Links for Wednesday night as the Rangers and Cardinals get the World Series started in St. Louis…
- When Rangers GM Jon Daniels was trying to break into baseball, he applied for an internship with the Red Sox, according to Alex Speier of WEEI.com. Ben Cherington, now Boston's GM-in-waiting, was in charge of hiring a new intern for the Red Sox and he chose Jed Hoyer, now the Padres' GM, over Daniels. “I remember [Daniels'] quick mind and intelligence and I thought he had a resilience about him,” Cherington told Speier.
- The Blue Jays scouted at least eight of C.J. Wilson's starts this season, according to Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun (on Twitter). The Jays could use starting pitching, as I explained earlier in the week, but their scouting trips may simply have been due diligence.
- Kelly Johnson of the Blue Jays chatted with FanGraphs' David Laurila about the challenge of changing leagues and the way he uses stats and video to improve his game.
- ESPN.com's Buster Olney hears that MLB isn't close to adding a slotting system for draft bonuses in the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. Executives doubt that Bud Selig would "dig in and fight" for slotting, since it could mean a prolonged dispute.
Honestly, who would benefit from a hard slotting for the draft? The MLBPA certainly wouldn’t want it, and I can’t honestly see why the owners would want it either. Am I missing something?!
I take that back. I’d be willing to bet college coaches would love to see it implemented simply because that would mean more quality high school players going to college as opposed to going straight to the pros.
Small market teams. If hard slotting is implemented, you won’t have teams like the Red Sox and Yankees scooping up top ten talent because they can afford their insanely high bonus demands.
That’s why teams like the Pirates, Royals, & Nationals have been among the top spenders in the draft the past few years, right? You could not be more wrong here, 0bsessions. No hard slotting benefits any team that’s done due diligence on a player and is willing to spend whatever his agent is asking for in order to get elite talent coming with signability concerns.
Well to be fair, most years those teams are near the top in spending because they draft at, or near the top of the first round and most of their draft money goes to one player. A team like the Red Sox draft in the middle of the first round at best and still end up spending as much, or more, money on the draft.
Hard slotting will never happen in baseball, it is a capitalistic sport. Players would go to other sports and not play baseball. Only in baseball can an average size kid like Pedroia make it and get millions of dollars out of high school. This years draft proved that, 2 pitchers and 1 outfielder got over 5 million a piece, all had scholrships to college to play football.
I wanna see Kelly Johnson for a full season on the Jays. There’s no way I wanna be paying like 12M for a guy like Phillips, and Johnson has a 6 WAR season under his belt. Good money says we should keep him because he’s gonna Kemp-out next year.
i like keeping johnson as well. hes had good seasons and bad, but other than his injury shortened 2009 and his rookie half-season he’s put up a solid 2+WAR every year. his defense seems pretty good, and he has a decent power/patience combo at the plate. at worst hes serviceable, and at best hes elite.
with no in house options, a weak FA market, and the fact that AA has had him targeted for the last couple years, it would be a little surprising if they let him walk after just acquiring him.
“I remember [Daniels’] quick mind and intelligence and I thought he had a resilience about him,” Cherington told Speier.
What is the MLBTR a website to have baseball people talk about other baseball people and tell them what a hell of a job they have been doing.
Look Jon Daniels will probable get GM of the Year again, but to tell you the truth Jon should thank Nolan Ryan for being a good owner as well as acknowledge Tony Reagins for helping him look good when he receives the award.
This is almost just as interesting: The Blue Jays scouted at least eight of CJ Wilson starts.
1st of all why? and second the Blue Jays have traded pitchers off their team that were twice as good than Wilson (Carpenter and Halladay). So what would make you think they’d be interested in bringing him to the team? Plus, how can they afford him? When was the last time they sold out a game up there? Was LaCava ever there (Wilson’s Game)? So many ?’s, so little time!
are these even serious questions re: the jays?
first of all, they didn’t trade carpenter. among the other things you’re clearly confused about is that a) toronto’s owners are the RICHEST in mlb. and b) toronto is the third largest market c) rogers (owners of the jays) are a cable network and not only own the network the jays are broadcast on, they pretty much own cable infrastructure in canada period. [ie. see a]. d) cable ratings are going up e) they sold out opening day 2011, fwiw.
your analysis of the jays is one of the worst i’ve ever seen. they didn’t trade carpenter (and he left years ago anyways, maybe you meant marcum?) They had no choice regarding Halladay, he said he was leaving after his contract and they weren’t going to compete yet. And apparently you think that because they traded a few pitchers they no longer want pitching ever? The only intelligent thing you said is ‘why would they want CJ Wilson’… And FYI they sell out a few games every year and would do so consistently if they could put a winner on the field.
