This time, however, Boras might have a new plan. According to the Washington Post, Boras is considering sending Strasburg to Japan for a year. The benefit to this would be that after playing in Japan for a year, Strasburg would be considered a professional, and could potentially be treated as a free agent. Now, there a number of legal difficulties with this solution, (which would be resolved in court, because Strasburg is not a member of the union) which I’m not going to go into now because they are described in detail in the article above.

But let’s assume for a second that the roadblocks are gone, and that this is a legitimate possibility for Strasburg, which I suppose it might be. Assuming that, I still don’t see why Strasburg would want to do this at all, for him, maybe not for Boras but for him. Most experts said they expected the Nationals to make an offer between $15 and $20 million. Now while I certainly can’t throw a baseball quite as well as Strasburg can, we’re about the same age, and that seems like a hell of a lot of money to me. Regardless of that still, Strasburg has a lot to lose. Say he has a bad season, or gets hurt, or just doesn’t live up to expectations. With a young pitcher, you really never what’s going to happen, I know Strasburg is the second coming of the Messiah and all, but I’m sure some freak accident could happen to him too.

I highly doubt this would be an easy transition either. Moving to Japan would be difficult especially for a kid his age, and I don’t think his teammates would be too appreciative of this young kid taking advantage of their league to try and make a few more bucks over in the US.

And while this wasn’t mentioned in the Post article, I have to wonder if for an MLB team to sign Strasburg, they would have to pay a posting fee, and that would surely cut into the amount of money they would be willing to pay the young pitcher.

While Boras may simply be floating the idea as a threat, the bottom line is that the option only provides a lot of risks and hardships for Strasburg. And it’s not like Strasburg is going to be coming up short signing with the Nats, the dude is going to make big money. Ultimately, I think Strasburg will sign with Washington, but if he even considers Japan, he is just being short-sighted.

I’ve said it before, I agree with the idea that the Pirates should be selling off their parts to rebuild, again. The only questions here are: Were these the right parts to sell and did they get enough in return?

I think the Hinske trade is the easier one, so I’ll talk about it first. I like this deal, from both ends actually. The Pirates aren’t going to win a championship by hanging onto a guy like Eric Hinske, so trading him to a contender like the Yankees who can use him in the short term makes sense. Also, even though the prospects they got are in the lower levels of the minors, I have heard they are solid, which is all you can really ask for.

So the real issue is whether the Morgan/Milledge deal was worth it to the Pirates. The answer: maybe, but probably not. Let me start by saying that one piece of the puzzle that needs resolving is Nyjer Morgan’s defense. I have read that according to UZR Morgan is the best defensive outfielder at the game, but other sources have said that he is below average. Let me start by saying that if he is indeed an excellent defender than this deal was not good for the Bucs, any player with a strong talent, be it offensively and defensively (and he is no slouch offensively) should not be traded when he is only in his third season (if you count his 107 AB 2007). But if he indeed is a bad outfielder, there could be some merits. Lastings Milledge was undoubtedly regarded as an extremely talented player, he just hasn’t shown it in the majors yet. If he can keep his attitude in control, you can’t deny he is a high upside player. High risk, but high upside. You can probably say the same about Hanrahan, he’s a high risk but a fairly high upside guy too.

All in all, Pirates GM Neal Huntington is rolling the dice a little bit, and I can’t fault him for that. With so many losing seasons, something’s gotta go your way at some time.

There is nothing good about a winning percentage that is lower than most batting averages, but let’s be serious, is this really Manny Acta’s fault? Of course not. He is dealing with a team that really isn’t going anywhere, it’s two studs are Ryan Zimmerman and the guy they just drafted. The Nationals actually have a decent offense but a terrible pitching staff, and that’s just the beginning of their problems. General manager Jim Bowden was fired after his whole scandal, and now the Nats are stuck with an interim GM, which is really not a good place for a ballclub. Oh and Jim Bowden was supposed to be an interim GM too, but then he wasn’t.

Where the Nationals really need to get themselves on track is in the upper-management. If they are going to stick with Rizzo as their GM, then they should announce it, because interim anythings just don’t work in the long term. Then, the Nats should be focused on their farm system, and only their farm system.

And the whole idea that someone “needs to blamed” for a team losing is ridiculous. They should be an organization that works to win, not one that has to fire somebody so that the fans don’t riot when the team continues to lose. And they weren’t rioting anyway. If they like Acta, they should keep Acta. Plain and simple.

