Wednesday Morning Windfalls
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BRAVES POLE-AXED BY MLB
G-Money points out a bizarre development that gives Jerry Dipoto a chance to Band-Aid his minor league system a bit:
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NEWS: Major League Baseball will hammer the Atlanta Braves for significant international and domestic rules violations and declare 12 minor league players free agents, including highly touted 17-year-old Kevin Maitan. Story at Yahoo Sports:
https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-hammers-atlanta-braves-declaring-12-minor-l...
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Maitan would be THE get, but Abrahan Gutierrez is a good baby-catching-prospect, and there will be others. The Braves' farm team depth was pretty extreme, so any of these that could be poached should be. They are free agents now and will cost more than before - but for the right player(s) it could help with the farm restock.
And if the Mariners went all-out for Maitan... well, the lefty shortstop has a ton of talent and happens to be from Venezuela and Felix makes a good selling point. He somehow got fat (like, fat) and his swing has a weird hitch in it now that it didn't used to have, but if you could get Fat A-Rod as a 17 year old and see whether you could made it work, that's basically the hype-level with Maitan. He'll probably come in a few levels below that, but he won't have roids helping him out either.
Hopefully Dipoto puts some of his wheeling and dealing talents into fishing that pool. I know he'll just trade those players for some 26 year old farmhand with an injury history, but at least it'll give us more rated prospects to trade.
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First takeaway: I challenge you guys to come up with a comparable hammer in USA pro sports recently. The NCAA does stuff like this, but for MLB to do it ... wow. The Braves' corruption must have been on quite a scale. The Braves' GM was thrown out of O.B. like Pete Rose, and a bunch of other stuff.
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A fat teenage ALEX RODRIGUEZ. :: laughs :: Was that a quip G or did you mean it? ... that image alone makes the story the winter's #2 bombshell right then and there.
We do presume that MLB put these players into a pot outside the international pool?
Above is a picture of what he looks like now, and here is a picture of what he's supposed to look like, which, as G sez: ARod. Both pics are slightly superior to Dr. D's current 8x10.
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Here is Fangraphs' scouting report on each player.
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OHTANI IS COMING, OHTANI IS COMING
They reached a deal. Game on, baby.
Basics of the system: the NPB player is a pure free agent, and his old team gets 20% of his new contract, sliding down to 15% as the contract becomes more lucrative. An NPB team will not be able to shut down a posting offer simply because it doesn't like the $$$$ it gets out of the deal; this was a big point for the Players' Association.
This system apparently goes into effect Nov. 1, 2018, so will not apply to Ohtani. It's $20M to the Ham Fighters and then peanuts for Ohtani, who now is in the position of waiting not even ONE year. (???)
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STEROID USE
Bob Dutton's outstanding Twitter feed includes a Tweet that asks readers whether they agree with HOF'er Joe Morgan, who was one of my boyhood heroes... Little Joe sent an impassioned plea to voters that they exclude steroid users.
The vote: precisely 50-50.
Myself, and G-Money if I understand him, I think that steroids are a very helpful medicine, as opposed to Carter Capps jumping two feet in front of the rubber or as opposed to Yogi Berra cutting the ball on his shin guard for Whitey Ford. Personally I use them myself, a lot - not to be better at sports obviously, of course. :- )
But yeah, guys who obey the rules are then put at a disadvantage. Especially they seem at a disadvantage to, oh, Nelson Cruz. Did you get that stat the other day? That Cruz hit .314/.402/.644 from Aug 1 to the end of the year? You ain't taking him out of the lineup for Shohei Ohtani. One of 'em would play RF, correct? Could be up to Ohtani to decide which.
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ERIC FILIA
Here is Baseball America's Hot Sheet on the AFL. One more sizzling report for you if you're still hungry.
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WBC-san
The Mariners have made an offer to Hisashi Iwakuma, which delights Dr. D no end. Here's to a bounceback to one more glorious season in the sun as a TOR starter, and a look at the smile on his face after one, just one, playoff win.
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RULE 5
One cubicle to the right, we have Jerry Dipoto apparently stuck on a spit and roasted over the River Styx for his use of the 40-man roster. One thing, though; he's got 4 spots wide open for the Dec. 14th draft -- for which rosters have now been finalized.
Toss a tater on in,
Dr D