As I discuss in today’s article, I’m not even sure what to expect as far as players that will sign today and what information will be available. That being said, I already have one confirmed signing, and it’s a big one, so I figured it would be worth throwing this post up and updating it throughout the day as information comes in.
9:40 AM: It’s been confirmed to me that the Mets have signed Venezuelan LHP Juan Urbina, son of former big leaguer Ugueth Urbina. I have also confirmed that the bonus is for over $1 million. I’ll try to track down the specific amount. Sources also indicate this will be the only Mets signing today.
9:57 AM: The Cardinals will be announcing their signings in a press conference at the Hilton in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic at 10:30 AM, with a press release coming soon thereafter.
10:25 AM: It’s been confirmed to me that the Yankees have signed Dominican catcher Gary Sanchez, although I still haven’t been able to get a concrete number on the bonus. Every estimate has been very close to $3.0 million and I was told today that was the correct number, give or take a bit. So it’s basically $3.0 million, Yankee fans. Also, I’m told the Yankees will be spending $4 million total this July 2nd, on three players, and I’m told the other two players are a shortstop and pitcher. The shortstop is widely believed to be Damian Arredondo, who should be getting a bonus in the $800-900,000 range (report on him in today’s article) and some think the pitcher is Venezuelan righty Jose Osuna. Deductive math would say that, if it’s Osuna, he would get $150-200,000, which is about where I had his potential bonus pegged, anyway. I’ll keep digging on this one.
11:07 AM: Three more signings to report, two for less money than expected and one for what I expected. The Brewers have inked RF Jose Pena for $400,000, the Yankees have signed RHP Chris Cabrera for $400,000, and it was confirmed that the Yankees reached a deal with SS Damian Arredondo for $850,000. I’m told Sanchez, Arredondo and Cabrera will be the only three signings by the Yankees today, so Jose Osuna is now out of the picture. Two reactions to these pieces of news:
1. Steal by the Brewers. I had a chance to see Pena in action and while some of the $1 million talk could have been misinformation or marketing by people trying to pump his value, Pena is a very nice buy at this price for Milwaukee.
2. Turns out it wasn’t exactly $4 million the Yankees were going to spend, but actually $4.25 million (or so, with the Sanchez bonus being a slight gray area). Cue Yankee blogs discussing whether this was some sort of statement by the club about Ynoa’s price last year and whether they’d take Ynoa or the Sanchez/Arredondo/Cabrera trio.
11:10 AM: BREAKING: A source close to the situation says that 21-year-old Cuban LHP Aroldis Chapman indeed has defected. There were conflicting reports about the accuracy of a report yesterday at cubaencuentro.com about Chapman defecting. I’ll continue digging for more details.
11:53 AM: I’ll take a second here to say that there has been a lot of speculation about the macroeconomics involved in this year’s complicated July 2nd market. I’ve got about 4000 words written on the topic that will be coming in a long-form series soon, but it’s too early to take these couple signings as empirical evidence one way or another. There was widespread speculation (and almost universal agreement) in March and April that this year’s talent was clearly down from last year, particularly at the top of the class. When the this year’s bonuses come out over the next few weeks, I don’t expect a record-breaking bonus, but the results should stack up nicely to last year’s totals and may very well be higher. Were scouts just downplaying the talent to keep costs down? Nope, because agents saying the same things. Did the talent just develop late? Probably not. I think the financial precedents set last year are being built on, not edited due to the recession. Lots more coming on this topic today and in the coming weeks. Also, if you’d like to see breaking news seconds before I post it here, follow me on Twitter.
12:05 PM: A few teams have checked in with me to say that they won’t confirm signings until physical are passed, contracts approved by MLB, any pending investigations are completed, etc. Some of these clubs have recently signed guys with falsified ages (lots of teams have), so they just don’t want it out there until they’re as certain as they can be that all their ducks are in a row, which is completely understandable. That combined with a number of guys not signing on July 2nd for other reasons (covered in today’s article) will make the release of confirmed signings and bonus amounts a slow trickle. Maybe I should start eating and sleeping again.
12:08 PM: Reports are that the Cardinals’ 10:30 Dominican press conference announced the signing of Dominican OF Wagner Mateo. Derrick Goold has some details. I wasn’t there, but am told the official press release should be up soon. The bonus was confirmed to me by multiple sources before July 2nd to be $3.1 million.
