biggentleben
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Everything posted by biggentleben
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Yes, until they've officially signed a contract, the person is simply an adviser except for college seniors who have no more eligibility. In the NFL, an agent is allowed to act as an agent without a contract before the draft as there is a cutoff date for returning back to school, similar with the NBA. Due to the odd setup of the MLB draft, players are allowed to maintain college eligibility. Rather than protect players from day 1 that they state their intent to be drafted, MLBPA has allowed this rule, which leaves draftees unprotected by the union until they're in the major leagues and unprotected by legal representation until AFTER they've signed their first contract.
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Thanks to the way baseball has antitrust exemption, this is not an issue that can hit the courts. It could go to arbitration, but the players do not qualify for arbitration due to the MLBPA negotiating all players who have not participated in the major leagues out of eligibility for the union and union lawyer protection. The players' union basically screwed over draftees for years and years, and now Tony Clark is trying to come out the hero and "fight" for the players who were wronged by the Astros. The hole was dug when Clark was still playing, and now he's having to manage through it. The other dumb part of this is the stupid rule against agents working with players who haven't yet signed. An "advisor" cannot fight in the legal world as a representative for the player. An agent can. These things that have been negotiated away by the MLBPA are now hurting future members. The good thing that should come out of this is that you will hear about a draft medical combine being added. If 30 teams can verify that they have the same report on a player, he can't claim there's no issue. At the same time, if all 30 teams know the issue before the draft, they can't use this tactic to "find something" when they do a physical after getting a verbal agreement put together. The Astros screwed the pooch here. MLBPA screwed the pooch years before, and it's coming home to roost here. What I hope is that it isn't a case that 3 months from now, no one remembers.
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Best I've ever seen (and no homerism involved) was the Braves/Padres one in 1984: http://m.mlb.com/video/v5955859/mlbcom-looks-back-at-the-padresbraves-beanbrawl
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How Minnesota Helped Create The Modern Home Run Derby
biggentleben replied to Parker Hageman's topic in Other Baseball
I miss the old school derby, the one they've shown many times over on ESPN classic. Mays vs. Aaron one on one. Killebrew vs. Mantle, mano y mano. Those were awesome! -
Those sorts of guys tend to get to be the sort of signing that gets a lot of panning, however. The Braves got a lot of grief from team fans because of letting Ernesto Mejia go to Japan without shopping him around, but reports in the month afterward confirmed the Braves had active trade talks with roughly a half-dozen teams, but none would give anything of value for Mejia, and according to an "anonymous source", one GM reported that giving anything of value for Mejia would get him lambasted in the local media. When GMs are getting ripped for such moves, some guys ignore that noise and keep up with their plan, like Beane when he signed a guy who'd been let go by three organizations and had been a top-100 guy once, 7 years prior that turned into Brandon Moss. Other guys tend to shy away from those deals, especially if their club is struggling with poor PR.
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But stating that Kubel had limited or no upside is incorrect as well, even if he wasn't a "prospect". He hit 30 home runs while having to play the field in 2012. Pelfrey the first go-round was a post-hype guy, but he didn't work out. The oddity was resigning him after they tried that path once. They also acquired a post-hype prospect in their Doumit trade when they got Gilmartin, and he pitched well in AA, but AAA looks a lot like his AAA season of 2013. The Twins have attempted to go after some formerly hyped guys, and they didn't work out. The A's have done it a lot more, so we see their successes much more than their failures. They've converted roughly a dozen players from hitters to pitchers in the last 5-7 years, per Billy Beane, but Sean Doolittle works out, so they're considered geniuses of converting players. Similarly, they take a risk on a ton of post-hype guys, and many of them fail, but we remember the guys who succeed.
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I'd take Santana pretty high up there. It all still counts, but he has been left out there to take some abuse and eat innings by the Braves this year when their bullpen was tired, so his ERA has bumped up a bit from outings where he should have been out in the 4th inning, but he went 7, giving up another few runs, to help stretch the bullpen. He's pitched very well in Atlanta, as his FIP of 3.18 shows. His peripherals are even a tick better than they were in Kansas City last year.
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I think you're misremembering Correia, though. He was very highly thought of after his 2003 season where he jumped to AAA and put up a 23/2 K/BB rate in 19 innings of AAA ball in the PCL just one year after being drafted. There wasn't the huge prospect coverage that there is now, but I believe Sickels was on ESPN at the time, because I remember him really being high on Correia, which led me to pick him up in a dynasty league. Pelfrey was a big time prospect as was Kubel, and Kubel and Barlett had both produced at a fairly high level in the big leagues. Bartlett less recently, but Kubel in 2012 was a guy who put up 30 home runs while playing outfield in Arizona. Pelfrey's money was a poor choice, but taking a flyer on guys like Kubel and Bartlett weren't bad ideas at all, especially with Kubel. There are many things to rip on the Twins about, but using an angle that they weren't going after guys who were once highly-touted prospects is not accurate, even if that prospect time was some time ago.
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That said, the login page to the entire system has been put around the internet recently to a number of people, so it wasn't exactly "secure" from outside entry, either.
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Marcus Stroman has to feel very valued by his org right now to hear that he was shopped heavily both at the trade deadline and in the offseason as a chip in a direct or three-way trade.
