Update: Orioles sign 17 international players highlighted by Basallo and Hernandez

[Roll Tide]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

So it can be..or maybe it can’t.  

So really, it’s a complete crap shoot yet you made it seem like it’s a reason to throw extra money at a player.

Makes perfect sense!

Why are you being so obtuse?

Obviously money was thrown at those guys by good organizations. So they felt that the athletic attributes were there. An no its not a complete crap shoot! The odds seem to favor the offspring being a good prospect. Obviously its not 100%....But, a better option than throwing 100,000 at 10 nobody 16 year olds that may never develop physically, baseball skills, etc.

Either way its obvious that millions and millions get thrown away in the international roulette game every year.

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

Why are you being so obtuse?

Obviously money was thrown at those guys by good organizations. So they felt that the athletic attributes were there. An no its not a complete crap shoot! The odds seem to favor the offspring being a good prospect. Obviously its not 100%....But, a better option than throwing 100,000 at 10 nobody 16 year olds that may never develop physically, baseball skills, etc.

Either way its obvious that millions and millions get thrown away in the international roulette game every year.

I’d say that if you knew nothing else about two athletes other than that one was the son of a good major league player and one was not, you’d choose the one who was the son of a player.    But if you’ve actually seen them play multiple times and have other sources of information, the lineage falls to a pretty minor factor by comparison.   

I find it interesting that even though Tatis was the son of a major leaguer and has turned into a complete stud who will probably have a much better career than his father, he wasn’t considered to be at the very top of the heap when he was signed ($700 k).    
 

[BobDylanBundy]

I'm not sure how much I buy into athletic ability passing down from parent to child, but there is definitely a physical component and I suspect there's great benefit to having a parent who has experienced the Major League culture/preparation and is connected with the highest level of instruction. Even if a Ryan Ripken type is a dud, I could see a scout or front office personnel believing he is better positioned to fulfill his potential than a similar amateur coming from a family of office workers.

[Roll Tide]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’d say that if you knew nothing else about two athletes other than that one was the son of a good major league player and one was not, you’d choose the one who was the son of a player.    But if you’ve actually seen them play multiple times and have other sources of information, the lineage falls to a pretty minor factor by comparison.   

I find it interesting that even though Tatis was the son of a major leaguer and has turned into a complete stud who will probably have a much better career than his father, he wasn’t considered to be at the very top of the heap when he was signed ($700 k).    
 

Thank You! Were the Orioles even trying when Tatis and Vlad were available?

[Number5]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'm still shocked Pete Rose jr didn't pan out for us.

Did you bet on it?  

[Number5]

3 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

Why are you being so obtuse?

 

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

Thank You! Were the Orioles even trying when Tatis and Vlad were available?

Did you understand the sentence you partially bolded?    I was talking about a hypothetical where literally you knew nothing about the two players other than that one was the son of a major leaguer.   Obviously, that is never the case.    
 

Per ESPN, there have been 255 major league players who had sons who also played in the majors.   There have been 19,902 players in major league history.    About 13,500 of them debuted at least 30 years ago (so their kids ought to be of major league age by now).   So, the odds of a major league player having a son who also plays in the majors are about 2%.    Those odds are not good, but they’re way better than the odds of a son of some random member of the population playing in the majors.   So that’s why I said that if you knew nothing else, you’d choose the son of the major leaguer.    But you always know a lot more than that.    

As to whether the O’s were even trying in the international market when Vlad Jr. and Tatis were signed, the answer is, “not really.”   Both of them were signed in 2015; that year, the O’s ranked 29th of the 30 teams at $1.05 mm total.   That’s barely over a quarter of what the Blue Jays spent to sign Vlad Jr.    But, it’s more than it cost the Padres to sign Tatis.   
 

[Can_of_corn]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Did you understand the sentence you partially bolded?    I was talking about a hypothetical where literally you knew nothing about the two players other than that one was the son of a major leaguer.   Obviously, that is never the case.    
 

Per ESPN, there have been 255 major league players who had sons who also played in the majors.   There have been 19,902 players in major league history.    About 13,500 of them debuted at least 30 years ago (so their kids ought to be of major league age by now).   So, the odds of a major league player having a son who also plays in the majors are about 2%.    Those odds are not good, but they’re way better than the odds of a son of some random member of the population playing in the majors.   So that’s why I said that if you knew nothing else, you’d choose the son of the major leaguer.    But you always know a lot more than that.    

As to whether the O’s were even trying in the international market when Vlad Jr. and Tatis were signed, the answer is, “not really.”   Both of them were signed in 2015; that year, the O’s ranked 29th of the 30 teams at $1.05 mm total.   That’s barely over a quarter of what the Blue Jays spent to sign Vlad Jr.    But, it’s more than it cost the Padres to sign Tatis.   
 