12:19 PM: ESPN’s Jorge Arangure goes into much more detail about what I reported a little over an hour ago on this here blog entry: the Aroldis Chapman defection is confirmed. I didn’t want to toss out a possible bonus guess because I knew it would be huge. Arangure tosses out $30-60 million. Sounds about right, as part of a big league deal, most likely. My upcoming Latin economic breakdown series just got more interesting. So, once Strasburg signs, prepare for ridiculous Chapman hype. Wait, is that going to be before, after or during Bryce Harper hype? I need to check my “next big thing hype” talking points. Be right back.
12:29 PM: For those of you wanting some objective information about Aroldis Chapman’s talent, here’s R.J. Anderson’s piece with a breakdown of Chapman’s Pitch f/x data from a start in the World Baseball Classic.
12:58 PM: Got some clarification on Gary Sanchez’s contract. I had been told $2.8-3.0 million last week, others reported $2.5 million, some said just $3.0 million, then was told today “basically” $3.0 million. So what’s the deal? It is $3 million, but split into payments that change the present value, hence the $2.8 million low-end of the range I was told last week. I guess that bonus range is technically the most correct answer. There’s a $1.8 million payment after 45 days, then two $600,000 payments within the next 12 months. Seems the Yankees just got creative here to save a few bucks. Those are words I never thought I’d type.
1:08 PM: Some news on two Dominican prospects that are currently unsigned, but not for long: SS Juan Castillo and RHP GianCarlos Santana. Castillo is negotiating with three teams, the Astros, Twins, and Rays, and the Astros appear to be the leader. Castillo is a offensive-oriented shortstop that will likely move to third base or second base professionally. He should sign by Sunday, if not earlier, for a bonus in the low-six figures. Santana is the brother of Angels‘ hurler Ervin Santana and is in talks with the Royals and Pirates, with the Royals being the likely landing spot. Santana was rumored to be headed to the Angels as a legacy signing until their scouting director was fired a few weeks ago. Santana had been sitting at 85-88 mph over the past few outings but had a recent velocity spike, sitting around 90 mph and hitting 91 mph recently. He figured to sign for about $75,000 in the next few days, but may opt to wait a few days and workout for other teams with his new-found velocity for a potential six-figure pay day.
1:15 PM: Another press release rolls in announcing three Venezuelan signings by the A’s. Shortstop Wilfredo Solano, outfielder Alfredo Sosa and third baseman Junior Martinez have been inked by the club, and bonuses are unknown. Solano is the best prospect of the group. I speculated in today’s article that the A’s were one of the teams on his trail and he should command a bonus in the mid-six figures, with some talk it could be as much as $750,000. Solano is a offensive-minded shortstop that will likely have to move to third base professionally.
1:31 PM: A couple clubs, including one team that I was told was done for the day, said they are in negotiations and hope to announce signings later, so stay tuned. It’s time for lunch and an interview. Still haven’t been able to squeeze sleep in the schedule. Sigh.
3:28 PM: This might be the last update of the day. Talked to some agents and clubs and it seems like all of this morning’s news was stuff that was done days or weeks ago and we’re now into a secondary market of sorts. Negotiations are just now heating up with this next group of players, but not much movement is expected today. The second and third tier players are now fielding offers from teams that are formulating their final answers after watching the elite guys line up and set the market. It’s a similar to how lots of draft picks in sports like football or basketball won’t sign until the guy ahead of them sets a ceiling they can negotiate under. It’s almost like there’s a second signing period that will open up in a day or two with teams currently getting their boards finalized and sending out offers while agents search for the best deal. Of course now that I’ve said that I’m sure 30 deals will get done in the next 5 minutes.
6:23 PM: Another release, this time from the Jays, announcing the signing of Venezuelan catcher Santiago Nessy, the bonus is unclear but is expected to be in the same range as Wilfredo Solano’s: mid-six figures with a shot for up to $750,000. Nessy is big-bodied, offensive-oriented catcher that may move to first, but has a chance to stick behind the plate and swings a mean stick.
6:48 PM: A couple teams have confirmed signings and some even confirmed how many signings they’ve made, but are withholding names until investigations and physicals are cleared. I could speculate, particularly with teams that have multiple guys that were rumored to be done, playing deductive reasoning, but that’s not really adding anything to the discussion. I don’t expect any more names/bonuses until tomorrow morning, but the floodgates should open at some point when clubs/agents start making moves and physicals/investigations wrap up.
