I wonder if the astros try to get back at Marshall And Nix and Aiken by claiming they violated NCAA rules in negotiations. Do they compound their problems by pulling a Phillies?
I wonder if the astros try to get back at Marshall And Nix and Aiken by claiming they violated NCAA rules in negotiations. Do they compound their problems by pulling a Phillies?
757690 (07-18-2014),AtomicDumpling (07-30-2014)
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/
Meanwhile, Aiken will need to perform at rather a high level to beat the $5MM that he ultimately was offered. And he will need to wait some time for a check to cash. It is not yet clear where he will go, though presumably he will either enroll at UCLA (where he was committed) or else choose the junior college route. And it remains to be seen whether the very public nature of this negotiation will have any impact on the collegiate eligibility of Aiken (to say nothing of the other two players).
They kind of already have with Nix and Aiken by publicly stating they contacted their "adviser", which is a no-no. The teams have to contact the player, who listens to the offer, then takes that to their adviser for advice. If the team talks with the adviser, the adviser is then acting as an agent, thus making them ineligible for NCAA sports.
Side note, the NCAA sucks and everything about them sucks.
AtomicDumpling (07-30-2014),RedlegJake (07-20-2014),RiverRat13 (07-19-2014)
I applaud the Aiken family for walking away from these tactics. From their perspective, first you have a hand shake deal for $1.4M below the slot for overall #1. That represented a concession on the part of the player and gave the Astros the pool money with which to work. Then the Astros reduce it to $3.1M for a "medical risk" that you do not believe is legitimate. As the deadline nears, they let it slip that they contacted your advisor, thereby closing your college escape route. Finally, at the last minute they raise the offer to $5M, apparently after re-evaluating the medical risk. (My view is that they gave up on signing Marshall and were trying to salvage Aiken and Nix signings.)
The Reds once had a reputation for treating their players poorly. Happily, Castellini has changed that.
Gallen5862 (07-19-2014),M2 (07-19-2014),REDREAD (07-22-2014),Tom Servo (07-20-2014)
I think the $5M offer still would have left them the $1.5M they needed to go after Marshall. Here's the thing, if they liked Marshall so much they could have taken him higher where they technically had the slot money to sign him. Instead they hosed themselves out of the #1 overall.
Nice job of summarizing just how sleazy Houston looks after this whole debacle.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
REDREAD (07-22-2014)
Nice to see the Astros promote Mark Appel and his 9+ ERA up to AA a few days back.
http://www.rantsports.com/mlb/2014/0...els-promotion/
Five shutout innings tonight. Four walks and four strikeouts though.
Lancaster is a joke of a ballpark though. The park factor for runs there is 115 over the last three years.
Appel had 11 walks and 40 strikeouts in Lancaster over 44.1 innings. The problem was his BABIP was .414 and his strand rate was something so low that I can't even fathom it, 47%. His groundball rate was over 50% there. From a pure peripherals standpoint, he did what you like to see. He controlled the walks, he had a solid strikeout rate, he got a bunch of ground balls.
With that said, a scout friend of mine saw him a few times this year and was very, very unimpressed with him.
Recent articles have talked about how he's been working to get his mechanics back, which will help get some of the stuff back. If that is truly the case, maybe there is something there that can explain the promotion (he got it figured out and the aren't going to waste any more time there).
Honestly the change of scenery may be the right move. But after their recent debacle, I'm suprised Houston's front office didn't wait till the offseason to do so. Cause right or wrong, this move was gonna get blasted.
Of course. But does doing such a thing now really change the prognosis/timetable for Appel? I doubt much.
But now you have probably ticked off every player in the system (of course he gets the golden boy treatment as everyone is aware, but this takes the cake) by doing this right now and damaged (is this even possible) the Astros brand. And for what...I would have quietly added him to the AA roster in the spring citing his offseason progress. Nice and tidy.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
If he goes to Double-A and has a good final five starts, maybe they push him to Triple-A to start next year. That certainly could up his timetable a few months.
It's pretty clear that the Astros don't care much about what people think about their moves, and frankly, they shouldn't. Players in every organization have issues when someone not performing as well as someone else gets the call over them. I think the thing that stands out in this case is that there were actual teammates of Appel throwing fits about it publicly on twitter. I can understand being upset about it, but I was shocked to see them take it public.
http://www.10news.com/news/baseball-...?autoplay=true
Apparently MLB is working on extending the window in which the Astros and Aiken can reach a deal.
If they allow him to sign after the deadline that will open up a big can of worms. Other teams will then want time extensions in the future. Nix should be the only one that should be considered done because he passed the physical. That should then cost the Astros two first round picks for going over the signing pool cap.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/
Astros Could Still Reach Deal With Brady Aiken
By Mark Polishuk and Steve Adams [August 27, 2014 at 2:35pm CDT]
AUG. 27: Commissioner Bud Selig was in San Diego yesterday for the opening of the Padres’ Hall of Fame plaza — named Selig Plaza — and was asked by Jennifer Jensen of 10 News whether or not Aiken had been granted an extension on his signing window:
“We’re working on that right now. There are a lot of things in movement there so it would be inappropriate for me to comment, but I would say we are working towards a hopeful solution.”
Asked a second time, Selig again refused to confirm or deny that an extension had been granted, but he repeated that they are “working toward a solution.” Selig did reveal that no grievance has been filed yet by Aiken’s camp. While his comments are somewhat vague, the commissioner did not shoot down the possibility that Aiken could still reach a deal with the Astros. As Jim Callis of Baseball America points out (on Twitter), it seems fair to assume that the other 29 teams in the league would be none too pleased to see Aiken strike a deal with Houston well beyond the signing deadline.
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