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Monday, May 30, 2005Deadline passedSUPER IMPORTANT UPDATE (21:40): Weaver signs - 40 minutes after I make a big deal about him not signing. I'm going to break rule #1 of blogging and delete the old post, because it makes me look like an ass. If you want to know what I said, I suppose you can e-mail me. ANOTHER UPDATE (22:10): If there's a way to bitch, I will find it! Or Joe will find it: "...too bad he'll be helping you down the stretch run of '06, rather than '05 (which is totally the fault of Moreno/Stoneman)."He's right, you know. AGAIN WITH THE UPDATES... (09:50, TUESDAY): I actually mentioned this Rich Lederer post on Jered Weaver and the problems with MLB's draft system, but obviously I deleted to cover my own tracks. Now Rob weighs in on Lederer's suggestions. For my part, I don't see how making guys like Weaver de-facto free agents helps anyone but Scott Boras. And assigning multiple teams negotiating rights with each first round draft pick would be incredibly unfair (at least as I picture it in my mind, because I have no clue how such a system could possibly be implemented). The only one of Lederer's suggestions that I find tenable is allowing teams to trade draft picks, though that wouldn't solve the "holdout problem" without other major changes, such as a NFL style bonus scale - something that seems a bit hysterical, as I don't believe the draft system is fully "broken". Comments:Personally, I'm damn proud of Stoneman and Moreno. I don't think it was an accident that we saw -- not a AAA-baller but AA-ball pitcher Ervin Santana come up for a quick display of his talent and then go back down with a pat on the back and a "See ya soon, kid." And I don't think it was any coincidence that immediately afterwards we heard Scott Bora$$ announcing a $2million concession on Weaver's asking price. Probably Weaver called him and said, "What's that you said about don't worry, and how the Angels can't afford to pass me up?!!!" Oh, I almost forgot. That "SUPER IMPORTANT UPDATE" was hilarious. "...because it makes me look like an ass." The only think I like more than self-deprecating humor is someone ELSE'S self-deprecating humor. "He's right, you know." No, he's not. Jered Weaver may have been a very fine college pitcher, but there is no way at all he was going to crack the '05 rotation. It's like people saying they want Brandon Wood to come up and play shortstop because he's hitting .315 at Rancho. IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT. I'm glad the Angels signed Weaver, but if he helps the big club in 2007 I'll count it as a victory. I never said he'd be in the starting rotation, although it wouldn't have shocked me. I said he'd simly be helping the team, probably as a swing man. For advanced college pitchers, IT DOES WORK LIKE THAT. See Prior, Stauffer, C. Cordero, Street, R. Wagner... The problem with these "sure things" such as Prior (which is the guy Boras tried comparing Weaver to), is that a lot can happen to make them not so sure thing...look at what has happened to Prior in the last two years. His most recent injury was a fluke, but all of the other ones seem to indicate injury-prone. I think the Angels did well to stare Boras down and if Weaver went back to the draft I would have been sad, but would have certainly understood. Prior's injuries seem more like pitcher abuse than injury prone to me. A couple of flukes(colliding with Giles, the liner to his chest) and continuous 115+ pitch counts don't say injury prone, they say inept manager and shitty luck. Those guys are far and away exceptions, even for "advanced" college pitchers - plus, for various reasons having to do with the state of the organizations they were/are in, they got chances much earlier than they normally would have. Weaver is entering an organization that has five starters performing solidly at the Major League level, plus several more who would be ahead of him in the depth chart. Additionally, the Angels organizational philosophy with young talent is to give them extended time in the minors to make sure they know what they have. Even Santana's promotion was a bit of a shock, and he's much further along than Weaver. My apologies if I was over the top before, but the Angels' history and current situation indicate that they will make very sure that Weaver gets some experience facing professional hitters before he sees mound time at Angel Stadium. You don't think its broken when someone like Boras can basically select the team (or narrow it to a few teams) by naming an outlandish price. There is no way that Weaver should even have been available to the Angels in the first place, but a lot of those teams either didn't have the money or didn't want to deal with Boras. The draft order is laid out so that the worst team from the first year gets the first pick...so that they can improve the fastest. When players and agents price themselves out of some teams' price range when they have never played professional ball, there is a problem with the draft. I think the solution is to allow the trading of draft picks and to implement an NFL-style bonus scale, at least for the first round. I think Rich's other ideas are pretty bad. Well, Boras did blink. It turns out that any team could have had him for a $4 million signing bonus. Clubs just need to be strong-willed and willing to take the risk, and guys like Boras can be neutralized. But the point is that he should not have the option of trying to scare teams away. It corrupts the point of the draft. Weaver would have had little to no shot of being in Anaheim in 2005 even if he had signed the day after the draft. It was widely reported that he was going to take the summer off, after a long college season plus a lot of innings thrown the previous year. There was some small hope that he would pitch in the Arizona fall league last year, then report to spring training this year, and perhaps start at AA. Maybe he'd get to AAA late in the year, but it's hard to imagine any scenario in which he would have been in Anaheim in 2005. Ultimately, he's about 3-4 months behind where he could/should be. He's basically at the mid-February, pitchers-and-catchers-reporting stage. And, he hasn't thrown a pitch in a year and has never pitched to a professional batter. Whereas he could already have 8 or so starts at RC. |
