bighurt574

There's been some updated top 100 lists that are relatively recent. He generally seems to fall in the 5-20 range. MLB Pipeline has him at #5 behind Franco, Mize, Gore, and Adell. That's the highest I've seen.

I don't know, I know it's a small sample, but Vaughn didn't exactly dominate A/A+ this year. I'm still expecting Vaughn to spend all of 2020 in AA/AAA and get the call-up a few weeks into 2021.

Yeah, the silver lining is that finding guys who are even a game or two above replacement level would be a huge upgrade. Then plug in Robert in CF, Madrigal at 2B, and sign a TOR starter and we're all set....

It will never happen, but interesting comp idea. There are all sorts of large law, accounting, and consulting firms that manage to divvy up their profits every year among partners based on a variety of performance-based factors (e.g., billing, business generation, etc.). There's really no reason MLB players couldn't collectively do the same.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27539755/worst-performances-baseball-every-position

Well, sure, they could pay him, but I’d rather they spend that kind of money elsewhere.

League-average OPS in 2016 was .739, now it's .760. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtml

I believe that's it. While his stat line is roughly the same, the league-wide numbers are way up, which impacts OPS+.

I like Castellanos but he's playing himself out of our price range right now.

The problem is that if an organization doesn't take advantage of service time rules when everyone else is doing it, you're putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage, especially for an organization with payroll limitations who would likely lose a guy to FA when his control is up. Yeah, you can say "everyone else is doing it" isn't an excuse for treating employees poorly, but this is ultimately the system that the players' union signed off on in the CBA. And the way teams have acted was hardly unforeseeable, so don't give me that. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

I'd still take Machado over Harper and would have at least matched SD's offer.

We need to add a top end starter and a 5th/6th starter for depth this offseason. It would be nice to do better than Nova for that backend guy but if Nova is back that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. The crappy thing about this year is that Nova has basically been our #2 starter, not our #5.

Yeah, August looks brutal.

Can we get a year back or is the clock already ticking?

That's what I'm wondering, a pitch is a pitch whether it's in AAA or MLB. Seems like they can manage his workload just as well at the MLB level, under the supervision of their major league coaches/trainers. I do like the delayed spring training start though. Heck, they could even use him as an "opener" early in the year to manage his innings.

Top 7-8 pick is more likely, we have a lot of "ground" to make up to get a top 5 pick. It's supposed to be a deep draft though, so we should be able to add a nice piece there. Where we've run into trouble lately is where we've picked in the early teens and just miss on some elite talent (assuming we would have picked them anyway and not still gone with Collins, Burger, etc.). Of course, last time we picked 8th, we wasted it on Fulmer.

I'm not saying we'll get it but there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be "competing" for a WC spot next year. This offseason is the time to actually spend some real money to supplement the young guys in the system.

Yes and no. After taxes, agent fees, and whatever he owes to people back in Cuba or wherever, I have to imagine another ~$40M would still have plenty of appeal, albeit not as much as if it were his first big contract. Like I said, if he signs a deal similar to Eloy, he'd really only be giving up one FA year in exchange for a pretty sizable payday. The rest is just buying out arb/pre-arb years. All depends what he wants. At this point, Moncada is different because he's already proven himself at the MLB level and has less risk of never getting that next big contract.

Yeah, I guess he's not hurting for money and can hold out. Still, the risk/reward is pretty similar. For a guy who still hasn't played an MLB game, locking in another ~$40M while only giving up a year of free agency might still have some appeal.

Maybe a dumb question, but if they can work out an extension with Robert similar to Eloy's, there's really nothing lost by bringing him up in August or September this year, right? I guess they'd lose some leverage on negotiating that extension in the offseason.

8th. And it’s going to be tough to end up any higher than 7th, there’s like a 6 game gap after that. I’d take 7-8th this year. Supposed to be a deep draft.

Yeah, can anyone dig that out? Still can't seem to find it.

2020 is pressing it. I’d be happy with Robert and Madrigal in 2020 and Vaughn in 2021. He almost certainly needs a full year in the minors. A/A+ this year, AA/AAA next year. That’s still really quick.

Sanchez was #5 in last year's rankings. Not sure why he didn't sign then and what has happened to his stock since.

Saying HOF talent isn't necessarily the same as saying he'll make it, but I'll take my chances on a 20-year-old putting up his kind of numbers, at a premium position no less. Wasn't there an article about that in the last year or so on the history of these uber prospects making debuts as young ages? Can't seem to find it, but I believe the track record is actually pretty impressive.