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Baseball America: 2014 International Spending Per Team


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It's only overrated if your scouting is poor. One need only look down the average MLB roster to see how much top level talent there is from these areas of the world.

Not fully engaging in these markets is utterly ridiculous IMO. Its essentially closing yourself off to a market of players that accounts for somewhere around 25% of the games talent. You can polish or spin that anyway you want and its still a turd. The Orioles have made big strides in other areas in terms of acquiring and developing talent. I really hope that moving forward they begin to utilize the international market more fully.

I don't expect the Orioles to spend on a guy like Thomas or Mocada. I do think its reasonable to expect them to spend the money that they are allotted. If your scouting department is worth a hoot then that unspent money represents lost talent IMO. If your scouting department cannot find talent to spend that money on, then something is seriously amiss.

I love the O's and am proud of the progress they have made, not bashing the team as a whole but in this one particular department I want to pull what little hair I have left out when I see wasted opportunities like that.

Orioles scouting isn't poor. Most of the top end talent in the MLB from these areas start in the same damn league.. the DSL. Dominican Summer League is where those Caribean players go to play first. Only 6 MLB teams have two teams in the DSL and another team (Orioles) run two team and share slots for guys with the Brewers. That means the Orioles have more slots for players in DSL, meaning more players playing, more talent through the system.

O's are open to every market.. and Orioles in markets some teams aren't. Can you name a market the Orioles haven't signed a player from? Orioles have signed guys from all over. Here is a list of a few countries. Orioles have signed 6 guys from Curacao. Signed 26 guys from DR. 8 guys from Venezuela. 2 from Mexico. 2 from Guatemala. So it's massive overstatement to say the Orioles have closed itself off from other markets.

DSL is where you find that talent. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2009/267777.html

another link: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2009/267780.html

Orioles scouting is decent and last year O's took 6 pro-scouts and assigned them to amateur scouting department, so they increased eyes on. But in the world of baseball (MLB) there is dozens of teams via for players. If a team is willing to break the rules and go over the limit, they'll get the player. So people HAVE to remember that. You can scout hundreds of players a year and over two years see them a dozen or more times playing, but it doesn't mean you are gonna sign them. There is massive different between having talent in Caribean leagues and having real talent. That's why you might have 100 plus players go through your Academy down in the DR but only produce 1 or 2 guys for the US side minors.

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That's fine, it's nice to have role players for relatively cheap investments. But that's all those guys are likely to be, with the possible exception of Schoop. You're not going to find a star or even an above-average regular very often with low-cost signings.

Alvarez will probably be the starter in rightfield for the next 6 years beginning in 2016. De Aza will get the majority of innings in leftfield in 2015 before he becomes a free agent. The O's develop talent instead of buying big stars so it hard to know whether any of the other will develop into more than role players but they might.

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Except the O's only signed one Cuban player (Lazaro Levya) that would have impacted their amateur pool. The other, OFer Elier Levya does not count against the bonus pool because he was 23 when signed.

Do you know how much Lazaro was signed for? In $725k range. Who knows about Elier, not alot of information about him either. He defected and MLB said he was a "free agent" but I haven't see one stat of his from Cuba proving he played in Cuba. If you don't play 5 years, your age doesn't matter.

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They call it a fine, because the powers-that-be don't want teams to do this. But in reality it's clear some teams think their return on investment with these signings will be just positive at a level of (over limit bonuses + fine). The Yanks and Rays believe the revenues they bring in from winning due to this is worth paying the extra fine. Do you think that is misguided? If so, why?

They call it a fine because the rules have no "teeth". Powers at be want the status quo to continue while looking tough. If MLB actually gave a damn they'd put bans on teams who break the rules. Say X number of years by amount over. So for example if you are $1m over, you should get a 1 year ban. $1.1m-$5m should be a 2 year ban. $5.1m-$10m, 3 year ban. $10.1m and higher a 5 year ban.

Yankees do it cause they can and don't factor "RoI" as.. they routinely defy logic with the contracts they sign. Rays do it cause it's low risk/low cost for them. You are paying a signing bonus and that guy is gonna be a semi-fixed cost player for close to 7 years in the majors which limits their salary. Then when Tampa is done with them they trade them off. Nothing surprising there.

It's the same breaking of the rules but different reasons.

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They call it a fine because the rules have no "teeth". Powers at be want the status quo to continue while looking tough. If MLB actually gave a damn they'd put bans on teams who break the rules. Say X number of years by amount over. So for example if you are $1m over, you should get a 1 year ban. $1.1m-$5m should be a 2 year ban. $5.1m-$10m, 3 year ban. $10.1m and higher a 5 year ban.

Yankees do it cause they can and don't factor "RoI" as.. they routinely defy logic with the contracts they sign. Rays do it cause it's low risk/low cost for them. You are paying a signing bonus and that guy is gonna be a semi-fixed cost player for close to 7 years in the majors which limits their salary. Then when Tampa is done with them they trade them off. Nothing surprising there.

It's the same breaking of the rules but different reasons.

Clearly MLB taken as a whole doesn't care that much. They want some mild disincentives. But also, MLB isn't a single thing. It's a committee of owners and leadership and MLBPA and others, and I'm sure some of them want a very hard cap, and some want no cap at all, and the current setup is a compromise that they could get signed off on by the various stakeholders. If MLB was a Rob Manfred dictatorship and he wanted a hard limit he'd just waive his hands and it would happen, but the world doesn't work that way.

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Drungo.. I should add.. think of it like the MLB being the Federal Government. Banks being baseball teams. Then you understand why I find it sickening that anybody would say go ahead break the rules.

MLB is kind of like the federal government, in that there are a huge number of competing stakeholders with wildly divergent beliefs so almost no one law or rule is 100% to anyone's liking and often purposefully chock full of loopholes, and continually pecked at by the folks who really don't like it.

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