CaliforniaRaisin

[tweet] [/tweet] That's future Cub Bryce Harper, Shohei.

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Teams buy out young players arbitration years (though they normally get an extra year before free agency when they do that, something I doubt Ohtani will be interested in). I'm sure MLB will be watching for anything fishy so that stuff might be tricky. He's definitely going to make the bulk of his money on endorsements, both here and in Japan.

The draft screws over players. In the US, this results in some guys choosing to take a college scholarship instead of turning pro. In latin american this will do nothing but screw more players. It's clear they need to do away with cost suppressing rules and allow teams to sign prospects when they want. Exactly. A lot of these problems would be alleviated if the owners weren't trying to save money at every corner, at the expense of the players who actually bring in MLB's profits.

BA seems to be the one that has Maitan the highest ranked still. I'm not sure if I've seen a recent report from anybody else that would put Maitan in their top 100. I could see the Cubs still being interested though, if they bought the bat. We all know a bad body didn't stop them from falling in love with Schwarber. Agreed that BA clearly thinks higher if Maitan than everyone else. They seem to think even though he's destined for third, a lot of his body issues this year are more of him being out of shape this year and aren't long term concerns if he actually commits himself.

According to BA, 2B Yunior Severino was the 16th ranked prospect in the GCL this year and RHP Yefri del Rosario was 17th. Kevin Maitan was #1 in the Appalachian League top 20.

Some nice tanking there in the fourth quarter. First Bulls game I've watched more than a couple of minute this season.

Eh, I'm honestly not that sure about that. This is MLB coming down super hard on a team being super stupid. Coppolella and the gang were really stupid and brazen. Trying to package guys from different classes, including a year you're under the penalty? I think there's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to how things get done in that market, but the Braves went a bit too far, plus they were stupid with hiding things. And trying to do a package deal with a 14 year old? They were just too brazen and too dumb. On top of that, Coppolella was hated by the rest of the league. If it were someone else, I honestly doubt the penalty would have been as harsh. He just pissed everyone off, by being greedy. And then by being stupid. I think all this does is helps get rid of the buscones and makes teams cover their tracks a bit better. So this is the closest I can find as far as an explanation of what the braves actually did. Did they basically just spend a ton more money than they were allowed under the CBA? What are some of the similar things that teams like the Cubs have likely done to circumvent the rules, but less "brazenly?" The Cubs are probably doing package deals in Mexico. Most all teams are in the Dominican and Venezuela. The Red Sox were busted last year for it. [tweet] [/tweet] Passan's article has more details: https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-hammers-atlanta-braves-declaring-12-minor-league-players-free-agents-201314625.html

Very high. But so are the Cubs. There was definitely some red flags with the Jorge Soler signing. Basically the Orioles are the only team that don't do penalty-worthy stuff in the international markets.

Longenhagen with present-day scouting reports on the ex-Braves: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-braves-punishment-is-in-and-its-harsh/ He suggests Yefri del Rosario (RHP) might be the most sought-after of the talents and Maitan is now viewed more as a talented reclamation project.

The Cubs can choose to use their 2018-19 allotment on any of these players. They don't have to be limited to the $300k in 2016-17.

Maitan would be the Cubs top prospect. I'd guess the rest in that quote would at least be top 20 prospects, Severino possibly in the top 10.

Did we know about Benedict before today? He's a pretty big deal. He's responsible for a sizeable amount of the Ray Searage devil-magic during the Pirates' recent run of success. [tweet] [/tweet]

This is my favorite: [tweet] [/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/sung_minkim/status/932978658767142913[/tweet]

BA ranked the top 8 ex-Brave free agents: 1. Kevin Maitan, SS 2. Yunior Severino, 2B 3. Livan Soto, SS 4. Yefri Del Rosario, RHP 5. Ji-Hwan Bae, SS 6. Abrahan Gutierrez, C 7. Juan Contreras, RHP 8. Yenci Peña, SS The blurbs for Contreras (10 BB/9 in GCL) and Peña (.655 OPS in the DSL) did not look that great.

- BA

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I had been posting a bunch in the Braves thread. Whoops. [tweet] [/tweet]

2 more names, also 7-figure bonus guys:

Fitzpatrick or Chubb (edge rusher). Yeah, I really like both of them. Not sure how the OTs stack up but if one is worth of a top 10 pick, I'd want the Bears to pick him.

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