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11/26/11

Baseball: - Bill James, Elias Sports, Open Letter to H.S. Juniors, Wilson Ramos


While I can’t pin down the exact moment when I crossed the line from starry-eyed cosmic traveler to the lover of the concrete that I am today, I do have one theory. I asked my wife, “When did I quit being a bit mystical about the cosmos, and start being more insistent on the value of rational thought?” “Well,” she said, “I don’t suppose we can put an exact date on it … by the time you were thirty, though.” I turned thirty in 1983. I read my first Bill James book in 1982. Bill James is the person who brought modern statistical analysis to the baseball world. There were people before him, there have been people after him, but he’s the George Washington of the group. Perhaps I’ve discovered the roots of my own conversion narrative. http://souciant.com/2011/11/camusplayedbaseball

No more Elias Sports Bureau Player Rankings or use of Free Agent Types to determine compensation. Furthermore, to qualify for the compensation, the "former" club has to tender an offer of the average salary of the top 125 salaries in baseball for the season that just ended. This winter, that number is just a shade over $12 million. This will eliminate the issues that have hindered free agents the past handful of offseason, particularly relief pitchers. http://prospectinsider.com/view/the-new-cba

So, in summary, what has happened is this: Major League Baseball has taken away your realistic ability to say “I want to be overpaid to sign out of high school” and have a strong chance of getting that. They have NOT taken away your ability to sign out of high school for a very significant amount of money. And they have said that, yes, we support College Baseball and their ability to develop you as a player and a person, should you not want to sign out of high school. After that, the decision for a high school prospect is where it has always been; with the player and his family, weighing the different options and figuring out what is right for their own unique situation. That hasn’t changed a bit, just some of the numbers and details. http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=6396

Nats' catcher Wilson Ramos made his 2011 Liga Venezuela Beisbol Profesional debut with the Tigres de Aragua this past Tuesday, going 0 for 5 with 2 K's as the Tigres' DH. On Wednesday night Ramos was 3 for 5 with an RBI and 2 K's and the right-handed hitting and throwing catcher was 1 for 4 on Thursday. Stats obviously don't matter much for the catcher whose return to the field after a harrowing kidnapping ordeal is the big story, but Ramos is down there playing in his home country to stay in shape and work on his swing. The 24-year-old catcher has been the DH for the Tigres in all three games thus far. http://www.federalbaseball.com/2011/11/25/2586193/washington-nationals-random-black-friday-notes-and-quotes-wilson

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