Pete Dymeck
writes:
First and foremost, the obvious
reason Bourn has yet to find a gig has to do with something called draft-pick
compensation. As Anthony Witrado reported,
Bourn is hitched to draft-pick compensation because he declined a qualifying
offer of $13.3 million from the Atlanta Braves. The club that signs Bourn will
forfeit its first-round draft pick in next year’s MLB draft while also paying
Bourn a salary of extravagant proportions. Revolutionary changes in MLB’s
amateur draft have had unintended consequences, and several players, such as
Bourn, are reeling from the side effects. Because of the draft-pick
compensation rule, it is plausible that Bourn might not find a home until
February, days before spring training opens for position players. Then again,
with the breaking news of fellow qualifying offer denier Adam LaRoche coming to terms with the Washington
Nationals, the dominoes may begin to fall, and teams may be more prepared to
deal with the loss of a first-round draft pick by signing Bourn.
Bourn would easily be signed with
someone if it wasn’t for the loss of the draft pick. How valuable are draft
picks? Well, just look at two ex-ones, now with the Mets… C Travis d-Arnaud and SP Noah
Syndergaard. One is about to make the majors while the other will finish
the year in AA ball; however, both still have six more years of control my
the Mets. Go ahead and add up how
much any catcher named Molina would cost you over the next six seasons vs. the
minimum salary or arbitration figures and you can see the cost effectiveness of
growing your own on the farm.
Colin Wyers
points out what’s down the road for the HOF vote process:
And the ballot crunch is only going to get worse over time. In 2014,
the ballot will grow to include Greg Maddux, Frank
Thomas, Mike Mussina, and Tom Glavine. In
2015, they’ll be joined by Randy Johnson, Pedro
Martinez, Gary Sheffield, and John Smoltz.
In 2016, throw Ken Griffey and Jim Edmonds on the pile. That’s potentially an entire
ballot’s worth of players coming onto the ballot in the next three years.
Already, nearly a quarter of voters who have published their ballots
individually are using the full 10 votes (according to this invaluable guide),
and many of them are saying even 10 votes were not enough for this year’s
ballot. And yet only two players receiving significant vote percentages (Jack Morris and Alan Trammell)
are set to come off the ballot during that time period. If the writers do not
begin electing a significant number of players, they will quickly encounter a
flood that threatens to overwhelm them.
Look, PEDs or no PEDs… you just can’t get all these people in if
you’re only going to vote on 10 each year. The system needs to be revamped.
Jayson Stark
wrote one of the best HOF stories. Here’s part of it, but link on his name for
the complete gem:
The '90s happened. The first few
years of the 21st century happened. I saw it with my very own eyeballs. So did
you. It all happened, on the lush green fields of North America, as crowds
roared and cash registers rung. It … all … happened. And how did it happen? The
sport let it happen. That's how. Bud Selig let
it happen. The union let it happen. The owners let it happen. The managers let
it happen. The agents let it happen. The media let it happen. Front offices
across the continent let it happen. And the players never stepped up to stop it
from happening. It … all … happened. And no one in baseball has ever done
anything, even after all these years, to make it un-happen, if you know what I
mean. No records have been stripped. No championships have been stricken from
anyone's permanent record. No numbers have been changed. No asterisks have been
stamped in any record book. It … all … happened.
Spring training will be here
before you know it and from the look of his swing yesterday, so will Mets’
premier catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud. The confident — but not boastful —
d’Arnaud plans on winning a job with the Mets in spring training. “I believe in
myself, that’s pretty much it,’’ d’Arnaud told me in his no-nonsense way after
his impressive batting practice at his alma mater, Lakewood High School. “I
can’t wait. I am going to play as hard as I can every day, do everything I can
to help the team win. “Hopefully, I can make it.’’
Okay,
so d’Arnaud isn’t signing off on my “stay off the radar and spend some time in
Las Vegas: theory.
