Ichiro Suzuki, Robinson Cano and Hall-of-Famer Jimmie Foxx are among the notable baseball figures born on October 22, but this date also marks the birthday of the boxscore. It was on this day in 1845 that the New York Morning News printed the first boxscore summary of a baseball game, though the more familiar form of the boxscore wasn’t developed until Henry Chadwick created the modern standard in 1859. Here’s the latest from around the game…
- Trainers of prospects in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are considering pulling their players from upcoming national showcases for MLB scouts, Baseball America’s Ben Badler reports. The trainers are protesting the league’s proposals for an international draft in collective bargaining talks with the MLBPA. Venezuela’s showcase is scheduled for November 16-17 while the Dominican showcase, scheduled for this coming week, appears to be more directly in question. “No one will take their players to the event next week. There is a total boycott of all MLB events,” a Dominican trainer tells Badler.
- Padres right-hander Jarred Cosart will need about six weeks of recovery after undergoing surgery to clean up his right elbow, MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell writes. That timeframe should put Cosart on track to be fully prepared for the start of Spring Training.
- In other Padres injury news from Cassavell, the club has set a December 1 deadline for righty Colin Rea to become fully healthy. If Rea hasn’t pitched in Arizona Fall League games, winter ball games or at least thrown some intensive batting-practice sessions against live hitters, the Padres may decide it’s time for Rea to undergo Tommy John surgery. Rea has spent the last few months trying to fix his elbow problems without having to resort to a Tommy John procedure, instead opting for a PRP treatment and more basic rest and rehabilitation. It was this same elbow injury that forced the Padres to re-acquire Rea after initially dealing him to the Marlins as part of the Andrew Cashner trade.
- The Indians’ use of Andrew Miller this postseason has led to speculation that more teams could look to develop their own high-leverage, multiple-inning relievers, though Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com notes that it isn’t quite that simple. The postseason schedule allows for much more specialization and preparation than a regular season game, as a pitcher will likely burn out if he is regularly used during the year the way Cleveland has deployed Miller in October. Players and agents on the way up may also hesitate at a fireman role that limits their earning potential. “But let’s face it, fifth starters make more than very good setup men, and relievers want to get paid,” a baseball official tells Gammons. “They want to close, or they want to start. It’s difficult to ask them to take a Miller role without Miller money. Their agents aren’t going to allow it.”
- While front offices are increasingly using analytics to measure players, the message of what a team actually values doesn’t always filter down to the clubhouse, Dodgers director of player development Gabe Kapler writes in a piece for WEEI.com. Many players still rely on traditional stats to gauge their performance, Kapler notes, so players may be needlessly worrying about a low batting average or not driving in enough runs when their team is actually evaluating something like exit velocity of balls hit off the player’s bat.
if mlb expected latin american trainers to bend backward on its command there must be something wrong with the way mlb operates.
if MLB understood anything about the latin talent market at the corporate level they wouldn’t even need a draft at all. they’d be able to properly reform it.
MLB doesn’t even run the ‘prospect leagues’ down there, those are organized by the independent scouts who provide all of the talent and training for the players involved, MLB just sanctions it.
They also somehow magically believe all the other foreign baseball federations are going to get on board with something who’s only purpose would be to drive down the signing bonuses their citizens get.
The whole thing was a pipe dream of Bud Selig’s that’ll never happen
Well another purpose for the draft is to make it so the big market teams cant just sign all the top prospects, which has to happen.
you mean big market teams like the Rays, who have blown past their spending limits not once but twice?
The penalties need more teeth to them, that much is obvious… but the system itself isn’t as horribly lopsided as people make it out to be
I mean with the top prospects coming from Latin America, like moncoda, olivera, Castillo, abreu, puig etc.
Maitan went to the decidedly mid-market Braves this year. and guys like Olivera and Puig sort of prove that overspending can be as much a curse as it is a blessing if you don’t do it wisely
like i said, there needs to be more teeth to the penalty, like (theoretically) instead of just a blanket 2 year ban, team’s can’t jump back into the IFA market until their unspent pool money finally reaches enough to cover however much they overspent by, so that teams no longer go completely nuts with it. Or possibly tying overspending to the luxury tax cap…
but yeah, it’s not like it’s only the big spenders who are cashing in.