Furthermore we have no idea how much an impact heredity had and how much of a factor the environment was.

[OriolesMagic83]

On 1/4/2021 at 5:45 PM, Philip said:

My previous question was just an aside my real Comment is that at the moment, I think casting a very wide net is best, and I hope we’re not just in Latin America. I wonder if we have any scouts in Scandinavia? Or in Germany, or wherever they’re big strong guys who can throw 90 miles an hour?

I bet the O's have Mongolia and Bangladesh locked up.  Probably still have the market cornered in Curacao (sp?).  Take that Yankees!

[Oriole1940]

One would think some physical attributes would be passed down, but the knowledge of baseball, I would think would play a somewhat important role.  You see every so often the player who has made the big leagues who is baseball ignorant .The off spring surely heard baseball talk often in the home, and was probably able to attend many games that a non baseball family  offspring would not.  Whether he picked up on the baseball knowledge of the game is another story, I guess.  

[Frobby]

57 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Furthermore we have no idea how much an impact heredity had and how much of a factor the environment was.

Oh, I assume both factors matter a good bit.    

[Roll Tide]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Did you understand the sentence you partially bolded?    I was talking about a hypothetical where literally you knew nothing about the two players other than that one was the son of a major leaguer.   Obviously, that is never the case.    
 

Per ESPN, there have been 255 major league players who had sons who also played in the majors.   There have been 19,902 players in major league history.    About 13,500 of them debuted at least 30 years ago (so their kids ought to be of major league age by now).   So, the odds of a major league player having a son who also plays in the majors are about 2%.    Those odds are not good, but they’re way better than the odds of a son of some random member of the population playing in the majors.   So that’s why I said that if you knew nothing else, you’d choose the son of the major leaguer.    But you always know a lot more than that.    

As to whether the O’s were even trying in the international market when Vlad Jr. and Tatis were signed, the answer is, “not really.”   Both of them were signed in 2015; that year, the O’s ranked 29th of the 30 teams at $1.05 mm total.   That’s barely over a quarter of what the Blue Jays spent to sign Vlad Jr.    But, it’s more than it cost the Padres to sign Tatis.   
 

Yeah ...I get that. The only thing the Orioles probably new was the names since they had a barren scouting department and weren’t even trying. Even the you could see who was bidding and have a gauge based on their results in the international market. If the players weren’t athletes as suggested in my hypothetical scenario X team wouldn’t be offering him a million plus bonus.

[sevastras]

On 1/5/2021 at 3:09 AM, Jammer7 said:

Teams get commitments from the top guys at 14-15 years of age for X amount of bonus. A big portion of that money goes to the buscones. The buscones have contracts with the kids that outlines their payment %. In return, the buscones house, feed, coach, school, cloth and basically parent the kids for a few years. Some buscones have relationships with particular teams and more money from other teams does not sway the kids as they will be easily influenced by what the buscones want them to do. 

So the idea of we should just throw money around and sign as many “top rated” kids as possible will not work, and honestly is foolish. Great scouting and the ability to develop relationships with the buscones and the kids is where this effort pays off initially. It is like college recruiting. Then, they have to actually prove they can develop the talent to MLB. 

@Sports Guy has a good point that he has made several times. Often the best players are later bloomers and sign for lesser bonus amounts. Often, kids peak early and never really get better for whatever reason. Judging kids at 14-15 as to what they will become is really tough. I do not envy scouts on that job. 

This^

Also, these “commitments” are seen as contracts by the kids. There are very few examples that I can think of where a kid commits to a team and then later switches for more money elsewhere. What happens more often is it comes to signing day and the teams come to the kids and tell them for x reason or y reason we can’t pay you that much or now you aren’t worth that much and here is what we are going to now give you. 
I also suspect that what we would consider small amounts of money(not gold chain money but better food and nicer equipment), gets filtered to the kids once they commit further pressuring them to make an early and possibly below market deal. When I say below market, I mean if they wait until closer they may get more but teams are always willing to walk away or pay less depending on how things develop over the next two years until they turn 16. 
Also, the reason some of these kids are peaking at 15,16,17 is some of these kids are so desperate for a pay day they use peds or they are actually 19 and took their little brothers identity. 

[CarrRun49]

14 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I bet the O's have Mongolia and Bangladesh locked up.  Probably still have the market cornered in Curacao (sp?).  Take that Yankees!

I know this is tongue and cheek, but Curacao has produced some pretty talented players.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, CarrRun49 said:

I know this is tongue and cheek, but Curacao has produced some pretty talented players.

And by no means do the Orioles have the market cornered there.