2019-2020 MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes Discussion

andyb 2020-11-27 19:11:34 UTC #1324

MLB Pipeline on each team's most interesting rule 5 available player. Jhailyn Ortiz for the Phillies. Looking at this list I might consider a flier on Jose Alberto Rivera from the Astros. Power stuff and ability to pitch multiple innings are a plus. Jump from Low A is a minus of course.

andyb 2020-11-28 19:02:19 UTC #1325

Looks like MLB is only going to have 3 High A leagues now, so it looks like that logic of a Mid-Atlantic/Carolina league having 12 teams and North/South divisions will come to pass.

The latest cumulative speculation. I assume they might keep calling it the Carolina League even though Mid-Atlantic fits it better.
http://minorleaguesource.com/blog/2020/11/26/update-on-2021-minor-league-baseball-revision-6/

zambonir 2020-11-28 22:27:52 UTC #1326

So Lakewood and Clearwater would flip, did we think that already? Makes sense in terms of travel and instruction of course.

You'd think the Dodgers and Padres would want to get out of the Midwest (or in the Padres' case, stay in Tri-City which is actually a pretty sizeable and geographically sensible market. I assume the stadium is lousy).

andyb 2020-11-29 14:50:42 UTC #1327

Non-tender candidates (deadline 12/2).

Kris Bryant is a surprise candidate here. The Phillies almost certainly won't be a player for him, but the Nationals might be.

zambonir 2020-11-29 18:16:41 UTC #1328

They reckon nobody's willing to trade for him huh? Not locking in the DH probably doesn't help either. If and when that becomes official he can probably recover most of what he would have gotten. Maybe.

With Hoskins a question mark and the DH I'd certainly take him but we need a LHB more.

zambonir 2020-11-29 21:39:27 UTC #1329

I see that in the comments Dierkes says he reckons it's a 5% chance Bryant gets non-tendered.

Would be highly ironic if they did it, and doubly so - Bryant is only one day of service time short of being a free agent due to his lost grievance, but now it wouldn't be worth as much as it was pre-COVID.

andyb 2020-11-30 19:21:02 UTC #1330

Williamsport lives on. MLB creates the MLB Draft league. 68 games. Draft in the middle, but the league (and theoretically) those drafted) would mostly play on through the 2nd half. I have some doubts about that. Would a pitcher drafted want to continue pitching before they sign a contract. Or even after. Not sure what stats mean if all the good players got replaced by undrafted seniors after the draft.

Williamsport one of 6 teams. This does sound like short season A without the younger Latin American and second-year HS draftees. I suppose draft eligible HS players could play here too, though it really seems a college league.

zambonir 2020-11-30 19:26:44 UTC #1331

Trenton the linchpin of the league, it seems. State College survives too.

But there's surely more collateral damage to this, especially if MLB creates a similar league out west: Cape Cod and other existing indy college/wood bat leagues will suffer, even if they also use younger players.

"Draft League" also sounds like a bit of hype to me, i.e. most of the players will be 20-30th round or UDFAs. Anyone better doesn't have to play in this league to begin with. I bet the terms of the "Draft League" contract requires them to continue playing... and possibly also makes their signing with the MLB team automatic. How long is the gap between the new draft and the signing deadline anyway?

Alternately, if they really do get Top 10 round guys in this league, it sounds like this is meant to finally turn the run-up to the draft and the draft itself into a better TV show (julio will be thrilled).

zambonir 2020-11-30 19:36:31 UTC #1332

Ah there's more:

andyb 2020-11-30 19:48:50 UTC #1333

The partner leagues seems as much of a PR move by MLB as anything. Throw them a tiny amount of money to make our scouting easier, but the reality is that the money saved by not having the short season league (and an extra 30-50 players under contract in each organization) is far greater. I don't think these independent leagues will change much even with their new designation.

The Draft league could actually be important though, to see mid-level college draftees playing against more even competition before the draft. It is not a substitute for the 10-15 players each organization will now fail to sign each year compared to today, but the performance will be very meaningful, at least before the draft.

zambonir 2020-11-30 20:54:50 UTC #1334

It's something but it still stinks. Fans in Williamsport used to see nearly every future Phillies star for at least a little while, if not the more advanced college draft picks. Fans in Missoula where I used to live saw Paul Goldschmidt, Ender Inciarte, Adam Eaton and many other D-backs prospects. The Billings Mustangs have been a Reds affiliate for so long that everyone from Paul O'Neill to Adam Dunn played there (and so did George Brett before that, when they had the Royals affiliation).

Trenton must have gotten something they are happy with, or else they really had no option. Wichita is also upset that they are getting dropped to AA before even starting their new team/stadium, but personally I'd rather watch AA (and Texas League games) over AAA and PCL

andyb 2020-11-30 21:01:51 UTC #1335

It is interesting to think through who has motivation to play in the league and at what point in the season.

High College Picks - Probably never.
Late May - College World Series still going on. Probably get a mix of players likely to be drafted in rounds 11-20, though I am guessing the better incentive is for players not rated high enough to be drafted in a 20-round draft.

June - Fill out rosters gradually as college seasons (or terms/graduation ends).

Draft - giant pause. 75% of those drafted drop out. Fill in with undrafted players hoping to catch on. Big question here is whether teams will have a minor league player limit. Are they going to sign a dozen like the Phillies did this year? Or do they only sign a handful to replace players they release after the first half of the season?