We threw our contestants a curveball in Round Six: pick a game and write an article using that game’s story as a starting point. Not much bend in the concept so far, but the games were on Thursday, and the article was due Friday. We’ve mentioned several times during this competition that we’re looking for people who can be assigned a topic and produce strong content on deadline, and in Deadline Week we put our remaining contestants to the test. Selected comments from our judges:
“I really liked this as almost a sit down with the game and just let the stream of consciousness flow.” — Kevin Goldstein, on Ken Funck
“This article just proves that even a good writer can’t pull off a bad concept.” — Will Carroll, on Brian Oakchunas
“I really liked that Matt did such a good job of using a single game to make an interesting, much more broad point about World Series rematches.” — Kahrl, on Matt Swartz
“Look at the graf that starts with “I would have let Rasmus …” No offense to Brian here, but La Russa has 2,500 wins, so I would have liked to have seen something more than opinion.” — Carroll, on Brian Cartwright
It’s getting harder and harder to let people go here–you’ve commented on it, and we’ve certainly said it ourselves. But after tabulating the results, we have to say goodbye to Brian Oakchunas–Brian, thank you and best of luck.
Now on to happier news: we’re looking for topic suggestions for one of the final rounds of the competition this year. I know we’ve seen some from you all in various comment threads, but in this particular one please leave any ideas you have, and use the ratings and reply buttons to make your feelings known on other commenter suggestions. We’ll have a look at them and pick the ones we like for use in an upcoming round of Prospectus Idol.
With a 11-4 victory in the third game of the College World Series championship, Louisiana State claimed their sixth baseball national championship. The Baseball Prospectus preseason no. 1 finished their season with a 56-17 record, and lost just twice in postseason play: in the SEC Tournament opener to Vanderbilt, in which they would storm through the loser’s bracket to win, and in Game 2 against Texas in the championship series.
Interestingly enough, LSU ended up losing just two series on the season, both at home in their new Alex Box Stadium. In early march, the fighting Illini shocked the Tigers and sent them down our rankings, while Tennessee would steal a conference series in Baton Rouge in mid-April.
Sean Ochinko led the way for the Tigers with four hits in the decisive third game, but it was Chicago White Sox first-round pick Jared Mitchell that stole the show and captured College World Series MVP honors with a first-inning home run that set the tempo. When sophomore Anthony Ranaudo ran out of gas in the sixth inning, two-way sophomore Chad Jones (one of the nation’s best safeties in football season) came in and kept the Tigers ahead. Jones, who wasn’t even on my radar as a pitching option before the season, has certainly emerged as a pro pitching prospect if his football career doesn’t work out. The uber-athletic southpaw used a plus curveball to register the two biggest strikeouts of his career against the heart of the Texas lineup.
The Texas Longhorns proved a worthy challenger, but the series went the way we expected it, with LSU holding a clear advantage in the games Louis Coleman and Ranaudo pitched. Texas’ talented freshman Taylor Jungmann finished off a dazzling CWS with a win in the second game, but the rest of the Longhorns staff looked gassed in the third game. Texas finishes the season 50-15, and can hold out hope for 2009 with only Austin Wood, Preston Clark and Brandon Belt set to leave the squad. Without question, the Longhorns are the odds-on favorite to win the 2010 College World Series.
So, with that, we close the door on our NCAA coverage for the spring. I’d like to thank everyone that took the chance on following this unconditional version of our pastime this spring, as you made my job a lot more exciting as a result. Congratulations to coach Paul Mainieri and the 2009 LSU Tigers, clearly the nation’s best team.With a 11-4 victory in the third game of the College World Series championship, Louisiana State claimed their sixth baseball national championship. The Baseball Prospectus preseason no. 1 finished their season with a 56-17 record, and lost just twice in postseason play: in the SEC Tournament opener to Vanderbilt, in which they would storm through the loser’s bracket to win, and in Game 2 against Texas in the championship series.
Round Five of Prospectus Idol was a bit of a departure. Rather than giving our contestants a specific topic, we had them cast their gaze upon the history of baseball and write about a topic of their choosing. Selected comments from our judges:
“Informative and an interesting starting point, the sort of essay that invites further work.” — Christina Kahrl, on Brian Cartwright
“Points for concept for sure, but the execution just kind of failed me.” — Kevin Goldstein, on Matt Swartz
“I really like how easily Brian broke down some really heavy statistical concepts into chunks.” — Will Carroll, on Brian Oakchunas
“Choosing to use Win Shares is a problem, not because the utility of Win Shares is debatable, but because Tim felt obligated to spend over 400 words of what was supposed to be a 2000-word piece defending that choice.” — Steven Goldman, on Tim Kniker
“Very few (and probably zero BP readers) think W-L records are indicative of anything, so why do the research to prove it?” — Goldstein, on Matthew Knight
“This seems really, really long and again, I think it’s the structure. Going decade by decade really lost me.” — Carroll, on Ken Funck
Overall, our judges left the impression that this was a disappointing week given the control the contestants had over the direction of their pieces, and there were a few commenters that echoed that sentiment. According to our voters, though, the weak link in the History Week chain was clear, and Matthew Knight leaves the competition this week. Matthew, it’s been a pleasure, and we hope we haven’t seen the last of your writing.
