The Morning Report – December 23 – Posting Cuba, Ineligible Players, Homegrown Mets

Boy… gotta tell ya… not much out there to write about this time of the year.

There is a ‘sell the team billboard’ going around on the internet – check it out and join in if you want to participate.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/893048378/freemetsfans-sell-the-team-billboard?ref=hero_thanks

 I hate the posting system that is used in both the Japanese and Korean baseball. At the same time, it might be a way to start rebuilding the baseball infrastructure on the island of Cuba.

Let’s face it… it’s going to take some time for our country to life all the sanctions against this country, but it will happen if for no other reasons that corporations are licking their chops to get down there are start rebuilding anything and everything.

Every team down there could use a new baseball stadium with all the full amenities that go along with a professional operation. I haven’t worked out in my mind where the 16-year old kids like the Dominican and Venezuela would filter in. You just can’t incorporate them into the current DSL/VSL teams because you would rob all the Cuban teams of their talented youth.

But what you could do until you figure this all out is develop a posting system for the established players and all those monies would go to the team that specific player players for, to be exclusively used on stadium development.

It’s a thought.

I think it was Hobie that asked about the Trea Turner trade and how that could be pulled off if he wasn’t even eligible yet for a trade…  here’s a good explanation from Baseball America[i] on how all this works, including another trade involving the Mets -

And ever since baseball teams have worked on ways to skirt the rule, including in 1997 when the Mets loaned righthanded pitcher Andy Zwirchitz to the Braves, who assigned him to high Class A Durham. In June of that season it was announced that the Braves had accepted Zwirchitz as the player to be named later in the trade that sent Paul Byrd to the Mets for Greg McMichael.

Zwirchitz, however, wasn’t a prime prospect, like Turner, and no    was paid to what happened. Zwirchitz was a 22nd-round draft-and-follow, and after that one season with the Braves he was released and spent the rest of his career pitching in independent leagues.

[ii]Fangraphs had a very interesting story today on how each team builds their team.   It shows a graph which clearly states that the Mets have more home grown players on their 40-man roster (27) than any team in baseball (I will post up the chart this weekend)

Fangraphs stated:

Compare that to the 27 homegrown players on the New York Mets’ 40-man roster, and the differences in organizational philosophies become readily apparent. The organizational ladder for the Mets dates all the way back to 2001 when franchise-favorite David Wright was drafted in the first round. Jon Niese and Bobby Parnell were both drafted in 2005, Juan Lagares, Daniel Murphy and Ruben Tejeda followed in 2006, and a whole host of current 40-manners came in 2007, including starters Jenrry Mejia, Lucas Duda, Dillon Gee, Jeurys Familia and Wilmer Flores.

It’s interesting because the Mets have been undergoing something of a rebuilding process over the last several years, which could help explain their stockpiling of homegrown players. They trust their draft selections, and so they want to see them pan out. At the same time, the other end of the spectrum includes the A’s — who are constantly in some state of rebuild despite whether or not they’re competing — and the Astros, who have been undergoing one of baseball’s most known rebuilds, despite having just nine homegrown players on their current 40-man roster. It just goes to show that there’s no one way to run an organization, and there’s not even one way to rebuild.  

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[i] http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/turner-situation-lead-sea-change-draft-pick-trades/

[ii] http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-teams-are-built/