Big question - are players paid? And what happens to college players who do not get drafted or do not sign if they DO get paid? Does their college eligibility go away? If players do not get paid, I am guessing many players will pass on the league in general and just go to prospect showcases that can have Driveline-type measuring in place.

BostonRoss 2020-12-01 05:54:19 UTC #1336

I wonder if leagues like the Cape Cod will be affected much. The Cape League season would begin after the draft, and so they might have had some players who were drafted and didn't sign until later in the summer. But presumably, a player who intends to sign would not normally have been playing in the Cape League. I don't think the league takes college seniors or high school players, and so a lot of the draftees wouldn't have been eligible to play there.

With the draft moved to July, I would think that the Cape League might even get some players they wouldn't have gotten in the past, who don't think they'll be drafted (or drafted high), or players who don't intend to sign but end up getting drafted.

The big question is what the Draft League does for college eligibility. If playing there results in a loss of eligibility, the Draft League would likely be almost entirely people who are not worried about college eligibility, those not going to college or who have completed their four years, plus people who expect to be drafted and sign. Those types of players haven't really been part of the Cape League.

BostonRoss 2020-12-01 06:05:15 UTC #1337

I wonder how many people in the Williamsport area got to see the future Phillies stars. The Crosscutters averaged fewer than 2,000 fans per game, and I suspect the majority were season ticket holders or people who saw a lot of games. The opportunity was there, but probably relatively few people took advantage.

At least a good chunk of the folks whoa attended games in Williamsport are probably Phillies fans. A lot of minor league teams are affiliates of teams that are far away. I would imagine that fans of the (possibly soon to be defunct) Vermont Lake Monsters were a lot less excited to see future A's prospects than they would have been to see Red Sox or Yankee prospects.

julio 2020-12-01 14:10:14 UTC #1338

Ahem.

BostonRoss 2020-12-01 15:01:02 UTC #1339

See, you’re special!

zambonir 2020-12-01 18:32:59 UTC #1340

It all depends. If you don't have a strong natural regional connection to the parent club but you are a big fan of the baseball team, you develop one. I'm sure back in the day there were people in Oklahoma and Oregon wearing Phillies caps. San Antonio Missions fans used to follow the Dodgers for sure. When the Houston Aeros hockey team was still around I knew people there who got into the Minnesota Wild, even though they were also already Dallas Stars fans (which is itself a quirk since Houston fans would normally never support a Dallas team).

But no doubt, the bigger the distance, the harder it is, and with casual fans it's a tougher sell. But with casual fans you're selling the overall entertainment experience, it just helps to also claim you have a certain quality of play from MLB prospects.

julio could say better than I but I don't imagine Williamsport is automatic/default Phillies territory - and if it is, the team has been part of the reason. Probably a decent chunk of Yankees fans too (as there are in SWB, even before the affiliation change, and still are Lehigh Valley). Pirates maybe not as much but it's about the same distance as Philly. Mostly, I assume, W'port is just a baseball town.

BostonRoss 2020-12-01 19:35:05 UTC #1341

zambonir:

It all depends. If you don't have a strong natural regional connection to the parent club but you are a big fan of the baseball team, you develop one. I'm sure back in the day there were people in Oklahoma and Oregon wearing Phillies caps. San Antonio Missions fans used to follow the Dodgers for sure. When the Houston Aeros hockey team was still around I knew people there who got into the Minnesota Wild, even though they were also already Dallas Stars fans (which is itself a quirk since Houston fans would normally never support a Dallas team).

But no doubt, the bigger the distance, the harder it is, and with casual fans it's a tougher sell. But with casual fans you're selling the overall entertainment experience, it just helps to also claim you have a certain quality of play from MLB prospects.

I think that is similar to what I was trying to say. The number of true fans who care about seeing the top prospects of the parent team in a minor league city is pretty small. When I have gone to games in New Hampshire, there are a lot more Red Sox fans than Blue Jays fans. The casual fans are not there to scout the prospects, and the diehard fans are among the season ticket holders and repeat customers. There just aren't a lot of people who are losing out by the conversion to the Draft League (though Julio is one of those special people, sadly).

Yeah, I didn't think Williamsport was exclusively Phillies territory, but there are definitely some Phillies fans there, and others whom might make a long drive from closer to Philly to see Phillies prospects. I have driven anywhere from a half hour to two hours to watch the Pigs, Fightins', and Crosscutters when they came to New England. I'm sure phans would drive from Eastern PA to Williamsport. Probably there were phans in State College who preferred to go to Williamsport than watch the Spikes.

Lucky_Beagle 2020-12-01 19:47:05 UTC #1342

I have gone to some Crosscutter games to see the Phillies players. I will not be interested in seeing a bunch of players who may or may not be drafted in the mid rounds as many expect the league to be. More than the in person interest to me was the reading about the team and players through the paper. I have very little interest in reading articles about these games and players who I will not have a rooting interest in following later. Imagine getting to follow a player and rooting for him to do well and he gets drafted by the Braves, Mets, or Nats....yuck!

andyb 2020-12-01 20:02:53 UTC #1343

I am a little excited to have 2 more DC-area options to see Phillies minor leaguers. I have been to Bowie multiple times to see Reading, but now Aberdeen and Fredericksburg are both going to be within a 60-90 minute drive to see High A prospects for me. I love minor league baseball, but seeing a Phillies affiliate has always been the difference for me when faced with an hour drive to the ballpark.

Williamsport might do almost as well with this draft league though. It is a little remote to think the majority of their fans are driven by the major league affiliation.