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Little later, but Eli Wallach dead at 98. I had him a couple years back, I believe, but not this year
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Article: Tobacco and Baseball
biggentleben replied to Sam Morley's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Baseball isn't your everyday union for sure. Basically, to give in on tobacco, the union expects concessions from the owners, much like salary cap and revenue sharing had to get by the union with negotiation as well. I'd say you ban chew in the clubhouse and remove suspensions for off-field marijuana use, and you may have a move from the union. -
Article: Tobacco and Baseball
biggentleben replied to Sam Morley's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
There are actually provisions against showing it on television at the MLB level, and containers are not to be visible in the dugout for players. The minor leagues have it "banned", but it's not enforced like the marijuana ban. -
I'd disagree on McCutchen, Freeman, and Yelich, but it's all on a matter of what a home run hitter is considered. In 1988, a home run hitter was someone who hit 30+, and I believe McCutchen is a high-20s sort of player, and Freeman will settle in as a Fred McGriff type with 30-35 home run power but better average than McGriff. Yelich's swing says all kinds of raw power, but he's been inside-out'ing pitches and making power sacrifices in his swing due to his role as the leadoff hitter this season. I believe he settles into a very similar hitter to McCutchen, high 20s power. We're not in the late 90s to mid 2000s anymore, and there are more very good pitchers in the game than in that era (though you could argue that some of the most elite-in-comparison-to-average pitchers pitched in the steroid era), so while home runs are up per game, the home runs for any one player have actually gone down.
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Moneyball II: Oakland Strikes Back
biggentleben replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Other Baseball
Their high picks are also not exactly doing swimmingly, though. They have had 19 first round picks since 2008 (including 7 supplementals in 2011 alone!). 7 of those 19 were college players. With Tim Beckham making the majors, he is now their first pick in those drafts to make the majors. They had zero of those picks in the Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus top 100s this year, and Taylor Guerreri was their only representative on the MLB.com list at #96. High school or not, they're not developing with success. -
Moneyball II: Oakland Strikes Back
biggentleben replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Other Baseball
This is one thing, all homerism aside, that I admire about the Braves and Cardinals. Both have been in the latter half of the first round for the better part of two decades, yet they continue to churn out homegrown players to continue that success. -
Moneyball II: Oakland Strikes Back
biggentleben replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Other Baseball
In all seriousness, the Rays do get a lot of credit that isn't earned as far as prospecting is concerned. The Rays have been terrible drafters since 2008. In a story I did last season, they were actually the absolute worst drafters in the last five years in getting value from their picks. Some could argue that the Rays progressive strategy with their players made 5 years too small of a window, but they are also not producing high end players. Last year's midseason top 100 prospect lists (from two of four sources I checked, but I can't get the story to pull up right now) had 0 Tampa Rays draft picks on it. They were the only team without a single draft pick on the top 100s that they were absent from. The Rays have done a lot of things right in trading players to get other teams' prospects, and it's fared well for them with guys like Chris Archer, Ben Zobrist, and Wil Myers, but that doesn't make them excellent drafters. They went away from their recent history in their picks this year, and it could mean very good things for their future if they have seen some of the error of their drafting mistakes. We'll just have to see. -
The only Baseball Tonight to watch is the Thursday night edition, which they consider the "nerd edition", otherwise it is horrid.
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One row in, per the reports I read. Hit a guy in the first row that was standing at shoulder height, though, so it could even have made a second row in.
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Yeah, my collection is ridiculously huge (and does have some very good value cards in it, especially in football), but I don't expect it to buy me a house or anything, just to help with the costs of a wedding and pay off some school debt.
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My fiance's summer job will be selling my 1.5+ million sports cards to start funding our life together. I will hold roughly 100 for a personal collection (some Hank Aarons, a few of my favorite players like Albert Pujols and Andrelton Simmons) and remove the rest. I love it for sure, and I will probably still buy packs now and then for fun, but it just got too much to move them.
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I've heard he went to Georgia Southern over D1 offers because he wanted to stay at running back. That's about as much info as I have for him.
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Now that was exciting. Would have preferred Donald and Bridgewater if I was picking, but they see something they can mold in Barr, who will be a project 1st rounder. Love the Bridgewater pick, though.
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Aaron Donald would be the best choice, IMO. He'll be there most likely at their pick, and he would be huge in replacing Kevin Williams down the line. He's being talked about as one of the three or four "can't miss" prospects in the draft, but the need at other positions is higher than DT for teams ahead of the Vikings. QBs are falling currently, so there will be a good selection later in the draft, I believe.
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Found: film of 1919 Black Sox World Series
biggentleben replied to Twins Daily Admin's topic in Other Baseball
Interesting read. Thanks! I'm still less offended at Jackson than Rose after reading that, though. I'm trying to find links, but I recall about 5 years ago when it was the 90 year anniversary that interviews with former teammates and competitors all revered him as the best hitter of the generation and those who played with him talked about him turning his back on the gamblers and returning their money, though actual evidence is hard to find beyond court testimony (that, like you said, he later claimed was coerced/tricked out of him) and hearsay from former teammates. For what it's worth, the portrayal and character of Jackson in the film Eight Men Out was based off of the interviews with one of the gamblers and one former teammate who both stated that he gave the money back and was too simple-minded to know what he had agreed to before the Series and likewise easily manipulated by lawyers who were reportedly being paid by outside interests to make statements on record that were not true to "help a friend" or other such reasonings. Another very interesting thing someone recently wrote on him (once again sans link, sorry!) was that he exhibited many tendencies of someone on the autism spectrum, which could have led to a lot of issues with understanding and processing the gambling and what it truly meant.
