International FAILURES Continue...

[Lucky Jim]

I appreciate that Roch looked into it, and appreciate you posting your opinions. I don't know tons about scouting in the DR, but I'm curious if anyone thinks it would be odd for the buscons to be setting-up workouts for other organizations on the supposed lone day of the week that the league holds its games. And if this as happening to the point that organizations were choosing to send scouts to private workouts rather than to the league games, I'm surprised Mejia didn't mention it to Arangure. And if an organization is understaffed, it seems like a four team showcase putting 80 players on display may be a better investment of resources than traveling around to a private workout (because we're led to believe they have limited resources, I don't see how we could assume they are attending multiple workouts on the same day -- so why choose Wednesday as the day you are going to a private workout?). Maybe I'm reading way too much into it.

And I guess my final question would be isn't it in the interest of the agents running the League to constantly check in with scouts and organizations as to their thoughts on how the league is running? It still sticks out to me that one of the League's founders is under the impression that BAL doesn't show regular interest. I'd think he'd be trying to gauge every organization's interest pretty regularly. Shrug, in the end it likely doesn't matter from an acquisition standpoint, but curious that for all of his huffing and puffing about fans not defining "regular attendance" before flipping out, Roch didn't bother to have BAL define it either -- he left it at "We do have people that report to us."

I guess I'm just a "sky-is-falling" type at heart when it comes to the international scene, but the Orioles's response doesn't really seem to me to address my concerns from the ESPN article and from Tony (I know they weren't asked by Roch to respond to Tony).

I'm not sure anything could have addressed your concerns other than a report that we'd hired 10 more scouts. If the Orioles had said "we're there all the time," the response would be "then why doesn't X know this?" Etc. I think, in the end, you have your thoughts on the DR program and you're not going to be budged. This is another arrow in your quiver. And that's perfectly understandable.

Again, though, you keep saying "founder" - and there's no doubt he is - whereas I keep thinking "agent" - and there's no doubt that he is. He's central to this program, but let's not assume that this is some kind of objective window onto DR scouting.

This is an interesting question.

I am fully accepting of the fact that it could take a substantial amount of time to set up an international scouting department inthe DR. To improve upon the weak foundation they had in place.

But I'd really like to know why it is so difficult. Why is it so much different than just hiring 5-6 scouts, giving them a travel budget, and letting them go do their thing? I know that a lot of other scouts are entrenched there and have connections to towns, players, and the buscons, but hiring more people has got to yield better results, right? Even if its not a dollar for dollar improvement, 7 scouts has to be better than 3, right? Why does it take so long to hire more scouts? If it doesn't, then why do they feel that 3 scouts is sufficient? Can they cover the whole country close to as well as the 14 or whatever Boston scouts?

I'd love to read a comprehensive article about what the Orioles are doing in the DR, what they hope to do in the future, and what their reasoning is for thinking that those steps will be enough. Based on past history, I don't think its unfair to err on the side of "the O's are screwing up down there" when reading articles and reports about their scouting. Its a situation where I think the O's have the onus to prove to us that they are finally doing things right. Just saying "we're doing it right, but it takes time to see results" isn't enough for me to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Honestly, with the amount of scandal in the DR recently, would you just start throwing money around to anyone who'll take it to scout? And it's not just the age issues, or the incentivization of hype and deception. We're talking about the possibility of an inherently corrupt system. After all, it took down a MLB GM.

Federal authorities and Major League Baseball are investigating Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden and special assistant Jose Rijo for their possible roles in a growing financial scandal involving the signing of players from the Dominican Republic, several sources familiar with the probe told ESPN.

GM Jim Bowden says he and other Nationals officials have spoken to MLB's investigators and the FBI.

Anyone implicated could face felony fraud charges, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Numerous MLB employees in the United States and the Dominican Republic are under suspicion in the probe, which allegedly involves the skimming of signing money allocated for Dominican prospects. Bowden, a 23-year veteran of MLB front offices and a general manager on and off since 1992, is the highest-ranking official known to be under investigation.

How is this not an argument for slowly building relationships you can trust, rather than simply hiring anyone and everyone to make sure our staff is ramped up quickly?

