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What, does Hahn want credit for being at the table again? Getting something 90% finished? Because the way I see it, this is just another instance of them not being able to finish on something. If the deal fell through because of a leak, who's fault is that? A random kid on the internet or your FO that let that info out?

I'm not going to get my hopes up about us taking on a bad contract. They can talk about it all they want, but at the end of the day I can't see JR signing off on taking on more money for unproven prospects especially when that money won't sell any more tickets or merch. I think its more likely they just use the money on an extension for Abreu and overpaying for a mid-tier free agent next offseason.

Can't remember which it was, but one of the baseball podcasts I was listening to said he has completely changed his stance and swing from last year. That would make it seem like something has clicked with the changes as opposed to him having a randomly good year. I haven't heard anyone say he is in consideration as high as #3, but I don't see how he isn't is he keeps this up. Its seems like he is similar to Misner, except with a potentially better chance to stay in center, possibly better speed, and power that is already translating to games.

They are citing the fangraphs rumors about that from almost a month ago. At this point, I don't think we can assume that info is still accurate.

Here is an article with a video that has Merino and the other prospects as well. Apparently Merino is the son of a pretty famous cuban baseball player. https://www.cibercuba.com/noticias/2019-02-21-u194102-e194102-s27066-patrick-merino-otros-dos-prospectos-cubanos-presentaran

So I was doing some searching after I saw a tweet about Yolbert Sanchez and it led me down a click-hole of cuban baseball and I found this article about the list of players that will be available to be signed under the new Cuba-MLB agreement. I'll leave the rough translation from the article and a link. Note that Yoelkis Cespedes is included in the list. Notably absent is Pedro Leon who I think may have defected because I found a video with what appears to be him training for scouting (doing 60s and getting speeds on outfield throws). I also found a tweet and an article from one of the good reporters about a Cuban player named Patrick Merino who it looks like we might be in on. The article (though obviously biased) said he hit 16 homeruns and ran a 6.3 60 in his tryout with us and that he has at least 70 speed, plus arm, 60 hit, 55 power as an outfielder. The idea of leading to sign him, us being mentioned with Yolbert Sanchez, us not really being connected to any other big spending in international free agency this coming J2, and all of this talent from cuba coming on the market makes me think we are going hard after some of these guys instead of the traditional 16 year olds for this coming cycle. With that in mind, I thought it was a good idea to get all these names out there for people to hopefully have something other to debate than whatever we were arguing about. https://pelotacubanablog.com/2019/03/20/una-fuente-confidencial-dice-que-la-primera-lista-de-cubanos-disponibles-para-mlb-podria-salir-el-21-de-marzo/

Whoa, whoa, whoa... I thought we all agreed it was Magical Madrigal. When did it change to the magician?

I think its going to be Misner. As much as we want to say we are an analytical team now, Hostetler still seems like an old school scouting type of guy and its those types that seem to be all over Misner the most. Add to that their history of projecting better defense than anyone outside the org believes and I'll bet that if Adley and Vaughn are off the board they take Misner and say he is a true 5 tool centerfielder who was #1 on their board.

From Kiley's chat today:

And that doesn't even include the last two years which are where the really money can be saved.

For anyone worried about a grievance or the messaging over him being sent down, just keep an eye on Jon Jay. He hasn't been playing lately and they had said he is injured. If suddenly he "needs to go on the injured list" well then we have our reasoning for bringing him back up. We didn't have a spot before but we do now and that is our story.

Did any of his teammates show up to his 21st birthday party?

Its kind of funny to think about, but this might not even be Trout's last contract. I think this covers his age 27-38 years. If he is able to keep up being really, really good, there is a chance he is close to some of the extremely rare career milestones. This article from fangraphs has some projected career totals for some traditional stats and has Trout at a 10% chance to hit 700 HR and a 2% chance to break the home run record. If he is anywhere close to those numbers, I can't see him retiring unless he is Pujols level of bad. Obviously that next contract wouldn't be for a ton of money, but just the idea that he could potentially break records and retire as a member of a different organization after signing a 12 year deal is kind of funny to me.

Listening to the PBR podcast and they brought up something interesting in regards to Witt. They said he has moved to lead off for his team and that opposing teams probably aren't going to be able to pitch around him because his team has a bunch of other division 1 talent on it.

Right, right, but see that would cost money and we need that money to pay Eloy in 7 years.

I wonder if he has bonuses for things like MVPs in the contract. Considering there is a decent chance he wins a few more, he could potentially make even more on top of the $430m.

The thing that really got me mad was when he said that Getz has dragged us back to about being average in terms of modern advances in terms of analytics and player development. Part of undergoing a rebuild is to reallocate money so you can be out in front on things like these, not simply drag yourself back to an acceptable range from an unacceptably bad level. Like, great we got rapsodo units, but it would have been nice to have gotten them before most colleges and some high schools started using them.

I think the AAA hitting coach this year was the Marlins ML hitting coach. Normally I wouldn't want someone from the Marlins, but they did actually have a lot of good hitters.

That's why the summer circuit is so huge for the high school guys. Its the only time most of them will be consistently facing like competition. Once you get into their HS seasons, besides the pop up player who just developed recently, most guys really only slide down draft boards because you really aren't going to see anything new that is good, but you might see something new that is bad.

ARod hit .505 with 9 HRs and 35 stolen bases without a caught stealing in 33 games, but it sounds like he also used a wood bat in games so that is a difficult comparison. Griffey only played his JR and SR years of HS (spent the others at spring training instead of on his HS team) but hit .478 with 17 homeruns combined over the two years and I think 54 games. Trout hit .531 with 18 HRs and 20 steals in 81 at bats as a senior. Harper batted .626/.723/1.339 with 14 homers, 22 doubles, 9 triples, 36 steals, 76 runs and 55 RBI in 115 games as a high school sophomore (his last year of high school). Then as a 17 year old playing at a JuCo (with a wood bat) he hit .442/.524/.986 with 29 home runs, 89 RBI, 88 runs and 18 stolen bases in 62 games. Really though you shouldn't compare stats. Nothing about the games these guys played in is anything coming close to standardized. They played with different types of bats against different levels of competition over different time periods and in different weather conditions. To me, the only thing you should look for in the numbers is new concerns and if anything supports or contradicts previous scouting reports. For instance, we knew Witt had power and his 8 homeruns confirms that. On the other hand, we though Abrams had a really good hit tool but he hasn't hit as well this year so maybe we should look at that again or see if there are other factors.

Great deal for them. Potential solution to their biggest weakness on a minor league deal and cheap ML salary.

Never let facts get in the way of a good rant

Everything. Just, everything.

Agreed, but it could also be something like TA's deal where a certain number of years are guaranteed and then there are option years. Maybe the 100 over 8 is the guarantee and then there is a team option for another year or two at a reasonable amount.

And you had to throw it where the hitter wanted it and there weren't foul balls and you could just throw a ball at a player to get them out and you played until a certain number of runs instead of innings and on and on and on. There have been so many rule changes to baseball over the years yet still any time people want to change one small part of the game people get upset about things like the "purity" of the game. Its all so stupid. You evolve or you die. The key is figuring out how to evolve to make it better and not worse.