bmags

He said catchers

I've been far and wide in baseball circles, and I'm here to tell you, Drake LaRoche is best leader I've seen. I wouldn't necessarily call him edgy, but, when he's shagging balls he's 100% effort and guys just feed off of it.

thanks @flavum

I trust @Y2Jimmy0's info here.

I had avoided reading astroball because I thought it would make me too sad about how the sox are basic, but finally bit bullet and ordered Lindbergh/Sawchik's the MVP machine and Astroball.

I may be confused by your question, but if you signed with an MLB team, yes. I don't believe being a "free agent" so to speak not under contract affects that. But obviously he could re-up for the japan team for more money.

I mean, this does discount some more guaranteed money but if you survived 4 years as a quality pitcher, I don't know how many would want to come over at that point vs. gambling more and waiting since they did already get $7 mill. Going for $5 at that point really caps career earnings.

You would be subject to international signing restrictions prior to age 25, which cap your total bonus and put you under the traditional 6 year control. It's unlikely you could get much more than 5$ million, so you'd be getting $12 million total but really not that big of an advantage over just staying in US.

Feels like all of the prep pitchers that were late round 1/round 2 have been getting moved up more and more.

Well you would be talking about age 25, because that's the age requirement for an international player to come over and not be tied to international spending caps. For a HS pitcher though, they would get the 2-3 million in the draft, likely best case is to be in the minors until 22, likely after the innings point to which they'd have 7 years control. So they'd make decent money in arb, say around $20-$25 million, but not cash in until before their age 29 season, most likely. This would allow them to get a bigger pay day upfront (7 million), and if all goes well look to come back at age 25, slightly depressed by a posting fee, but still much more likely to out earn your arbitration numbers.

The “way out of this” scenarios keep shrinking. The Sox are proving development can be linear in a not impressive way.

I have no idea, but on its face nats had three 19 year olds in their system that all made the big leagues (granted kieboom was terrible) before age 22 (and i'm counting luzardo because he should have). It sucks to have had a major trade and not get one of those.

Well that just sounds like the situation that already exists. That's why I'm not sure this is a gamechanger, but I hope that it provides a softer landing for specifically prep pitchers who get inconclusive physicals and want more than to risk it at a college / juco.

If I was the team, I'd feel pretty confident I would win that game of chicken. Takes a pretty committed young kid to go to bat for a few extra hundred thousand so much so that they'll uproot themselves and go play in japan, and likely not be able to come back until age 25.

It's amazing how much more likeable and fun to watch the GS Warriors are without Kevin Durant.

That's an interesting perspective. The eaton trade I have the biggest fomo with, however, as the nats had multiple young prospects that blew up in Luzardo, Soto, and Kieboom. Would have really liked to grab obviously soto but even one of them would have fit our timeline better and I'd have more confidence in going forward.

Still not sure how effective it will be. The 25 year old international restriction really got around that, and the teams do get fairly adequate compensation in the "re-do" the next year. It is a nice option though for the kids that have been found injured and didn't recover well enough for next draft to try and get some better money abroad.

It's absolutely this.

Yes, that's like...2x what he was likely to make. He's about 19 now, so he gets to 25 with good money in the bank and either he's flamed out and made the right choice, is good but not great for mlb and gets second contract in Japan, or he gets a legit though probably slightly deflated deal coming from Japan.

I wonder how much he got.

I’d like to see what would happen if Medeiros pitched to Birmingham’s lineup

Perez was introduced a cutter that is now his primary pitch throwing it 34% of the time. Hitters are hitting .104 against it. Last year he threw his sinker 50% of the time, so now he has 3 pitches he can control, and the cutter/changeup getting a lot of whiffs. It made him a pitcher that was terrible against RHP suddenly better against Righties than lefties. He signed for .87 Jon Jays.

Yes, it's this. I'm glad Palka found his footing. But he was a promising albeit flawed player last year. Because of his clear lack of defensive value, he had an opportunity to showcase himself this year with improvement in getting on base and contact, that's without even asking him to be a more complete profile for LHP. Instead he went 0fer while being platooned! That he has recovered in AAA doesn't mean we erase that period and say "well he's changed and moved on", that he had a 0 for 30+ streak is a very big adjustment to what you think he's capable of, which is "maybe/probably better than nicky delmonico's bat" at this point. Alcides Escobar has been terrible for many a year in MLB (offensively), which is helpful data. Maybe he'd be a little better but who cares. Danny Mendick on other hand, he's had a nice showing of maintaining his power as he's moved up, and his success may indicate a player that could improve on Jose Rondon's production - a player who has failed to capitalize on more playing time in MLB despite great AAA renaissance last year.

Yeah that's how I feel. And you can see when he responds to which is his favorite pitch its not "low and outside" where he can wait back and spray it to the outfield, it's low and inside because he can drive it the farthest. He could be a guy so talented that just needs reps to update his approach and gets naturally bigger pulling the ball may be more attractive to him.