Earlier this week I reached out to the supporters of the site over on Patreon and asked for some questions, and we got more than a few to answer. While support via Patreon has always been appreciated and a good chunk of the income generated by the website – with all that’s going on right now in the world it actually makes up a large percentage of it and it’s what’s keeping the lights and water on at my residence. So a special thanks to all of you who can and do support the site and work over there. Let’s jump into the questions!
What if anything is the scuttlebutt about how the various minor league procedural issues get handled if there are not seasons in at any or all of the MiLB levels in 2020? Thinking mostly in terms of player service time and Rule 5 eligibility. Possibility Rule 5 draft could just be cancelled etc.
As far as I know, nothing has been decided as far as whether or not a Rule 5 draft would exist in December if there were not a minor league season. With that said, my expectations are that there absolutely would be. It’s a part of the CBA and the players association probably isn’t giving up the opportunity for those guys to get their chance of being on big league rosters.
As far as service time goes for minor leaguers – that’s a good question that also, unfortunately, doesn’t have an answer as far as I know right now. The big leaguers negotiated that they get the same amount of service time for 2020 as they did in 2019 if there is no season played at all. That, as far as I know, hasn’t been negotiated for minor league players. And I don’t really know how that would go. Those players need to spend six full seasons in the minor leagues before they reach free agency. For guys drafted at age 22, that means there is a realistic chance they could not reach minor league free agency until they were 29-years-old. Push that another year because of this season not counting towards that would make it age 30 for those guys.
That’s just me talking out loud, but man, that would be a real crushing blow for some guys. What would also be interesting to see here is how this service time issue would play out if there’s not a minor league season, but there is a “taxi squad” kind of team of a handful of minor leaguers that work out with the big league team as a “just in case someone gets sick/hurt/paternity leave” situation. Would those guys get service time of some kind, but not the guys who had to stay at home because the minor league season ceased to exist for 2020? Or do those guys, assuming they never get added to the big league roster because they didn’t happen to be needed, just get paid but no minor league service time?
Unfortunately I simply don’t have the answers to any of those questions. I’m not sure anyone does right now. Fair or unfair, I think many of these topics are on the back burner for Major League Baseball right now as they focus on the stuff at the very top and try to get it figured out first.
Has there been any thought given to whether the minor leagues will be realigned with the teams eliminated? And when do you think we might hear about the teams officially on the chopping block?
The expectation is that there will absolutely be some re-alignment. And there’s also seemingly a belief that not only will there be some re-alignment, there would even be the creation of new leagues at certain levels. For example at levels where there are only two leagues (Low-A and Triple-A), there could be a third league added with the idea that smaller leagues could reduce travel a little bit. That would save money for teams and, in theory at least, make it easier on players.
As for when we might get another peak at a potential “axed” list – I think we’ll be waiting a while for that one. After a while of a public battle of words between MLB and MiLB (and some of their teams), it seems that there’s been a sort of “peace treaty” that’s squashed a lot of that kind of stuff that would have likely led to more leaks. What we have heard, though, is that the originally leaked list hasn’t remained exactly the same.
With that said, I’d expect that the Pioneer League and Appalachian League to remain on the list. The Pioneer League just doesn’t fit in with any other league for a team that meets the criteria to stick around at a high level. The Appalachian League is mostly owned by the MLB teams, so it’s an easy league to cut without much real fight.
Does the contraction of US minor league teams and shortened draft change the calculus for players to look at going to Japan or Korea right out of high school/college (like Carter Stewart last year)?
I think that contraction and a shortened draft doesn’t change the calculus. But I do think that the fact that a signing bonus being spread out over 3 years in this years draft, with only $100,000 of it being paid out this year, really could change the calculus. This probably is only a situation for a very small subset of high school players, of course, but if you are only getting $100,000 this year with 50% of the remaining being paid out on July 1st 2021 and the remaining 50% on July 21st of 22, and another league may be offering $4M and earlier free agency…. it’s a lot more tempting than in the past when you may have been able to get a few million up front in a signing bonus right away.
Does the fact that the minor leagues will have little season if any alter the drafting strategy?
Yes and no. Later in the draft teams will draft for minor league need at times. Teams in rookie ball may need another guy that can play shortstop or a guy that can catch, and players like that will be targeted specifically for that reason. But with the draft being just five rounds this year, that’s not going to happen. Teams are never drafting for needs that early – they’re just taking the best player they believe is signable and I expect that to remain true.
If the Reds, hypothetically, are in the playoffs as the trade deadline (assuming there is on in the shortened ‘20 season) approaches, do you believe the Reds go all in and trade a top prospect for a difference maker? If so, would you be a proponent of this?
Obviously it’s always going to matter on what you are giving up for what you are getting as far as my support for such a move. With that said, I’m not opposed to trading anyone in the right deal.
Being 100% honest here, and not knowing what the future holds – especially for a smaller market team like Cincinnati who relies on ticket sales more for revenue than larger market teams do – I’d probably support just “going for it” now. Bauer could go somewhere else. DeSclafani could go somewhere else. While I don’t think he will do it, Castellanos could opt out. Votto will be a year older. THIS is the team and if they are competitive and with the uncertain future, make something happen. I’m not saying you trade Tyler Stephenson, Jose Garcia, AND Nick Lodolo for a 2-month rental. But if you trade one of those guys? It’s probably not something I’d feel as good about today as I would have 6 months ago when the future felt a whole lot different. But things have certainly changed.
Now, whether the Reds front office feels the same way that I do? I have no idea. What we do know, though, is that they certainly planned for the 2020 season to be the one where they “went for it”. They didn’t trade for Trevor Bauer for 2019. They probably didn’t feel comfortable when they signed Nick Castellanos that he was coming back in 2021 (though, again, things have changed). It’s felt like they were pushing their chips into the middle of the table. Money issues may have changed that a little bit with regards to picking up a new player, though.