Right - the quantity of scouts we have is what really bothers me.

Personally, I don't even care if they're in the D.R. If the O's made a convincing argument that the island was oversaturated by other teams who got there first and the payoff just wasn't there, I could probably buy that. But then you better have scouts in every other overlooked Latin American nation and occasionally hitting Australia, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and some parts of Europe. It sounds like this is what we're doing but we aren't doing it enough and with enough people.

I know you have to hire scouts you trust and that can take time, but how much time? Money shouldn't be that big of an issue here. The standard of living in a lot of these places is not very high and scouts do not make all that much money (relative to the amount of hours they put into the job).

I agree there needs to be more scouting. But if the investment is planned on - and I'm not saying it is, I'm saying if - does that ameliorate your concerns? If it's a slow-path to building infrastructure that will, eventually, create a continually-flowing pipeline of production, does a two-year window for that ramp up matter a great deal?

Just a question.

In the end, with regard to all of this, I'm not "satisfied" with the answer, any more than I'm trusting of a single agent's comments. Even Arangure said he wouldn't read too much into it. And yet here we are, reading a heckuva lot into it. I think folks get too invested in their own agendas to look at things objectively, myself. I think the net loss of slow growth in the DR program is minor. And if AM and Stockstill want to take the slow road, then I imagine that the decision has been made with a great deal of analysis and consideration.

I mean, do we really think that the Orioles continue to do things without reason? What about this administration gives us the impression that they'd disregard an inexpensive pipeline of talent? If they don't really care about the DR, and if hiring more scouts is cheaper than building or re-building a complex, why would they do the latter and not the former?

Like I said, I'm not "pleased" now with our presence, and I'm not pleased at all with our historical performance. But those folks who seem to think that nothing will change because we've always been bad in the DR seem to be barking up the same tree as those who claim that AM won't sign free agents because he's never done it before.

Sometimes, as I've repeatedly said, it's a matter of timing. I guess I'll remain agnostic on this front, for now, as well. Which probably seems like a cop-out.

[Stotle]

I'm not sure anything could have addressed your concerns other than a report that we'd hired 10 more scouts. If the Orioles had said "we're there all the time," the response would be "then why doesn't X know this?" Etc. I think, in the end, you have your thoughts on the DR program and you're not going to be budged. This is another arrow in your quiver. And that's perfectly understandable.

Again, though, you keep saying "founder" - and there's no doubt he is - whereas I keep thinking "agent" - and there's no doubt that he is. He's central to this program, but let's not assume that this is some kind of objective window onto DR scouting.

Honestly, with the amount of scandal in the DR recently, would you just start throwing money around to anyone who'll take it to scout? And it's not just the age issues, or the incentivization of hype and deception. We're talking about the possibility of an inherently corrupt system. After all, it took down a MLB GM.

How is this not an argument for slowly building relationships you can trust, rather than simply hiring anyone and everyone to make sure our staff is ramped up quickly?

I agree there needs to be more scouting. But if the investment is planned on - and I'm not saying it is, I'm saying if - does that ameliorate your concerns? If it's a slow-path to building infrastructure that will, eventually, create a continually-flowing pipeline of production, does a two-year window for that ramp up matter a great deal?

Just a question.

In the end, with regard to all of this, I'm not "satisfied" with the answer, any more than I'm trusting of a single agent's comments. Even Arangure said he wouldn't read too much into it. And yet here we are, reading a heckuva lot into it. I think folks get too invested in their own agendas to look at things objectively, myself. I think the net loss of slow growth in the DR program is minor. And if AM and Stockstill want to take the slow road, then I imagine that the decision has been made with a great deal of analysis and consideration.

I mean, do we really think that the Orioles continue to do things without reason? What about this administration gives us the impression that they'd disregard an inexpensive pipeline of talent? If they don't really care about the DR, and if hiring more scouts is cheaper than building or re-building a complex, why would they do the latter and not the former?

Like I said, I'm not "pleased" now with our presence, and I'm not pleased at all with our historical performance. But those folks who seem to think that nothing will change because we've always been bad in the DR seem to be barking up the same tree as those who claim that AM won't sign free agents because he's never done it before.

