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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 20, 2013 23:41:25 GMT -5
The best players play up the middle, sure. I mean, this happens in the U.S. too. By the way, we've learned that Baldwin isn't official yet. I don't know if this is new information, but it appears as though he has signed. www.globalsportsgroup.info/news.html#roldani-baldwinIf you look, this is the exact same link that was posted when it was reported that he signed. After he signs the paperwork and everything, there's investigations and stuff that need to happen before it's officially finalized.
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Post by kman22 on Dec 21, 2013 2:50:10 GMT -5
If you look, this is the exact same link that was posted when it was reported that he signed. After he signs the paperwork and everything, there's investigations and stuff that need to happen before it's officially finalized. Yep, did not see that..
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 30, 2013 12:45:40 GMT -5
According to Kiley McDanield the Yankees are going to go cray cray in the July 2 market spending more than $10 million in bonuses ushering penalties that could amount to more than $20 million (In total bonuses + penalties) and not being able to sign anyone above 300k or losing 1st round picks if there is a international draft implemented.
They are desperate I tell you.
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Post by taftreign on Dec 30, 2013 13:31:41 GMT -5
Saw this. Makes some sense for the Yankees since they will have less to spend in the rule 4 draft and less opportunity to add incoming prospects with the QO free agent acquisitions. If they believe they can sign 5 of the top 10 international talents it is a shot into the arm of the farm system and exciting for their fan base. Problem for the Yankees is it's a long road working the extremes of the age spectrum. MLB team at the older age and the prospects at the younger end. Most of this talent is at least 6 years away. Ellsbury probably isn't there when these kids have a chance to see the show.
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Post by stevedillard on Dec 30, 2013 13:44:28 GMT -5
So their rebuilding business model is to throw away draft picks that are risky but somewhat projectable, particularly in the best draft in years, and instead throw $20 million at the least predictable market for 16 year olds, rife with fraud? OK.
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Post by taftreign on Dec 30, 2013 13:55:26 GMT -5
I agree it's a high risk strategy. Pedroelgrande is likely right that their is some desperation spearheading this. With the decline in ticket sales and revenue from the down year management was spurred to add high priced free agents to instantly improve the MLB club. Subsequently the team lost its high end draft picks and it appears the alternate route to add talent is go heavy in the international market to attempt to improve a poor farm system. All they lose is a chance to sign much internationally next year.
I expect the strategy will continue to be to full court press Tanaka (20 mil range per), sign another free agent arm (U. Jimenez?), blow past the luxury cap this year and look to get into a more stable draft and free agency period starting next year by signing none QO free agents.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 30, 2013 14:09:26 GMT -5
It's not like spending hugely one year in Latin America has produce much fruits at the MLB level. I think they are artificially trying to create the sense they have a strong scouting department and they don't.
I used to love when teams went out there and spent heavily on Latin American prospects. But time has given me a better perspective. To succeed in Latin America you need a strong scouting group that develops a philosophy and goes out there and find players who fit that. It's not all about the money.
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Post by kman22 on Dec 30, 2013 14:11:37 GMT -5
I'm not really clear on what the Yankees stand to gain by letting this info leak.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 30, 2013 14:22:50 GMT -5
I don't think they stand to gain anything. Plenty of rumors go around the International market. Some are true, others not so much.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 30, 2013 14:41:19 GMT -5
I'm not really clear on what the Yankees stand to gain by letting this info leak. They don't seem to have much of a plan at all.
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Post by lennsakata on Dec 30, 2013 14:52:32 GMT -5
I'm not really clear on what the Yankees stand to gain by letting this info leak. Supposedly it is so agents know their offers are sincere. With the cap and rumored interest in other Latin American prospect leaking scouts may think they're setting up plan b,c and d if they were unaware that they planned to blow past the limit. Seems like something that could be conveyed in conversation, which would probably draw less ire/attention but subtelty has never really been their calling card.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 30, 2013 14:54:19 GMT -5
So does this mean Texas and Tampa Bay were desperate when they did the same thing?
I guess it's kind of different with the prospect of an international draft looming, but still, it's not like this is entirely without precedent.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 30, 2013 15:08:21 GMT -5
So does this mean Texas and Tampa Bay were desperate when they did the same thing? I guess it's kind of different with the prospect of an international draft looming, but still, it's not like this is entirely without precedent. I would bet that Texas and Tampa did it because they thought it was worth it the year they did it. There's no reason to even discuss international signings anytime soon, but this was just leaked a week after the scathing articles about the Yankees farm system and after they gave up all the draft picks for free agent signings?
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 30, 2013 15:12:39 GMT -5
Different teams different situations. Tampa didn't blow past it to this level infact some thought it was budgeting oversight on their part. The year Texas went to this level, I believe 2011, was the last uncapped year so you can see why they would do it. Last year the Cubs and Rangers did it but not to this level that is being talked about here. It's way early to judge if any of this classes panned out or not.
But let's look at it from the angle of why I think they are desperate, since I originally made the claim. Last year the Yankees had many injuries and every time they looked towards the farm there was nothing there. Higher ups, I guess ownership because Cashman had to know there was nothing, started to ask question, McDaniel references a Tampa meeting, and were close to firing some of the staff. So that's why I say they are desperate. Not many draft picks a system that needs restocking and pressure from ownership.
Maybe it works out for them but just throwing money around in the international market won't solve their problem.
