Poll: Will the O's sign the Mesa brothers?

[atomic]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Everyone (including you) knows that we weren’t well positioned to go get the cream of the crop of the July 2019 class, most of whom were informally committed to tesms before Elias was even hired.    

You know that how?  Because Elias said that?  Well it will be interesting when late guys come out from Cuba or elsewhere do we sit on the sidelines again. I am not sure why we are saying he is doing great when he hasn't signed any top 50 guys and no plans have been announced to build a modern facility.   I am guessing top players won't want to sign with a team that has a dilapidated facility when most other teams have very modern new facilities. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, atomic said:

You know that how?  Because Elias said that?  Well it will be interesting when late guys come out from Cuba or elsewhere do we sit on the sidelines again. I am not sure why we are saying he is doing great when he hasn't signed any top 50 guys and no plans have been announced to build a modern facility.   I am guessing top players won't want to sign with a team that has a dilapidated facility when most other teams have very modern new facilities. 

That is the prevailing line that you hear from basically everyone.  I think it has less to do with deep interpersonal ties and more to do with teams artificially limiting the market in order to keep prices down.

[atomic]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

We had many more young players in 2019 than in 2018.    And some of those were DD era signings in the few months before he left.  

Looks like there are significantly more 17 and 18 year old's on this years teams.  I wonder if most of those are DD signings as from what I read on here is most of the guys signed this period were not playing in the DSL. 

[Frobby]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

I'm not worried about cream.  I'll take a full glass of skim milk at this point.  Just don't stick me with another half full glass of that powered stuff.

I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation that the O's have a top 28 International class this year.

Which year, 2020 or 2019?     I certainly agree about 2020.  
 

Also, as I always say, I won’t conflate dollars spent and quality of the class.    Just find me some good major league talent and I won’t care if they underspent their allotment.    

[atomic]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

That is the prevailing line that you hear from basically everyone.  I think it has less to do with deep interpersonal ties and more to do with teams artificially limiting the market in order to keep prices down.

I did read these kids were taken out of school at age 12 by trainers who give money to their families.  So the trainers end up deciding who they sign with.  Really the whole system is terrible.  Players should just go into an International draft at age 18 and if MLB wants to they can help the high schools improve their baseball programs.  

Most of these kids will never leave the island and won't have anything to show for their time in baseball and won't even have a low level education. 

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

That is the prevailing line that you hear from basically everyone.  I think it has less to do with deep interpersonal ties and more to do with teams artificially limiting the market in order to keep prices down.

It is not something that was heard the first time when Elias showed up.   We’ve heard this for years, from many sources, and not just in relation to the Orioles.   So choose to disbelieve it if you want.   

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Frobby said:

Which year, 2020 or 2019?     I certainly agree about 2020.  
 

Also, as I always say, I won’t conflate dollars spent and quality of the class.    Just find me some good major league talent and I won’t care if they underspent their allotment.    

The period from July 2019-June 2020.  Do you think being third from worse is unrealistic?

My expectations for the 2020-2021 period would be somewhere in the middle of the pack.

 

[atomic]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Which year, 2020 or 2019?     I certainly agree about 2020.  
 

Also, as I always say, I won’t conflate dollars spent and quality of the class.    Just find me some good major league talent and I won’t care if they underspent their allotment.    

Well that is true.  But I would like to see them build a modern facility. You can see picture of most other teams facilities.  Does anyone even have a pictures of the Orioles facility. If they spend money $10 million on a facility or even announce the building of a new facility that would make me believe they were actually making progress. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

It is not something that was heard the first time when Elias showed up.   We’ve heard this for years, from many sources, and not just in relation to the Orioles.   So choose to disbelieve it if you want.   

I can't accept that if you went up to 10 of these kids and offered them a nice bump from what their "favored" teams are offering that at least half wouldn't jump ship.  To me it makes more sense that this is an artificial construct designed by teams to keep prices down.

You have to admit it sounds like something baseball would do.  Ultimately it doesn't matter which it is, as the effect is the same.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, atomic said:

Looks like there are significantly more 17 and 18 year old's on this years teams.  I wonder if most of those are DD signings as from what I read on here is most of the guys signed this period were not playing in the DSL. 

You can tell which players were signed by Duquette or Elias by looking at this excellent post by Enjoy Terror:

 

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The period from July 2019-June 2020.  Do you think being third from worse is unrealistic?

My expectations for the 2020-2021 period would be somewhere in the middle of the pack.

 

Honestly, I don’t know what’s realistic for this period.    I also don’t know how you’d measure it.   Did anyone rank the July 2018-June 2019 class?   Seems to me it would be years before anyone would know.    

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

You can tell which players were signed by Duquette or Elias by looking at this excellent post by Enjoy Terror:

 

Also, here’s a really awesome thread by ScGO’s giving bios of many of our top DSL prospects, that also tells who signed them.    

 

[atomic]

Looks like  Starling Marte was signed  when he was 18.  

[Frobby]

I think the way I’ll eventually judge if our international program is getting traction is by whether we have prospects playing in the States who were international signings and are cracking our top 30,    Eventually, about 30% of our top 30 (or more) should be coming from international signings.   Last year, there was only one player in the OH top 30 who the O’s signed as an international amateur — Alex Wells.   There were four other international players on the list who were acquired in the July 2018 trades.     I’ll be interested to see if anyone joins Wells on this year’s list.    Among players who have played Stateside, I can only think of one real candidate to join the list: Leonardo Rodriguez, who pitched for Aberdeen at age 21 this year and might show up somewhere in the bottom half, if at all.   I suppose we might see a guy or two who’ve only played in the DSL, but those would be stabs in the dark at this point.   

[Luke-OH]

2 hours ago, interloper said:

Nearly $2 million, according to Joe Trezza.

You are misreading the article, he says they have a bit over 2M remaining, not that they’ve spent that much. So let’s say it’s 2.5M remaining, that’d mean they spent 4M already, which would be if the average bonus of the players whose bonus wasn’t reported was about 100k, which is reasonable.