Sometimes, as I've repeatedly said, it's a matter of timing. I guess I'll remain agnostic on this front, for now as well. Which probably seems like a cop-out.

To be clear, I don't have any agenda. I saw an article that didn't sit well with me regarding BAL's stated hurdles in scouting internationally and a league seemingly set-up to address those issues. I posted it and my thoughts on it. Other people seemed to be equally concerned. BAL responded through Roch with an explanation that didn't seem to mesh with me. That's it. I have said several times that this may be nothing, and also that in the long run it likely means nothing from a player acquisition standpoint because the odds of hitting on a Jose Reyes are so slim.

Other thoughts that have been expressed in the thread seem to indicate that people, both in and out of "the know", have a similar feeling of discomfort. Every violent/heavy reaction is not necessarily an "over" reaction, even if mitigating circumstances arise. You're an attorney that deals with intricacies on a daily basis -- I don't know what it would be hard for you to see why some people may not find Roch's blog entry to be wholly successful in removing seeds of doubt.

But I've wasted enough electricity on this, and my opinion is clear (I'm sure) so no need to clog the board with the same old. It was a fun convo, and at minimum another reminder that the fanbase does, in fact, care about the team and will, in fact, scream for answers if they think the organization is being negligent. That should be a positive for BAL and Roch, not a pain in the ass...

[Lucky Jim]

To be clear, I don't have any agenda. I saw an article that didn't sit well with me regarding BAL's stated hurdles in scouting internationally and a league seemingly set-up to address those issues. I posted it and my thoughts on it. Other people seemed to be equally concerned. BAL responded through Roch with an explanation that didn't seem to mesh with me. That's it. I have said several times that this may be nothing, and also that in the long run it likely means nothing from a player acquisition standpoint because the odds of hitting on a Jose Reyes are so slim.

Other thoughts that have been expressed in the thread seem to indicate that people, both in and out of "the know", have a similar feeling of discomfort. Every violent/heavy reaction is not necessarily an "over" reaction, even if mitigating circumstances arise. You're an attorney that deals with intricacies on a daily basis -- I don't know what it would be hard for you to see why some people may not find Roch's blog entry to be wholly successful in removing seeds of doubt.

But I've wasted enough electricity on this, and my opinion is clear (I'm sure) so no need to clog the board with the same old. It was a fun convo, and at minimum another reminder that the fanbase does, in fact, care about the team and will, in fact, scream for answers if they think the organization is being negligent. That should be a positive for BAL and Roch, not a pain in the ass...

Agenda might not be the correct word. I didn't mean anything negative by it. I have a fetish for risk analysis. It's the lens through which I see things. If I thought the O's were wrong-headed in the way they approached it, I'd be posting about it critically all the time.

You pretty clearly have a position on the kind of investment that the O's should put into Latin America (and specifically the DR). And that position influences your interpretation - as it would anyone's.

To be clear, we have three parties here, with three comments:

1. Agent/Founder: the O's aren't a regular presence.

2. Arangure: I wouldn't read too much into it.

3. The O's: we're there, but we're building and some other things are going on.

For me, I see seeds of doubt on both 1 and 3. You apparently don't. In your own words:

More:

Sickening.....someone slap me....

There's no incentive to lie or skew, so far as I can tell. The league is interested in getting interest and support from MLB on the whole. Why would anyone care if a non-entity on the international scene like Baltimore supports the program?

It seems to me, your "doubt" runs only one way. If you're already "sickened" and don't see "any incentive to lie or skew," at least.

I'm a litigator, sure. But my skepticism here runs deeper than that. As a rule, being a unilateral skeptic isn't really being a skeptic. It's far closer to being an advocate, and runs the risk of being dogmatic. That said, your analogy about litigation might be apt.

I don't think your comments - knowing your position - are out of line at all. And you're clearly bringing a lot to the plate in any discussion of international scouting. And that's how I look at this, I guess. I view my position in this as judge-like: impartially, I'm skeptical of both sides. Your own comments paint you as an advocate. In the big picture, both are needed, though nothing moves forward w/o the advocates.

