Some nice words about Duke's Griffin Conine in the Blue Jays' system
Here's a look at Thursday's top Minor League performers from each team's Top 30 Prospects list:
AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
Blue Jays: Griffin Conine, OF (No. 16) -- 2-for-4, R, 2B, HR, 2 RBI (Class A Lansing)
Conine put Lansing on the board with a two-run homer in the first inning, though it ultimately accounted for all of the Lugnuts' offense in their 5-2 loss to Lake County. With the homer -- his third in his past four games -- Conine has now gone deep 16 times in only 52 games this season, good for third place in the Midwest League. To go along with the power, the 2018 second-round pick out of Duke has also posted a .282 average in his first full-season campaign. Blue Jays prospects stats »
https://www.mlb.com/phillies/news/to...rsday-august-1
The yankees hit a lot of home runs, on pace to break the mlb single season record (and they're only 2nd in the league, behind Minn). Baltimore allows a lot of home runs, similarly on pace to break the mlb single season record. The yankees hitting in Baltimore this year is a bit like chocolate in your peanut butter - they've broken the record for home runs by a visiting team in a ballpark by more than a third. Still though, yikes.
Demented and sad, but social, right?
Good stretch to be a NY baseball fan.
The Yanks are having a “miracle” season with the “B team” performing like all stars on a sustained basis. Just read that they set a MLB record with 19 hrs in 4 games. And that is with Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit and Edwin Encarnacion on the injured list. Not one of those 19 homers was hit by Aaron Judge. SP still uncertain/weak but hitting and BP have them 10.5 up over the Rays.
And now for my Mets. After writing them off, they are now in the WC chase. Have won 13/14, albeit against weak teams. This home series w the strong Nats is big. Getting hitting and even the BP is performing better. SP is strong of course.
Glad we were not sellers at deadline. Sent a message to the players. Second Mets start for Marcus tonight, followed by Noah and then Jake.
Have hated most of the new GM’s moves, as some even smelled of conflict of interest (former agent). Lazy, old, ex-client Cano and underperforming Diaz for two of our top prospects? Really? But the Marcus deal makes sense on a number of levels.
Maybe we can pull off another miracle like our 1969 team, in this, the 50th anny celebration year. Anyhow, now enjoying the time at Citi.
Ronald Acuna Jr is somewhat quietly inching towards what might turn out to be only the 5th player in baseball history to tally 40 dingers and 40 stolen bases in a season. This is an exclusive club as the only ones to do it are some guys you might of heard of: Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Alfonso Soriano and Jose Canseco. He's sitting on 30 homers and 26 stolen bases as of today with 45 games left in the season. He's on pace for 41 home runs and 36 steals but his stolen base numbers have jumped up pretty dramatically in the last few weeks so it's possible he might get there. Pretty impressive for a 21 year old.
Side note: I took my 10 year old to his first Braves game last weekend and his favorite player is Acuna. In the bottom of the 10th Acuna got his first ever walk off hit to beat the Reds 5-4. It was really special seeing my son so excited, a really great moment. Sports are awesome!
"The future ain't what it used to be."
The 8-year $100 mil extension the Braves signed him to a month or so ago is going to look like one of the most absurd bargains in baseball history in a couple years. Sure, they gave him probably $10-15 mil more than he might have otherwise gotten during his arbitration years, but he is going to be playing for $20mil less per season than he is actually worth from the age of 24-30. The experts are all saying the Braves saved at least $100 mil by getting this deal done.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Yep, and what's crazy is his deal isn't even the best bargain on the team. That would be Ozzie Albies who earlier this year signed a 7 year extension worth $35 million. Ozzie is quickly becoming an All-star caliber second basemen so this deal is an absolute steal for Atlanta. In my opinion Albies deal should have been almost double what he signed for.
The Braves are going to be relevant for a good long time with so many of their young guns locked up on long term deals and a high quality farm system loaded with talent as well. I think they are still a long shot this year but just being in the mix is super fun.
"The future ain't what it used to be."
Bonehead Award of the Week nominee is ARod for having $500,000 worth of "jewelry and electronics" stolen out of his rental car in SF...for a guy born in Washington Heights who played in NY for a decade, one might think he'd be a tad more street smart...(take note Lance Thomas!)...
In the Commonwealth, baseball has been dreadful, with the Pirates in absolute free fall, and the underachieving Phillies struggling to stay in the WC hunt. It's getting ugly out there, especially on Philly talk radio. Vegas might have a tempting prop bet: will the Phils or the Pirates have more heads rolling after this wretched playoff-free season is over? I think the over / under in either case is 3.5.
Baseball has a problem with having so many truly sorry teams. Just today there's an article on si.com saying MLB needs to relegate teams to the minors because they don't deserve to be in the big leagues. Not players, entire organizations. While that seems extreme I do agree something needs to be done. The luxury tax is clearly not working and the parity is just not there as it needs to be. The small market teams cannot compete on a regular basis.
Having so many teams, I'm talking about you Baltimore, Detroit, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Miami, is a glaring problem and a disservice to fans in those cities.
"The future ain't what it used to be."
The Royals won the World Series a few years ago. The Twins are very good this year. But the point is well taken. I haven't analyzed this from a standard deviation standpoint (and wouldn't know how to do that anyway), but it seems that the good teams are REALLY good (Astros, Yankees, Twins, Indians, Dodgers), and some bad teams are really bad--especially Baltimore.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Of course you know that the musical 'Damn Yankees' was based on a novel entitled, 'The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant', utilizing a Faustean bargain arranged by a long suffering Senators fan.
Plus the phrase, 'First in War, First in Peace, and... Last in the American League!'
But I digress.
On the radio today, one of the ESPN guys was talking up Acuna for the MVP. He said that if Acuna keeps playing the way he has for the past month it will be in the bag. He said the advanced metric folks who do projections say there are basically no comps for a player his age doing the kind of things he is doing. There is a decent chance he becomes a 50HR-50SB threat when he is in his prime from 23-28.
-Jason "the Braves young talent is absurd... if the bullpen ever figures out how to get an out or two, this team really could challenge the Dodgers and Astros... despite having 1/2 the payroll" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/ This site show real time payroll for every team after the trade deadline. Correct me if I'm wrong but I do not think any other professional sport has such a huge disparity in payroll amounts. It's a problem because it's not even close to an even playing field. Sure a team can't find lightning in a bottle with the right group of guys from time to time but this shows why the big market teams are always competitive and why so many teams aren't just bad but are really terrible.
"The future ain't what it used to be."
The salary disparity is alarming. However, Cleveland, Minnesota and Tampa are all competitive this year in smaller markets. The luxury tax has seemed to have some moderating impact on team spending - I know that a year or two ago the Yankees made a very conscious effort to stay under the cap in order to reset it going forward.
And though it is certainly a lesser problem, there have also been complaints about teams horsing shared revenues rather than spending them to put out a decent team (or at least invest in scouting, player dev, etc). There also needs to be a salary floor to keep these teams honest. It can be a 2-3 year average.