Not sure if I should waste my time even arguing this but…
1. Chris Carpenter had a ton of injuries and was ultimately DFA’d… second guess the Cardinals for that, but I’m sure a lot of teams would have done the same.
2. Halladay was going to leave once his contract was up and the Blue Jays weren’t ready to compete.
3. I’ll throw Marcum in here too for the argument of pitchers Toronto traded away. His stuff doesn’t play in the AL East and they turned him into a future face of the franchise type third baseman.
You attract people to the games by producing a winning ball club. Other than the fact that the Blue Jays have a rich ownership group (putting it lightly), they have money to spend and I think they realize this is their shot to overtake the Yankees/Red Sox. (At least one of them). Plus, with the new Wild Card system, most likely, Toronto is going to be a contender for at least a 2nd Wild Card.
I’m not sure if this is a serious post, but I sure hope not.
So you are saying the Blue Jays wouldn’t want to add a starting pitcher with half the talent of a Halladay or Carpenter because they traded them away in the past? (Not mentioning the fact that they pretty much had no choice but to trade them but whatever) So by your logic, the reason the Red Sox haven’t had a good SS in a while is because they traded Hanley at one point and therefore aren’t interested in bringing in a SS with at least half his talent?
And saying that they couldn’t afford him because they don’t draw well speaks to just how little you actually know about the Blue Jays organisation.
I think you left me and everyone else on here with way more questions then the ones you presented.
What everyone else said.
Ok Ok Ok! Before I log off for the night I fouled up!
I am sorry and I promise to do better tomorrow!
I hope this is enough!
This is a reply to all!
FYI Lefty, the Jays have the money to compete with any team in the MLB. Yes their attendence was below average but their TV ratings was tops in the MLB. The Jays averaged over 500K views per HH. No other team even comes close to the Jays.
Owners would want it because drafted players would have a hard cap to be signed “agents” would have no leverage except the kid going back to school.
if the slotting system is in place teams that draft great young players are more likely to be able to get them in their organization.
I think with a slotting system the trading of picks has to be tabled as well.
I’m still having a hard time seeing it. I understand the reasoning you are pointing out, but, competitively, I don’t see how it would make sense from the owners perspective. I’m curious to see the % of players (outside of college seniors who have the least leverage) who signed above slot.
Pretty much, if you put a hard slotting system in place, there is going to be x number of players who will actually get paid what they are “worth.” You won’t see players like Bell who fell in the draft to the second round even though he projected as a top 10 pick signing. The Pirates would be less one outstanding prospect.Do you think they’d have liked to be told what they could’ve signed him for?
I would hate a hard slotting. It may work for the top 5 picks or something but after that it would make it worse. Who doesn’t like a hard sign getting picked in the 5th round and then getting offered 3 million or so to sign. I think it would be bad for the game in the long run if you lose some of the hard sign guys.
I don’t think Hard slotting is the answer. It’ll chase too many multi-sport atheletes away and will pretty much eliminate most high school draftees. Guys with football comitments, things like that. Why sign in the 10th round for… idk $50,000 and risk not becoming a pro when you can go to college on a scholarship and play for a good program and get a great education?
Plus, my team does a great job at the back end of the draft with the difficult sign guys, so I’m a little biased on my view points.
I can somewhat understand why they want to do it, because the prices are getting very high for unproven players. There doesn’t seem to be a good answer for it but hard slotting doesn’t seem to be the answer. What other options are there? I have no idea. Maybe a cap of how much money a team can spend in the draft? That’s no better of an idea but I don’t know what else there can be.
Why should MLB have any say in it though? I’d rather them put a salary cap on the major league clubs than cap the draft. Teams budget the draft. When their personal budget runs out, they sign no more players. It should be up to the individual teams what that number should be.
…I still don’t know why anyone in MLB would want this….
I can see that they might be scared at what it might become so they are going to try to jump on it before it gets there, but it doesn’t make sense for either side. The only reason why I bring up a cap or any other option is because they seem to be going in the direction of doing something and in my opinion a hard slot is the absolute wrong choice.
In the 80’s draft bonuses went up by 10% annually, in the 90’s they went up 26.9% annually, and since they have instituted slot recommendations they have gone up about 3% annually. I’d say they’ve done a heck of a job getting draft bonus inflation under control, but 3% annually is the lowest it’s been since the 60s, so why try to push it any lower?
No hard slotting, but please move up the date to sign a drafted player like a month, it makes no sense for it to be in august. That’s wasted development time.
Dodgers linked on this article? Probably the assumption that if Bud Selig is merely mentioned, he must be slapping Frank McCourt in the background