metafour

Chris King ‏@StatsKing 10m10 minutes ago Every time I see Matt Morgan this spring he's throwing out runners. Just hosed Tromp pretty easily #BlueJays

This. The agreements almost always stick. Usually in cases where they don't stick it is because of a failed physical or something.

Not really. He's out for the season, but it shouldn't affect him at all long term as a pitcher. Guys in the NFL who are sprinting, changing directions, and moving piles of 240+ pound monsters are coming back from ACL injuries. A baseball pitcher is putting much less "strain" on their knees by comparison, which is why you don't see pitchers blowing out their knees while pitching.

There are no reports from anyone with any credibility that link him to having a deal with anyone but the Blue Jays, even after that White Sox workout. If other fan bases are "thinking" that their team has him locked up, then their thinking can be described as nothing more than wishful at this point. The difference is that there is general industry consensus linking us to him. As Krylian mentioned; he's probably trying to drive the price up after his hype started to grow.

Kiley McDaniel mentioned in his chat yesterday that as of now it actually looks like the Phillies plan on spending more than the Dodgers. No one ever really brings up the Phillies here.

We can't compete for Moncada anyway so this is a pointless discussion. With tax, Moncada is likely go draw ~$60+ million I'd estimate. Rogers isn't shelling that money for a prospect, period.

I get over Giolito by realizing that had we actually landed him we very likely don't end up with Stroman with the very next pick. With Giolito being a well-over-slot signee I doubt we would have risked #18 on Stroman who was actually falling himself from where he was "projected" to potentially go. We probably instead go with an under-slot kid at #18 to help make up Giolito's bonus.

I saw that bust happening a mile away. That "profile" of player is so easy to see as failing, and there is seemingly one of these in basically every draft: I'm talking about the clearly-not-elite "experienced" collegiate shortstop who either profiles as average at best offensively, or average at best defensively (sometimes both LOL), yet whom people still proclaim as a first round talent despite them CLEARLY not possessing the tools to ever be more than an average or replaceable MLB player. This player typically struggles his junior season after lofty preseason expectations; but they'll always have supporters because "they hit really well as a sophomore" or something similar. Levi Michael, Deven Marrero, Russ Adams, Christian Colon, Grant Green, Reese Havens are all examples of this "guy".

Cole simply wanted to go to college. The Yankees were prepared to pay him WELL over slot, with the planned offer being $4 million I believe. He never even negotiated with them. Kid was from Newport Beach and probably had money growing up; kids like that can afford to have fun on a major college campus for 3 years versus riding around on a bus through crappy US towns to play minor league baseball in front of no one. Nola and Bryant were simply kids who believed they could go to college and increase their stock; and both ended up being correct. We drafted Nola's older brother as well in that same draft in hopes of having them both sign, but both ended up going to LSU (his brother returning). Nola was a home-town kid who was born in Baton Rouge, the city which houses LSU's campus. With Beede there were conflicting reports about us potentially disagreeing with a medical situation that may have popped up during negotiation. Without knowing who "changed" their offer/demand, in those situations there is a somewhat present need to bite the bullet and be confident to walk away from a kid for future negotiation power alone. You don't want to be the team that agents know they can push around and extract extra money from.

Norris was an extremely polarizing prospect by the time the draft actually took place. His command and velocity were both all over the place to round out his senior season of HS ball (and ironically that translated to his Pro debut as well). Despite him still being "ranked" 15th online, it wouldn't surprise me at all if numerous teams had moved him down significantly on their boards, at which point his supposedly huge bonus demands likely took him off the board completely.

McDaniel just tweeted that the '15 IFA class is deeper than it was last year. Good news for us if we actually plan on going big.

I remember when Law was adamant that Norris' streak of improved starts "meant nothing", now he ranks him #18. Dude is a wad; can't stand people who take black/white stances on things they absolutely can't predict either way.

How generous of you to offer us him for a "fair price". Theo Epstein was 'traded' for Chris Carpenter. A 26 year old relief pitcher. How does the price look now you f***ing baboon? You don't think the Red Sox tried pulling the same s*** your f***-head owner is doing LMFAO? "The Red Sox reportedly had aimed high in their initial demands, requesting Cubs ace Matt Garza and even All-Star shortstop Starlin Castro, but the Cubs shot down those options."

Why can't you believe it? We gambled on a premium athlete with a lot of inexperience and it didn't pan out, it happens every year. I will point out that D.J. Davis was an under-slot signing which opened up a lot of versatility for our draft that year; namely being able to draft and sign Matt Smoral in the comp round for a well over-slot bonus.

Beeston was on his way out anyway; worst case scenario you make him sit quietly in an office somewhere for a ~year, its not like the franchise will fold without his "leadership". The Baltimore outcome is much worse as Duquette is someone they had no plan or intention of replacing, and now he's supposed to just go back to work as if nothing happened? Its not like Duquette is going to put the blame on us for not getting a deal done as he's smart enough to know that no one in their right mind should be expected to trade "Hoffman plus more" to give him a freaking promotion.

So we walk away and Baltimore is stuck with a GM that willingly wanted to walk away and was denied a promotion by his hothead owner who f***ed up the deal by making retarded demands as compensation? LOOOOOOOOL.

FanGraphs uploaded the following video a couple days ago of RHP Juan Meza, our top IFA signing from last year:

Duh. "Half-assing" it doesn't imply just signing one guy (Guerrero Jr) to me. They are are obviously going to spend more than ~$3 million. What I'm saying is that we don't really need to go full-Yankees to actually make it worthwhile.

Even if they "half-ass" it, its still better than the alternative of just sticking to slot...

Except the Yankees can't do that, you know, since they blew past their cap during this past year's class.

Extreme groundball pitchers CAN get away with low swinging strike rates. Go look at Derek Lowe who throughout his long career consistently posted low swinging strike rates, low strikeout rates, etc. It is an anomaly because very few pitchers have the ability to throw a fastball that induces such poor contact, but it absolutely IS possible.

He just released the following article, listing us in his top group of teams (along with the Cubs and Phillies) that he feels most confident will spend over their pool. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-international-bonus-pools-dont-matter/ Its looking like that Vlad Guerrero Jr. speculation may be accurate.

This. Japan is insanely humid.

Bob Elliott just posted an odd story refuting most of what is being reported:

The GCL may simply be too much for him to handle from a competition standpoint. Its hard to really gauge his talent-level, but given the fact that there isn't much national reporting of this signing he doesn't appear to be a kid who is expected to hop over to the USA and compete immediately, especially considering that our minor league system is bottom heavy and thus there will be competition for a GCL roster spot. Is a kid from Belgium really going to deserve those at-bats over some equally intriguing kid in our system from Latin America? There would be a culture shock for him going to the DR, but that is no different than any kid from the DR/Venezuela hopping over to the USA every year. The second culture shock you talk about (DR to USA) is overblown as Belgium is a very developed Western country. They learn English there and an educated 19 year old like himself can likely already speak English at a passable level.