Comments on: Cardinals Sign Three On International Signing Day

By: Put Me In Coach

Put Me In Coach — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:21:14 +0000

Bandes is the most advanced and has a middle of the order bat, yet he got the smallest bonus? I wonder why that would be.

I go back and forth on whether it would be a better strategy to sign the premium player or sign several non-premium guys. It seems like the guys who are good enough to be “known” without deep digging (i.e. the 2-3 guys I’ve heard of) have a success rate similar to first round picks (less than 50% but still good), while the lower dollar guys have a success rate so much smaller that it seems like we’re just throwing money down the drain.

I think in the future I would still rather throw the max at a guy like Soler or Cespedes just to see ifwe can get them (because there will probably be multiple max offers for them) but maybe fall back to this strategy of trying for the smaller fish.

By: Uncle Randy

Uncle Randy — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 11:42:54 +0000

Make sense to me. They’re expected to spend the rest of the $2.9 mil though, right?

By: lafoozay

lafoozay — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:37:14 +0000

Yeah they all are 16 and in fact Sosa just turned 16 last month lol

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:31:10 +0000

Agreed, Shawshanky.

I’m hoping to eventually hear of the Cards investing the other $1.6M+ across three or four more “mid-level” prospects. Spreading the risk does NOT necessarily mean reducing the possible reward.

Jeff: you mentioned in passing that “these kids are just 16.” Did you mean that literally, that none have even turned 17 yet? Do you have the birthdates? Thanks!

By: Shanky

Shanky — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:51:35 +0000

I’m good with not signing a 16 y/o to a $1/$2 million contract and spreading it around. The failure rate on the high-ticket international kids is very high. I’d rather minimize the risk, because no one truly knows how a 16 y/o will develop physically. Our own Taveras is an example of that.