The Amateur Player Draft was introduced, in 1965, to develop a system wherein amateur players are designated to professional teams. In the system, the worst teams (based on record) were granted the first picks, so as to even the playing field over the long-term. It works this way in every major American sport, as you surely know. Baseball prides itself on its blatantly capitalistic market model. Those who want to pay exorbitant amounts of cash to land free agents, for instance, can do so at their own discretion. Those teams who cannot afford such ready-made talent are forced to continually rebuild through the draft. This process has worked fabulously throughout the past several decades, and continues to work well. As research methods improve, drafting and scouting decisions become more calculated, and the weaker teams are prone to make better choices. So the worst teams get the highest-rated players available; everything’s fine, right? Well, no. Before a team gets to sign a player, it has to award him with a ’signing bonus’. For at least two decades, High School players have been able to use college commitments, and ’scholastic ambitions’ as leverage while negotiating for their signing bonuses. For instance,left-handed pitching prospect Troy Patton, out of Tomball HS in Texas, was committed to playing college ball at the University of Texas. Therefore, when the Houston Astros selected him in the 9th round of the 2004 draft, he could ask for more to ‘pry him away’ from attending Texas. The Astros then paid him a $900,000 signing bonus, way over the slot rate for a ninth rounder, to do so.

This is not where my quarrels lie. I have no problem with a player using college as leverage, as it is a natural occurrence that one go to college. In 2005, however, pitcher, Luke Hochevar was selected 11th overall out of the University of Tennessee by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hochevar and his agent, the much-hated, Scott Boras (seen above), never got close to an agreement with the Dodgers. Hochevar used his off year to play in an independent league with the Fort Worth Cats where he had a performed well in limited time. The following year, Hochevar went 1st overall to the Kansas City Royals, and Hochevar got his bonus. This has created an entirely new avenue for college players to use as leverage while at the negotiating table. Now even college players could have these dreaded ’signability issues’; something that was unheard of 10 years ago.  This has been seen twice in the past three seasons with Max Scherzer, who turned an Independent League stint into a better bonus, and Aaron Crow, who entered the following year’s draft. Stephen Strasburg, the No. 1 overall pick in yesterdays draft, could now use this as an option when negotiating with the desperately bad, Washington Nationals. Rumors are starting that Boras and Strasburg will be looking for a bonus upwards of $40m and a major league contract. Similar to the deal Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka received upon entering the league three years ago. It should be noted that if a ball club does not sign their first round pick, they will get a compensation pick the following year, one pick behind when the player was chosen. (The Nationals received a compensation pick at No. 10 overall this year because of their inability to sign their 2008 first-rounder, Crow, who went No. 9 overall.)

The problem I have with the current system is quite clear. Why should the rules that are in place create an environment where the worst teams in baseball are held for ransom? I understand the argument that the players want to play in the big leagues and they will eventually sign…etc. There is no question that the Nationals have to sign Strasburg. I know that, you know that and, worst of all, Scott Boras knows that. So what happens when a team spends the equivalent of 2/3 of their annual payroll to sign someone who may or may not be a productive MLB player? The system does not need a make-over, it just needs tinkering.

I suggest an alternative solution to this burgeoning problem. One, that a college player can earn no more than 20% higher than the designated slot amount for that pick. Some will complain that this is too regulatory, however if you’ve seen the statistics on signing bonus growth, as well as the likelihood of a draft pick making it to the majors, you will agree that this is a fair adjustment. The second option is to implement a price floor (10% below the slot price, for example.), which the ball club has to exceed in its bonus offer. This will make negotiations far less interesting, however it will secure the talented players’ services for the teams who so badly need them.

This is just my idea, if you guys have any other solutions to this problem, let me know!

Why do they love him? Well, a fastball that tops out at 103 mph is a good start. His excellent command is another. His tight curveball and brutal slider are a third and forth. He’s 6′ 5”, and perfect. You hear it everywhere. “Stephen Strasburg will likely win one Cy Young and a couple dozen Stephen Strasburg’s in his career,” say the guys at Beyond the Box Score. He’s got the stats to back it up too, Strasburg is pulling a 1.32 ERA, a 16.1 K/9 ratio and 10.3 K/BB walk ratio. He’s unstoppable. When UVA was preparing to face Strasburg last week, Karl Kuhn said he was told, “God isn’t going to give you more than one run.” You know what’s the best part of Strasburg? They’re calling him major-league ready. Some are saying he’s just going to skip the minors, and start playing for the Nats this summer.

But be careful, Stephen, you’re not there yet. You may be the greatest thing to walk on a baseball diamond, but take note of your supposed comparables, Mark Prior and Brien Taylor. Sure, Prior was dominant for awhile, but what’s he up to these days? And Taylor? He was the second first overall pick to never make the majors. Are there No. 1 draft pick success stories? Sure there are plenty of them. But there’s also of plenty mediocre players who never quite got there (and some who married crazy wives).

So there it is Mr. Strasburg. You’ll have your chance to be great. I hope, for your sake, you follow through.