with and against the top American kids in his class, he SHOULD be further ahead. That exposure also means that his flaws are a lot easier to pick out. Had Pompey been in Orimoloye's shoes it is very possible that his skills would have been widely discovered earlier, and he'd have been a ~top 2 round pick.