It never takes long for MLB to close the door the Astros open through innovative utilization of under utilized sources of player talent. It's far faster at responding than simply other teams walking through the new door. It's all about maintaining CONTROL.
What are you talking about? The Astros have gotten less total value out of their international signings than most teams over the last 10 years. They’ve been able to identify underrated pitchers in that arena but MLB hasn’t done anything to prevent them from continuing to do that.
Last year, we had news about Kevin Alvarez in September. This year...nothing. Is that league-wide? Did the league make the rules more stringent about reported contact with these prospects before January? It's just that there's seemingly NOTHING out there about where any of the top international guys might be leaning and the period is almost open.
I don’t know what changed but there’s not much out there that lists predictions for which prospects are signing where this cycle. There’s usually 3-4 sites that have a top 30-50 list that includes where they’re expected to sign. There’s MLB site has a top 50 and it usually includes where they’ll sign in the blurb on each prospect but they didnt include that this year; I don’t know why.
The last ten years is a very short time frame. After they were successful in the international market, MLB created an international draft and when they were successful with the draft they began cap limitations on signings. Then when the Astro found value in older players, new restrictions were put in place on developmental squads.
There is no international draft. There is also no cap on individual international signings (only a pool amount allocated to each team for signings over $10k). I don’t know of any new restrictions on developmental squads.
Looks like there are some rumors out there at least about MiLB's top 5 prospects. Obviously, none are linked to the Astros. However, I noticed that MiLB's top-50 list includes a lot of talent from Venezuela, especially catching. Given the Astros' foothold in that country, I wonder if we'll see any of them sign with the Astros come January.
[QUOTE="rockets1995, post: 15983187, member: 49319" ]US - Venezuela War?[/QUOTE] That would last 2-3 days tops. Even if it drug out longer the crossover between the Government/Drug trade and the Athletics/Baseball Training is highly unlikely.