In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (probably not the one with the tantalizing reference to the Giant Rat of Sumatra, but we can hope), he explains to Watson that the mind is a bit like an attic. You can chuck only so much junk up there before you run out of room for the important stuff. My attic is clearly overflowing (mostly bits of trivia from old comic books — I can name the civilian identities of all the original members of the Legion of Super-Heroes — Reep Daggle, anyone? Tinya Wazzo?) as I completely blanked on today’s chat. Humble, contrite apologies to those who were to participate, the Giant Rat, and Triplicate Girl Luornu Durgo. We’ve rescheduled for Wednesday, and Christina is sending a large, ill-mannered ex-boxer named Bix to dissuade me from any further temptation to misuse my attic. I’ll look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, Bix willing.
Bobby Cox has spent most of his career in the National League, but the Braves skipper remembers Tiger Stadium. The 68-year-old Cox appeared in nine games there as a player, in 1968 and 1969, with the Yankees. He later faced the Tigers numerous times as the manager of the Blue Jays, from 1982-1985. Cox talked about the newly-razed Tiger Stadium prior to tonight’s game in Boston.
On his memories of Tiger Stadium: “I remember the great team they had, with Kaline and Cash, and all those guys — the World Championship team. That was 1968, right? They clinched against us and they set the cars on fire downtown, and all that good stuff. I remember that. I remember the size of it. You could hit a cheap home run, and if you hit it center field you had no chance. I remember Denny McLain serving up Mickey Mantle’s…I think number 536, or something like that, to go past Mel Ott. Mostly I just remember the good team they had, the players on the field. The stadium itself …it was old then, but it was fun.”
On his memories of Tiger Stadium as a player: “I hit a home run off Denny McLain. That was my own claim to fame. I also remember rounding first, as hard as I could, on a ball hit to Kaline [in right field], and he threw behind me. And got me, which was a cardinal sin. He got me.”
On his memories of Tiger Stadium as a manager: “I got thrown out of a lot of games at Tiger Stadium and had to manage from the stairs that led to the dugout. The grounds crew hung their drags in there and it was dusty and smelly and dirty. And the urinal was right there.”
On the tearing down of Tiger Stadium: “I always hate to see the old stadiums go down, but change happens and they have to go. Detroit obviously has a beautiful ballpark now. Really beautiful. It was time.”
Small sample, but Willy Taveras has put up some unbelievable numbers over the past calendar month or so. In 97 plate appearances from May 15 to June 18, he’s hitting .085/.113/.096, with three walks and 20 strikeouts. Taveras also has been thrown out in two of five stolen base attempts during that span.
Here’s my question: If speed never slumps, then what is the word for this?
As I watched Padres right-hander Chris Young lose the strike zone last weekend — at one point he walked four straight batters — I wondered to myself whether he might be hurt. I’m no expert on mechanics, but when a guy misses that badly, that often, it’s hard not to ask such questions.
Turns out Young had been trying to pitch through an inflamed right shoulder for several starts, and now he’s headed to the disabled list.
Shifting gears a little, I had knee surgery about a month ago. I’ve just started physical therapy, and I’m relearning how to walk.
Have you ever stopped to think about the mechanics of walking? I sure hadn’t. I’ve been walking longer than I can remember, but now that I haven’t done it in several weeks and not since the knee was repaired, I’m discovering that it’s a surprisingly complex activity. It goes roughly like this:
With feet at shoulder width, push off the ball of left foot and shift weight forward
Plant right foot — heel first, with a stiff leg — in front of and to right of left foot
While shifting weight forward, contact entire right foot with ground (i.e., land ball and toes), keeping the leg straight
While shifting weight forward, swing left leg ahead of right leg and plant the former in front of and to left of the latter as in Step 2
While shifting weight forward, bend the right leg at the knee; at the same time, contact ball and toes of left foot with ground and push off to repeat the process
That’s a poor description of walking, written by a layperson who is struggling to find words for it, but bear with me because there is a larger point: When you haven’t been walking for a while, it takes time, repetition, and careful attention to detail to get right. Bend the leg too soon and you lose stability. Bend it too late and your calf screams.