You still haven't addressed the Bowden/Rijo issues: do you not consider the enormous scandals coming out of the DR as a possible reason to build slowly there?

[Sports Guy]

The part of this that is not being overreacted to and should be is that we have THREE full time international scouts, and that is due to a very recent increase from TWO.

Boston has 14.

This operation is a joke.

Pretty much.

And then when you say the small market teams investing so much into this and doing what we should be doing, it all adds up to one thing IMO....The Orioles, as an organization, just don't care enough about this.

[crowmst3k!]

Pretty much.

And then when you say the small market teams investing so much into this and doing what we should be doing, it all adds up to one thing IMO....The Orioles, as an organization, just don't care enough about this.

It's really unfortunate, too. At this point in time, you have to almost count out big name free agents from choosing the Orioles. How do you compete then? Get as many players as possible in the farm system from ALL POSSIBLE SOURCES.

Draft, Dominican, Mexico, Japan, EVEN RAID CRICKET TEAMS IF THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES! The Orioles should hire some consultants from a team that's on the edge of this, like the Twins or even...gasp...Boston!

The initial investment would pay dividends!!!

Granted, last year, the Orioles made some strides in this field: adding Tanaka and Uehara. They also went into the Mexican leagues to find Simon (don't count Alfredo Simon out, either. I think he could contribute at some point in 2010). But the lackadaisical attitude in the Dominican that Tony alludes to, and the lack of personnel there is frusturating.

[wickedwitch]

I've been to the O's DR Academy, spoken with their scouts. They are very active.

All three of them?

Obviously the corruption in scouting is a huge problem, but why couldn't the O's have even some low down scout video taping all of the games? The scout could turn over the video along with a list of players he thinks have promise. That way if a scout is high on a particular guy, Stockstill himself could watch a large amount of footage on the player and make the decision himself.

[Lucky Jim]

All three of them?

Obviously the corruption in scouting is a huge problem, but why couldn't the O's have even some low down scout video taping all of the games? The scout could turn over the video along with a list of players he thinks have promise. That way if a scout is high on a particular guy, Stockstill himself could watch a large amount of footage on the player and make the decision himself.

How do we know they don't? There's so much speculation going on based on so little information.

[wickedwitch]

How do we know they don't? There's so much speculation going on based on so little information.

By the fact that we have three international scouts. It's physically impossible for them to cover all the games.

[crowmst3k!]

All three of them?

Obviously the corruption in scouting is a huge problem, but why couldn't the O's have even some low down scout video taping all of the games? The scout could turn over the video along with a list of players he thinks have promise. That way if a scout is high on a particular guy, Stockstill himself could watch a large amount of footage on the player and make the decision himself.

Exactly. I can't imagine these types of employees would be too expensive, either. If the Orioles wanted to pay me exactly what I am making now (not a whole lot in the big picture) to sit and tape baseball games...I'd do it!

I wonder what the yearly salary of one of the international scouts for the Orioles would be? How hard can it be to add more to the current stable of three?

[Stotle]

Agenda might not be the correct word. I didn't mean anything negative by it. I have a fetish for risk analysis. It's the lens through which I see things. If I thought the O's were wrong-headed in the way they approached it, I'd be posting about it critically all the time.

You pretty clearly have a position on the kind of investment that the O's should put into Latin America (and specifically the DR). And that position influences your interpretation - as it would anyone's.

To be clear, we have three parties here, with three comments:

1. Agent/Founder: the O's aren't a regular presence.

2. Arangure: I wouldn't read too much into it.

3. The O's: we're there, but we're building and some other things are going on.

For me, I see seeds of doubt on both 1 and 3. You apparently don't. In your own words:

It seems to me, your "doubt" runs only one way. If you're already "sickened" and don't see "any incentive to lie or skew," at least.

I'm a litigator, sure. But my skepticism here runs deeper than that. As a rule, being a unilateral skeptic isn't really being a skeptic. It's far closer to being an advocate, and runs the risk of being dogmatic. That said, your analogy about litigation might be apt.