Assuming MLB rosters are expanded to 40-50 players, who are your top 5 pitching and hitting prospects that would benefit in 2020? Basically who do you see getting big league time that would not have under normal circumstances?
Things could get real interesting in a situation like this. With an expanded roster, even one that includes all guys on the 40-man, to 50 players, we may not see 10 “prospects”. Look at the Reds, for example – if rosters expand but they get the full 40-man, too – they may keep guys like Derek Dietrich and Nate Jones who could bolster the roster more than two prospects could.
Of course, that wasn’t the question you asked, either. But it was a fun, short little thought that I felt was worth bringing up. Assuming the full 40-man roster is already accounted for and prospects on it don’t count towards the five guys being “added” on for pitchers and hitters, here’s who I think would make the most sense:
Pitchers
- Nick Lodolo
- Vladimir Gutierrez
- Packy Naughton
- Jose Adames
- Alex Powers
Jose Adames sticks out like a sore thumb on this list. Of course it’s not because his stuff isn’t there – he hit 100 MPH in a February appearance with the big league club in spring training – but more so because the last time he threw a pitch in an official game was 2016. He’s always had the stuff, but health and control have limited what he could do at times. Still, he’s back and he’s healthy, and with an arm like that, and if I get to pick the “extra” guys, he’s one I’m keeping around and seeing what we can do something with.
Nick Lodolo is advanced, has all the stuff you want, and I think that in a normal situation he doesn’t have a great chance to get to the big leagues this year – though perhaps a reliever late in the year would have been possible. But now?
Vladimir Gutierrez and Packy Naughton both represent that next group of starting pitching depth beyond the 40-man roster that you may need at some point. And Alex Powers is a guy who has done nothing but have big success for the last few years, and was having more in the spring before things were shut down.
Position Guys
- Jose Garcia
- Jonathan India
- Stuart Fairchild
- TJ Friedl
- Alfredo Rodriguez
Jose Garcia is arguably the top position prospect regardless of a 40-man spot or not. Even if it were just for developmental reasons you’d keep him on the field, but that he also plays a position that only has one true guy that plays it on the 40-man roster it makes it almost an essential pick.
Alfredo Rodriguez can also play shortstop. And he actually showed signs of life with the bat out in Goodyear this spring. I’d be willing to roll the dice here and see what happens with his development despite my past feelings about his performance or likelihood to hit much.
Jonathan India, Stuart Fairchild, and TJ Friedl all have had at least some type of success in Double-A, all have some tools and skills to work with, and those are exactly the types of guys you want to both develop and could also see being helpful on the roster later in the year.
If there does not seem to be a traditional minor leagues this year do you see Tyler Stephenson and/or Jose Garcia staying with the big league club?
This kind of goes with the last question, sort of. I think that Tyler Stephenson is going to get on some sort of roster this year if they play. What exactly that kind of roster is, I don’t know. I think we’ll see expanded rosters for sure. Whether that’s a full 40-man, or something smaller like a 30-man and a practice or taxi squad seems to be a bit up in the air. Stephenson’s spot on the 40-man roster makes him very, very likely to remain on at least one of those kinds of rosters.
With Jose Garcia, I think the chances he could be on an expanded taxi squad/practice squad kind of roster are very high. As noted in the last answer – he plays a position of need. Because he’s not on the 40-man roster, his odds are a little bit lower than Stephenson’s, but probably not by much.
Without games going on have you had more time to scout the draft? If so, is there anyone in particular that you like who could be there when the Reds draft in the first round?
MLB kind of threw me for a loop on the draft scouting thing. For about a month the word was that it was going to happen in “July”, but no specific date for July was mentioned. So I had been planning on spreading out everything a little bit – even had a schedule lined up for what articles on which players I was going to have running until the start of July. And like two days after I went through my google calendar and put in like 50 articles with dates for them, MLB announced the draft wasn’t moving from June 10th and threw everything I had planned into a blender. So right now I’m probably behind on my scouting compared to where I’d like to be, because I was operating with the assumption that I had at worst, two months to get through about 75 guys scouting reports/videos.
That said, I’ll say this much: I think that Max Meyer is woefully underrated among every national rankings place I’ve seen. I get some real Tim Lincecum vibes here in the sense that his size is holding him back in terms of rankings. There were some other things with Lincecum that held back his “draft stock” – the mechanics were strange/different, and his walk rate was not good – but the stuff was unreal. That’s where I’m at with Meyer – the stuff is just flat out better than what anyone else is bringing to the table, but he’s rated between the #9-#13 spots among the Baseball America, Fangraphs, and MLB Pipeline lists. I’d argue he could be the top pitcher in the entire draft.
Assuming an early July start, do you foresee piggyback starters for the first few weeks of the season?
I’m not entirely sure we’d see it in the sense of two different guys going 4 and 3 innings before handing things to the bullpen each time out – but yeah, I think the idea to do something like that would be there early on. I believe it was David Bell who mentioned something about how he would expect Derek Johnson to “be creative” (me paraphrasing here) with how pitchers were used in a shorter than normal season.
Do you see Nick Lodolo and/or a hypothetical first round college draftee having a chance to play for the Reds this year with the expanded rosters?
First round college player this year? No. Not unless the draft plays out in a dream scenario and someone falls to the Reds that I wouldn’t expect to make it that far. But Nick Lodolo? I think there’s a chance. Even before all of *motions at everything* happened, I felt that there was a chance he could be a guy, if the Reds were contending later in the year, could come up and play a sort-of Aroldis Chapman role from 2010. Be a guy they bring up in late August to pitch out of the bullpen and give them another big arm for the playoffs.