It is with this background, with a new appreciation for the “simple” act of walking, that I express my amazement at how a big-league pitcher can go out and repeat a much more difficult physical activity throughout the course of a single game, a season, a career. And when something goes out of whack, as in the case of Young, it boggles my mind to think of the effort required to fix it.
Speaking again from experience, when your mechanics break down due to injury, it’s unbelievably easy to compensate and hurt something else without even realizing it. Then one day you find yourself needing to fix that problem before going back and addressing the root issue.
How do you keep a pitcher’s mechanics in tune so that he doesn’t hurt himself? What do you do when he becomes fatigued or has a minor injury that causes him to alter his delivery in ways that affect other parts of his body? How do you fix a pitcher that can’t find his release point? Or one that has lost his “feel” for a particular pitch after coming back from surgery?
I have no idea. Then again, I’m still trying to figure out how to walk.
This used to be a fairly common sight in baseball games. Before warning tracks became common, before anyone thought of padding, walls were unforgiving, cold, hard concrete. The wreck of Pete Reiser’s career due to a dangerous inability to stay away from the wall has become legendary, but it wasn’t just Pistol Pete, it was Earle Combs suffering a fractured skull and a broken collarbone on the same play, it was Ted Williams shattering his elbow making a catch at the wall in the 1950 All-Star game (Williams said he was never able to swing as well again), and it was dozens of fractures and concussions, major and minor. Sometimes the wall didn’t have to be concrete. In the 1960s, Memorial Stadium in Baltimore had a chickenwire fence. In 1963, Mickey Mantle virtually destroyed his left leg–he broke his left foot, plus tore up the knee–when he jumped into the fence trying to catch a home run drive off the bat of Brooks Robinson. Two days later, columnist Arthur Daley of the New York Times published an idiotic column titled “The Brittle Bruiser.” Mantle was brittle and he did not take care of himself, but when the guy had just had his leg mangled by someone’s cheapass idea of fencing is not the time to accuse the guy of not being able to stand up to the rigors of the long season.
Over time, fences became more standardized. Warning tracks were a feature in every ballpark, and padding became commonplace. It is now unheard of for players to be carried off the field unconscious–but as with so many “retro” features of new ballparks, unpadded walls and the injuries associated with them are now making a comeback due to the presence of plexiglass scoreboards, windows into the stands, such as in Petco’s right-center “Beach” area, and other hardened features in the outfield. For example, in 2007 Matt Kemp separated his shoulder when he fell into such a scoreboard in right field at Dodger Stadium. The occasion for this dispatch is that tonight Yankees center fielder Brett Gardner had to be carted off the field after he fell backwards into a plexiglass window in the outfield wall, a viewport for denizens of the bullpen, at the new Yankee Stadium. It is readily apparent that for an outfielder moving at speed, a hardened window isn’t too different from a hardened wall.
This would seem obvious, so obvious that the decision to place these obstacles in the field of play can only be described as blatant disregard for the safety of the players. Gardner seems to have escaped with little more than a headache, but if such careless design decisions are not rectified in all major league parks, we will someday see someone carried off the field unconscious, or worse. Reiser once hit the wall so hard that he was given last rites. We don’t need to have that play reenacted in modern dress just because someone decided that the bullpen seats couldn’t be elevated or the outfield wall was a good place to sell some animated ad space. Forgoing that revenue would be a small price to pay to avoid that scene.
Our Prospectus Idol contestants had a task for Week Four that will be familiar to regular readers–to pick a subject and build the perfect Player Profile about them. Selected comments from our judges:
“I do think you needed an editor — not for writing or grammar, but to decide what to put in here and what to take out.” — Kevin Goldstein, on Matt Swartz
“I love the confidence you show talking about a player that people aren’t considering the way your conclusion does, and the fact that you explained the disconnect between the opposing viewpoints brought up by PECOTA’s optimism.” — Marc Normandin, on Brian Oakchunas
“What we got was something solid but unspectacular–instead of tool time, we got a grinder’s effort.” — Christina Kahrl, on Brian Cartwright
“Ken gets in his own way a lot, from the title to the needless Batman sounds.” — Carroll, on Ken Funck
“An excellent Profile overall, and fine work.” — Kahrl, on Tim Kniker
This was another close week for voting–many voters commented on how all of the entries were solid competitors. But the first rule of Prospectus Idol is that someone goes home every week, and Tyler Hissey will be leaving us this time around. Thank you for all your hard work, Tyler, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you do next.
The Latin Talent Market: D-Day
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