No, the money would go to the players and their official agents, not these parasites that prostitute out the players.
There is something wrong with the international system when these trainers take kid from school dedicate them to baseball full-time for these minimal concessions to them and their families and then take a large portion of what the kids sign for. They should instead try setting up sports leagues affilated through a school system that keeps kids in school and lets them develop in case the whole baseball thing falls through like it does for most of them. It also would give other kids with talent a chance to play if they arent selected by these trainers. A draft and pushing the age of signees to 18 could help make this a possibility.
that is a very ideal solution. unfortunately hardly any of the schools have infrastructure or money to support baseball teams. that means mlb needs to invest large sums to island-wise construction and recruitment.
the alleged purpose of mlb proposed draft is to save bucks for the owners. i seriously doubt they would want to invest large sums of money just to save later.
Great post SDFriars….MLB, the players communities, and all players involved would do well following that model.
you seriously have no idea how the system in latin america works if you honestly believe any of what you posted. for a large, large percentage of the kids these trainer take in, playing baseball is the only thing that allows them to stay in school. They come from poor areas and poor families and by the time they turn 16 a lot of them are skipping school to work jobs just to feed the rest of the family. Latin American ain’t the US, where kids can be kids until they turn 18 and then it’s off to college…
There are no high school leagues like you have in the US. The only thing even comparable to them are the ‘Prospect Leagues’ organized and run by the trainers you seem to thing are just preying on innocent kids. If you make these players wait until they’re 18 to get drafted, they’ll be 2 years at best behind their american counter-parts development wise and get eaten alive in the american minor leagues.
which means in five years the kids in the DR and Venezuela will care more about soccer than baseball because that sport would at least give them a chance to make it big.
if MLB doesn’t want to kill the golden goose, MLB basically needs to take over all aspects of player development from the time a perspective prospect turns 12-13 years old. They need to build, fund and operate multiple full time baseball academies for hundreds of kids at a time, and organize youth leagues for kids barely beyond little league to identify the talent worth investing in
only if it does that will an international draft be feasible, and considering the only reason the owners want a draft in the first place is to cut their own costs…. yeah, i totally see them willing to commit to that….
Trainers don’t take kids out of school to train them in baseball. Parents introduce their kids to these trainers. If the trainer feels like their kid has a future they will accept them into their training program. Trainers don’t get paid for this and they are essential the kid’s agent. A % of future earnings is agreed upon. The vast majority of these kids will never sniff the majors. Even then….the trainers aren’t the individuals that are making a ton of money. It’s the people that help these kids defect to the US. “Contracts” in Cuba nearly worthless once a player establishes residency in the US. That’s why more often than not there are lawsuits with people trying to get money that they feel is owed to them.
If MLB wanted to an international draft they would 1st have to do away with these trainers all together. Then they would need to set up some sort of MLB “camp” where young players can go train. Even then do you think Cuba will let their top talents walk with no financial gain? MLB doesn’t care about these young players. It’s the owners who are complaining about international spending. This would be a non issue to MLB if there was no international spending penalties.
MLB needs to sponsor youth leagues throughout the Island so these players will have a opportunity to develop their talents without having to commit their adolescent years to a Buiscone. It is a different culture from ours but the baseball development arena needs structure and discipline. Currently the agent/player situation in Dominican is extremely corrupt. Who cares if the agents pull their players out of a showcase? What are their options?
or MLB can simply license the good buscones, prohibit teams from signing anyone represented by the unlicensed ones, and not effective have to take over the entire business they’re woefully unprepared to take over…
not all of these trained are crooked
So the trainers are boycotting. Good move! Now, since none of those kids are being showcased, I guess MLB will just pass them by?
In a game of ‘chicken’ I guess those kids lose. The trainers are also going to lose all of that money they ‘extort’ from the kids.
AJ Preller has impeccable timing. The Padres blew away their spending limits this season, and therefore will be limited the next two years. Now teams are getting limited access to the prospects likely to be signed in those periods, so the Padres aren’t really missing out all that much.
That’s the idea