Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage, and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s okay, though, we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each morning, and find the things you need to see from within the SB Nation baseball network as well as from elsewhere. Please hold your applause until the end, or at least until after you subscribe to the newsletter.
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Every July 2 marks the start of a new international signing period, so you can expect a slew of transactions on Thursday. For the most part, these are players whose names you might not need to remember for some time — the 16- and 17-year-old kids signed out of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela and Cuba and so forth, aren’t exactly big-league ready, and they often have the added hurdle of familiarizing themselves with American culture and its game, too. The international market is where a whole lot of high-upside players come from, though, and it’s the one player acquisition area where teams are on equal footing when it comes to the highest upside players. Well, mostly.
Some teams spend way over their budget in order to get the players they want. The Red Sox, for instance, did this in the last signing period in order to get two of the top pitchers available — Anderson Espinoza and Chris Acosta — and that was before they handed a record bonus to Yoan Moncada. There is a penalty for this spending, though, and it will keep Boston — as well as the Yankees, Rays, Diamondbacks and Angels — from spending more than $300,000 on a single bonus both this period and the next.
There are ways around this, as Kiley McDaniel detailed at FanGraphs — promising to sign a whole bunch of a single trainer’s players can help a team get a discount on someone who should be more expensive, for instance. Overall, though, it’ll keep these teams out of the signing game, and leave more opportunities open for the rest of the league to acquire young talent. It’s not a perfect system, far from it, but it probably works better than whatever future international draft replaces it down the road.
- Wondering why a photo of Vladimir Guerrero is atop this article? (Sorry, newsletter readers, this is a web #sclusie.) His son, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is one of the top international free agents.
- Jerry Dipoto officially resigned as the general manager of the Angels, opening the way for former Halos GM Bill Stoneman to take over in an interim role.
- There is an art to throwing no-hitters, and it was missing from Andy Hawkins’ attempt from 25 years ago: that’s how he ended up tossing one yet still lost by four runs in one of the strangest starts in history.
- Carlos Carrasco nearly threw his own no-no for the Indians on Wednesday, but lost it with only one out to go. Unlike Hawkins, though, Carrasco won his start.
- The Twins are calling up another top prospect in Miguel Sano, a player whose prodigious potential you can read about here.
- A superfan grew out his hair the entire time Jose Fernandez was on the shelf recovering from Tommy John surgery, and on Wednesday, Fernandez shaved said fan’s head to signal his return to the mound.
- Anthony Rizzo might be a ninja.
- These 10 trades helped set up the oncoming July 31 trade deadline in 2015.
- Buster Posey exited the Giants game after being struck in the mask with a foul ball, but he did manage to pass his concussion test. So, exhale.
- Who stays in the Mariners’ rotation and who’s leaving once Hisashi Iwakuma returns?
- Rick Porcello needs to start using his sinker again, and that was clear even before the Blue Jays thrashed him on Wednesday.