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Post by stevedillard on Dec 30, 2013 16:44:35 GMT -5
Interesting part of the article is that the Yanks apparently fanned on their guys last year due to their fiddling.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 30, 2013 19:19:56 GMT -5
Hard to disagree that there's some desperation behind this, if true. The most surprising thing, to me, is how the implications of the CBA and the way it would limit available FA talent seems to have escaped ownership. That and the inability to properly value the draft. The penalty for signing ballplayers who have a QO attached does two things: - It makes it harder for agents to mitigate that lost value when marketing their players, knocking down salaries. That acts as a barrier to entry by players who will probably be driven to consider their current team's offer much more carefully.
- An other way it makes the agent's job more difficult, in some cases much more, is that teams will start subtracting the market value of lost draft opportunities from those contracts if they're smart. Players such as Bourne and Drew may already be victims of this new pricing structure.
It seems to me that both those represent the sort of friction in the FA market that will curtail it over time. I guess we can wait and see who, out of the stellar pitching class that might be available next year, actually ends up as a FA. One thing is for certain, this market looks quite a bit different than the one that developed in the 1990s into the mid to late 2000s. I'm not sure that the Yankee's strategy has much longterm staying power now. I guess we'll find out. Add: Interesting quotes from the story that seem to lend weight to the idea that there may be extra motivation, and maybe some self-delusion, in this gambit: Hard to see that happening. This is the most difficult of markets to parse, not because there isn't talent. There is. It's just much harder to identify and project. There is, as mentioned by others, talk of the NY scouts being under the gun. While it's true that they seem to have done a lousy job given the failure of many of their prospects, the front office is by no means blameless. Kennedy and Jackson both cashed in on their potential - after they were traded away. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the Sox had towering good fortune last year to go along with astute decision-making, a roll of the dice that cleaned the table and bought them a mountain of goodwill. They've been able to climb off the treadmill, cultivate outstanding talents like Bogaerts, and start to promote them onto what, surprisingly, turned out to be a reasonable facsimile of that next great team they talked about last winter. Not so the Yankees. They've got the NY media dogging them all over the big apple, and their knees are jerking. So grab the popcorn and beer, and kick back. This may be a great movie in the making.
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Post by wskeleton76 on Dec 30, 2013 22:03:33 GMT -5
They probably want more trade baits.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Jan 8, 2014 17:26:07 GMT -5
To me the Yankee option is not a sign of desperation. It's a business decision. This will probably force an international draft, if they do it, but it potentially makes sense from a purely Machiavellian perspective. The current CBA is not designed for the Yankees. In many ways it is directly hurting them. And it only gets worse. The Yankees probably will need to use their financial advantages in order to pull themselves out of this any time soon.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 8, 2014 17:39:32 GMT -5
To me the Yankee option is not a sign of desperation. It's a business decision. This will probably force an international draft, if they do it, but it potentially makes sense from a purely Machiavellian perspective. The current CBA is not designed for the Yankees. In many ways it is directly hurting them. And it only gets worse. The Yankees probably will need to use their financial advantages in order to pull themselves out of this any time soon. And they can't. They have to run their team like every other successful team to get out of it and then supplement that with the financial advantage - like the Red Sox have done. This goes back a long ways. The main reason IMO they were so successful for so long was that they had a strong core that were there for a long time. The core fell apart and got ancient - now they're trying to replace the core with free agents who just went there for money, leaving them without much leadership. And that morphed into today where there are simply way too many holes in the roster.
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Post by adiospaydro2005 on Jan 9, 2014 12:59:58 GMT -5
According to Kiley McDanield the Yankees are going to go cray cray in the July 2 market spending more than $10 million in bonuses ushering penalties that could amount to more than $20 million (In total bonuses + penalties) and not being able to sign anyone above 300k or losing 1st round picks if there is a international draft implemented. They are desperate I tell you. I came across in article in BP (previoiusly blogged about by Gammons) which indicates that the penalties for exceeding a team's allocated international bonus pool will be significantly increased for the signing period starting July 1, 2014 which makes you wonder whether the Yankees or any other team will try to replicate what the Rangers have done so far in the 2013-14 international signing period with respect t exceeding international bonus pools as the penalties cover a two year period (vs. one year period for the current signing period ending June 30, 2014). Perhaps it might be worth it for the Red Sox to be scouring the international markets for any remaining talent (including those who have new names, birth dates, etc) to sign by June 30, 2014 before these new rules kick in. Snippet from the article which is linked below... What’s more, any team hoping to follow suit will do so on more expensive terms than Texas’ 2013-2014 signing period spending spree. With the start of next year’s international signing period, the tiered penalty system increases in severity. Any overage between 5-10 percent of a team’s allocation pool results in a tax penalty and the loss of right to sign any international talent during the next period to a bonus exceeding $500,000; an overage between 10 and 15 percent of a team’s allocation pool results in a tax penalty and the loss of right to sign any international talent during the next period to a bonus exceeding $300,000; and an overage beyond 15% of a team’s allocation pool results in a tax penalty and the loss of right to sign any international amateur during the next two signing periods to a bonus exceeding $300,000. www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22175
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Jan 9, 2014 13:48:45 GMT -5
The entire league has been thumbing their nose at the Yankees with the revenue sharing changes and overall CBA limitations regarding international signings, draft limitations...etc. The hens now clearly rule the hen house. It makes absolute Machiavellian sense for the yanks to exploit whatever remaining financial advantages they have. What have they got to lose? I would think some other teams would consider it also.
It should be noted that this is all speculation. No one really knows that the Yanks will pursue this policy. Apparently there have been lots of conversations with lots of prospects and there are indications that this is taking place as we speak.
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