Two more signings have popped up on the Astros' transactions page: July 4: CF Andrés Monzón (Venezuela, born December 5, 2001) Monzón is listed at 5-11, 152. Bats right, throws right. July 9: SS Ricardo Balogh (DR, born July 9, 2002) Balogh was signed on his birthday. He's listed at 6-3, 175 and is a switch-hitter who throws right-handed.
This is interesting, and probably has a massive impact on how teams operate. But it's also something that we as fans likely won't notice any difference at all.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/02/yolbert-sanchez-cuban-shortstop-orioles-rangers-astros.html Astros are the only team rumored specifically to be interested who would need him to wait to sign, so there’s reason to believe they’re the team that offered $2M. No idea how good he is but the fact that both Elias and Luhnow are interested is a good sign to me; hopefully Houston gets him.
Have to think he goes to Baltimore, right? With $6M to spend and few players to spend it on. Unless Sanchez wants to take significantly less $$ to play elsewhere.
I assume if Baltimore offers him that much he will accept. And I’m not sure how else Baltimore can spend the money between now and the deadline.
Baseball America released their Astros international review. Basically a lot of solid but not spectacular athletes who have decent swings. The only time the word plus was used in the article was to describe Palma's arm. Palma is from the same program as Keibert Ruiz and Willson Contreras. The two pitchers mentioned from this class (Subero and Ramirez) are mid-80s with with a good ability to spin a curve This seems to be a trend for the Astros where they target more skills over athleticism even many of their top targets under lunhow (Sierra, Celestino, Cueta) haven't been the traditional tooled up type of prospect. This has worked pretty well on the pitching side, but hasn't really produced much in the way of position players.
The new Cuban agreement is underway now, first batch of 34 players have been released to sign with MLB if they so choose: No likely stars were apparent on the list, but more notable players included 22-year-old Raidel Martinez Perez and 23-year-old Livan Moinelo Pita, who have played professionally in Japan; 17-year-old infielder Loidel Chapelli Zulueta; and 18-year-old pitcher Norge Carlos Vera Aldana. The agreement, which runs through Oct. 31, 2021, allows Cubans to sign under rules similar to those for players under contract to clubs in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Only players under contract to the Cuban federation are covered by the agreement, and the Cuban federation agreed to release all players 25 and older with at least six years of professional experience. They would be classified as international professionals under MLB's labor contract with the players' association and not subject to international amateur signing bonus pools. The Cuban federation may at its discretion release younger players to sign minor league contracts with MLB organizations, as it did Tuesday. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26432278/cuba-releases-1st-group-eligible-mlb-deals
Well, so much for that idea. https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a855ee86b1ae
Trump really seems to be obsessed with hispanic people......... reports that he woke up in the morning telling his cabinet to halt all immigration South of the Border........ lost political capital and shut down the government for a wall........ and now is stopping 17-22 year old kids (that will have money) from entering the USA. We all have our issues....... but the President seems to have a Hispanic obsession.
Yeah, go Trump. If you really want to play in the majors you should have to deal with Cartels or life rafts. What a f**king joke. This does absolutely nothing but make life harder for these kids.
The whole "human trafficking" angle is so, so weak. If they want to prevent MLB from giving money to the Cuban government, just say so. It's time to end the whole stupid embargo anyway.
That embargo has been stupid for many presidencies. Waaa! They're communists. Waaa! They are making peoples lives miserable. Let's embargo the country so the people suffer even more.
I can understand the embargo during the Cold War. I am not sure I would agree with it, but I would understand it. In 2019? I don't get it..... especially when the kids we would be letting in would have the finances to support themselves.
Got dangit that’s ANOTHER job taken from an American, we keep em out like we should, that’s one more of our boys who gets a job in the majors! #MAGA /my red neck uncle
Stupid president gonna make stupid decisions like shutting down the border and putting every sub-contractor/construction out of business. Great for the economy
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/04/mlb-releases-2019-20-international-bonus-pools.html Primer on pool amounts. My understanding is that Houston would lose $500k of their $5.4M pool if they sign Keuchel or Kimbrel. It will be very interesting to see how things play out with the hard cap, whether teams blow all of their wad on 1 elite guy, spread it out over 5-6 2nd tier guys, or really spread it out over 10-15 guys. Just based on history, I would rather see Houston sign 5 guys for ~$1M than see them sign 1 $5M player or 10 $500k guys. As with most significant rule changes, it’s an opportunity to find a market inefficiency and I’m sure a few teams will come out big winners; hopefully the Astros are one of them.
They'd lose $500k to sign Kimbrel. Since Keuchel is their own FA, they won't lose anything to sign him. I do wonder if the IFA part is hurting the FAs more than the draft pick. Teams like NYY, TEX, and OAK already appear to already have committed most if not all of their pool, and I'm sure other teams have as well, and the Elias-led Orioles dont seem as inclined to hand out pool space for 28 year old reliever prospects.
I like the changes from an Astros perspective. In general I agree with you on spreading the money out. However, it really depends on how good a particular prospect. If there is a guy like Eloy Jiminez (who was widely considered an elite prospect) or Gleybar Torres. Obviously not every "top 3 in a class" will make it, but a lot of them do. I just really hope our scouting remains strong and gets stronger down there. Man, no one really talks about it Theo Epstein has made a lot of really bad moves the last 3-4 years. They draft Jiminez and Torres in the same class. He then turns around and trades them for Chapman and Quintana. Chapman struggles in the WS and leaves as a free agent and Quintana promptly pitches like a #4. The Cubs also sign Jason Hayward to an 8 year deal worth 185 million, Yu Darvish to 126 million. The Cubs could not get Verlander because they extended themselves to get Quintana. He spent another 40 million on Chatwood. Their system is middling now, they are not increasing payroll. Theo and Jed really locked them up.