I don't think your comments - knowing your position - are out of line at all. And you're clearly bringing a lot to the plate in any discussion of international scouting. And that's how I look at this, I guess. I view my position in this as judge-like: impartially, I'm skeptical of both sides. Your own comments paint you as an advocate. In the big picture, both are needed, though nothing moves forward w/o the advocates.

You still haven't addressed the Bowden/Rijo issues: do you not consider the enormous scandals coming out of the DR as a possible reason to build slowly there?

First the "sickening" comment was way over-the-top and I was playfully called on it by Jon. Your post doesn't show what I was quoting, but if memory serves it was related to the fact that the league was beneficial to organizations that don't currently have the resources to devote to heavy scouting in the region. Admittedly it triggerred a visceral, ill-measured response.

I do have dout on both sides, but applying what ivery little I know about scouting and about the DR, one side makes much more sense. Further, I admit that this is a burden of proof scenario for me, as well. At this point, when I see news of BAL not getting the job done in the DR, and the news seems to read as reliable (Arangure), the burden of proof shifts over to BAL to show that the news is inaccurate or incomplete. In this instance BAL's response simply didn't do much for me. There were no specifics given, and it seemed like a response paying lip-service to the question. I'm not advocating against BAL, it's just that I am using a burden of proof approach, whereas you are simply weighing the merits of two positions from a neutral starting point.

I'll respond to the corruption question shortly, but in short I think it's an argument against BALs response to Roch more than a reason for not being a regular at the DPL.

[Mackus]

By the fact that we have three international scouts. It's physically impossible for them to cover all the games.

How many games a day in the DR are there that feature legitimate MLB prospects?

[Lucky Jim]

How many games a day in the DR are there that feature legitimate MLB prospects?

I had no idea that video-tape had to be taken by a scout. It's the auteur theory of scouting video.

[Lucky Jim]

First the "sickening" comment was way over-the-top and I was playfully called on it by Jon. Your post doesn't show what I was quoting, but if memory serves it was related to the fact that the league was beneficial to organizations that don't currently have the resources to devote to heavy scouting in the region. Admittedly it triggerred a visceral, ill-measured response.

I do have dout on both sides, but applying what ivery little I know about scouting and about the DR, one side makes much more sense. Further, I admit that this is a burden of proof scenario for me, as well. At this point, when I see news of BAL not getting the job done in the DR, and the news seems to read as reliable (Arangure), the burden of proof shifts over to BAL to show that the news is inaccurate or incomplete. In this instance BAL's response simply didn't do much for me. There were no specifics given, and it seemed like a response paying lip-service to the question. I'm not advocating against BAL, it's just that I am using a burden of proof approach, whereas you are simply weighing the merits of two positions from a neutral starting point.

I'll respond to the corruption question shortly, but in short I think it's an argument against BALs response to Roch more than a reason for not being a regular at the DPL.

I agree with this completely. I understand, too, why you're imposing a burden on the FO: because of years of futility. I'm not imposing that same burden because I've seen signs of development - some of which involve a great deal of investment.

I'm curious about your take on the scandal, because I can't see a rebuttal to Baltimore's response anywhere in there. And I like to be surprised.

The "sickened" comment was clearly a joke. The part where you claimed to see no incentive to distort was not. It was the more material evidence of your position. You seem to have backed off that a bit, but it wasn't evidence earlier.

It's an interesting sort of burden you're placing, btw. Essentially, you've accused Baltimore of something and then placed the burden of them - not of creating doubt - but of wholly, convincingly, rebutting that accusation.

Further, how can you disregard Aragure's own comment that we shouldn't read too much into it? Your own witness is saying that it's not definitive - he's casting doubt. So, the O's give an explanation, Arangure mitigates the probative value of the evidence, and the O's still haven't met their burden of showing...what, exactly?

[wickedwitch]

How many games a day in the DR are there that feature legitimate MLB prospects?

The DR isn't the only place with baseball.

[Lucky Jim]

The DR isn't the only place with baseball.

But how do you know they're not watching extensive videotape? That was your point, right?