International Free Agency Thread 2018-2019

15 year old Cuban kid throwing 96? Holy horsefeathers lol

 

15 year old Cuban kid throwing 96? Holy horsefeathers lol

 

Eligible when the Cubs are out of the penalty box, but we're getting to the point where many big spending teams have already allocated their funds with pre-arranged deals. That's the type of arm you'd love to get in the system. The curve looked fantastic too.

True. I'm glad we aren't connected to the top 10 guys or whatever it was Badler had written on earlier.

At any rate, I have no clue how much we've already committed. Its possible we spread it around and have little money left. But, its also possible we waited things out to see what bargains fell late.

Either way though, I LOVE that we can trade for more money in the new CBA EVERY year, since there's no going over your amount anymore. I really, really want to see us doing that going forward.

Very interesting. Puts another guy on the market. No idea if he'll wait til the next class, take a smaller bonus from the Twins, or what.....

I gotta wonder if the Twins did this to give them a slight shot at Ohtani.

Starting to sound promising here too.....

 

Starting to sound promising here too.....

 

Penalty will be announced before Thanksgiving, months before he Cubs are out of the penalty box.

We don't even know if they'll be under IFA restrictions or not. Assuming he/they are, there's very few teams with money to spend. They could easily wait until July.

What IS fun though, with the new CBA......Is that its capped, but you can trade for up to 75% more than your budget for the next 2 years, then 60% after that......

So, you're ABLE to always be in the top tier of spending teams, if you want to be. Especially since there's only 3 tiers of initial money, 5.75, 5.25, and 4.75 mill.....

Although, the trick may be finding teams willing to trade their pool money. Still, I hope we ask for it in any and every deal we make......There's no more 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th slots now, you can just trade a specified amount now.

So, Rosenthal says they ARE going to lose prospects, as PART of the punishment.

They'll be treated with the same rules as if they were first on the market. Teams will bid accordingly. But, since its likely they'll get to keep their first bonuses, I'm just not sure they'd wait or not, until the next period. Who knows? My guess is if Maitan gets taken away from them, he'd bring back another 3-4 mill from a team....

So maybe he'd wait? Or the Yanks or Rangers could grab him.

The Cubs weren't linked to any of the top OFs and Ps who played in a recent major Dominican showcase (though OF Jeremy de la Rosa wasn't linked to any team): https://www.baseballamerica.com/international/top-2018-international-prospects-at-the-mlb-showcase-outfielders-pitchers/#l6k2ideYcq5FlIAK.97

 

I would be floored if the Cubs left any of their IFA pool unspent. At this point it's obvious that they aren't going to be shelling out $3 million to one of the LA bonus babies in the 2018 class, so I wonder if they are taking the shotgun approach or if they knew that they would need the majority of their pool for a Japanese or Cuban player?

I think they've held out for one of the Cubans personally. I'm very hopeful they try to add IFA money and get a hell of a class, considering the system is weak currently. Wouldn't shock me to see them add one of the Braves guys either, depending on if they make it to July 2nd.

Longenhagen schmongenhagen, see that in 5 years

I guess we'll see. But, Fujinami walked 6.9/9 this year, his K's dropped to 6.3/9 for 9.4/9 and he was even sent down to their minors this year at some point. Definite step backwards from a guy that wasn't known for having control or command to begin with. Not doubting he's got talent, but its far from a hot take to think he's better off coming out of the pen either. Again, we'll see. I think Longenhagen is about as good as we've got left to go from, so I'll continue to listen to what he says.