Morning Notes, August 26th, 2010
Thoughts on various things.
**I voted for Jenrry Mejia in the Bonehead Decision Poll. I thought it very unwise to promote him to the majors with so little minor league experience, and I didn't see the point of using him as a middle reliever when there were 20 guys you could pop out of Triple-A for cheap who could do at least an average job. Putting your best minor league arm at development risk for a middle relief spot seemed quite short-sighted to me.
As I stated before, I also thought the Cubs were being too aggressive with Starlin Castro, but that decision has turned out great. From the outside, the switching back and forth of Andrew Cashner (and Jay Jackson) from starting to relief seemed rather odd as well. The Tigers are consistently more aggressive with young pitchers than I think they should be, so I wasn't really surprised by the move with Oliver, even though I thought it was dumb. As for KilaMonster, the Royals are clearly skeptical about him, and many (though not all) scouts from other teams have doubts, too. But the numbers are there, and from a meritocratic point of view he deserves a shot. He needs to take advantage of it quickly.
**I was thinking this morning about the decisions of Dylan Covey and Karsten Whitson to forgo pro ball for the college ranks. The Covey thing seems related to his newly-diagnosed diabetes, and although that's disappointing for the Brewers, there doesn't seem to be a lot of bad blood about it from what I can tell.
The Whitson thing, on the other hand....well, according to Padres GM Jed Hoyer, they had a verbal agreement that Whitson subsequently reneged on.
Maybe I just have an old-fashioned sense of honor and am out of place in the 21st century ruthless capitalist world. But if what Hoyer says is true, and Whitson discarded a verbal agreement, that's dishonorable in my view, equivalent to breaking your word. We just have that side of the story though; maybe there was more to it. Even if there was no dishonor involved, I don't understand taking this kind of risk from Whitson's point of view. What if he goes to Florida and tears his labrum? There is absolutely no guarantee that he'll improve his draft position in college ball, and a considerable risk that his stock will drop. I really don't get it.
I'll have minor league notes for you this evening.
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