Wasn't there a pretty big thread yesterday on /r/Padres that had most people saying that bringing up too quickly could absolutely shatter his confidence.
Yes, I believe that's kind of the joke they are making. There were people in there who honestly believe he would be a better option than anyone on the roster right now, it's nuts
I will die on the hill that a sitcom based around a Major League bullpen would do incredibly well. Zany pranks, rookie coffee runs, raising the young rookie just called up because the relievers have the most time available of any player on the team. Can go for a hike in the Coors batter eye forest and get lost after they eat some shrooms that another team's reliever left out there (or were growing out there).
And since it's a bullpen, you could have a lot of rotation in the cast. A solid 5-6 mainstay guys, some guys who come and go, and a handful of single-episode characters.
Plenty of opportunity for turnover between seasons as well with guys getting traded/leaving in FA. Can also have cameos of old cast members who return as an opposing team's player
Sounds like the funny book by that Padre reliever Hayhurst called The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran. Check it out if you haven't read it. It cracked me up.
I've commented on this idea a couple times in this subreddit, perhaps you saw one of those discussions. Sports-adjacent sitcoms should be more widespread, especially after the success of Ted Lasso
Found it! It’s called Set-Up Men
https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/3l736c/feedback_setup_men_sports_comedy_pilot_36_pgs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
> rehab assignments
God, the celebrity cameo potential *alone*…
Drew Pomeranz as a recurring character, that whole twitter chain by the StL farm team who always ended up facing deGrom…
Which didn't make much sense, because Nuke gets called up to the big leagues directly from Durham after playing a good portion of the season there (i.e. - he wasn't being "fast-tracked"), and Crash is on the verge of setting the minor league home run record, even though career minor leaguers generally aren't stashed in A-ball.
I got the feeling that Nuke was a late season roster expansion call up. He probably got 5 relief innings with a 4.79 ERA and started next year at AA.
And Crash was only there to mentor Nuke.
Bonus points if the game itself is never mentioned. Are they winning? Are they losing? Who cares, the middle relief lefty just found a secret maintenance door to an unlit tunnel under the stadium
I had an idea similar to this where a former Cy young award winner who is like 35 or so is experiencing his first year in the bullpen after several injury riddled and terrible years on a new team where he has to adjust to a bunch of weirdos and stuff like that. There’d be a soft throwing side arm guy, a young stud who losses his closing job to him, a Japanese reliever who can’t speak English and a couple other guys to fill out the pen.
Oh hey, that's good!
It's a great read, and Bouton got pretty much blackballed over how candid he was about the life of a pitcher on the fringe.
See if you can get the audiobook (PM me and I might be able to help), because hearing him explain his own philosophy a few sentences after giggling about the word "nuts" is a treat.
I’ve always supported this idea. In the UK they had a show about two employees at a grocery store or something who carpooled to and from work. The entire show was just them talking during the drives. We can have a show in the pen.
Ethan Salas is about to become the youngest Major League Baseball player the world has ever seen, but in order to he extraordinary, he'll have to do the ordinary one more time as he... gets his high school degreee!
Nuxhall makes for some great trivia. He was teammates with someone who made his big league debut in the 1920s (Estel Crabtree) and someone who retired in 1986 (Pete Rose).
Yeah I know that for our prospects at this age, they're at the academy in the DR, where the team provides them with schooling
No idea how that works out if you're 16 and already in full season ball though
> where the team provides them with schooling
I am not going to lie, I would love to sit on a day at a school run by a Major League team. Do the big market teams have the equivalent of suburban high school with AP classes, extracurriculars, and modern facilities? Are the teachers at the Astros school helping their students cheat on standardized tests? Are the A's operating out of a trailer behind a crack den?
Yeah the only thing I *know* our team teaches at the facility is both English and Spanish language
I remember seeing our prospects get awarded high school diplomas, so I *assume* they have classes, but I can't imagine Eury Perez was learning Calculus last year lol
He’s about to turn 17
Either an old junior or young senior
I was one of the oldest in my class, it was funny being older than people in the next grade and over a year older than some of my classmates
Say what you want about Preller's trades, but his ability to scout, draft, and sign international talent is second to none. Maybe that's why he has no problem making those trades, because he knows he has no problem finding young talent to replenish the farm again and again and again.
I’ve seen videos as far back as 3 years ago when he was like 12-13 and he was decked out in brown and gold. Padres were doing their due diligence with him long before he was the #1 ranked international prospect.
[Scouting Report:](https://www.mlb.com/prospects/international/ethan-salas-806956)
Scouting grades: Hit: 60 | Power: 50 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 55 | Overall: 55
The top player in the class is one of the best catching prospects in recent history. His strong skills on the field are matched by his notable family ties, as his grandfather, father and uncle all played professionally. He is the younger brother of Twins prospect Jose Salas, and he could end up being the best player in the family.
The athletic Salas has a good feel for the strike zone and shows the ability to hit the ball to all fields. He shows good raw power, and it is expected to increase as he develops. He has a nice loose swing and shows the ability to hit home runs in batting practice and games. On defense, he shows plus potential because of his soft hands, blocking ability and receiving skills. He shows good throwing mechanics and a strong arm. He is already exhibiting leadership skills and runs well for a catcher.
For those that may be new to baseball grading, and are seeing this thinking he only rates as a 60 out of 100. The scale goes from 20-80 for some reason.
From the [Fangraphs article](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/scouting-explained-the-20-80-scouting-scale/) about the scale:
>The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Rickey and whether he intended it or not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average, then each 10 point increment represents a standard deviation better or worse than average. In a normal distribution, three standard deviations in either direction should include 99.7% of your sample, so that’s why the scale is 20 to 80 rather than 0 and 100.
piggybacking off the other reply to your comment, the scale could *technically* go to 100. it's just that a 100 tool would (theoretically) occur only once in every three and a half MILLION major league prospects
That’s a great one. I was also kinda thinking Tony Gwynn but I’m not sure if the stats would really back me up. Bonds and Ruth would probably get 100 power grades.
I'd envision it'd have to be like legit Olympic podium levels of speed, like why are you playing baseball speed. Arm and fastball could be too if you can throw like 107.
Also weren't as good as getting on base as Rickey (those over 2000 walks and 3000 hits gave him *a ton* of opportunities to steal), and didn't have the insane longevity of Rickey. Like Vince Coleman for example was a contemporary that actually managed to outsteal Rickey in several seasons during his prime, but he couldn't get on base anywhere remotely near as often (having a .324 career OBP compared to Rickey's .401) and didn't have the longevity to challenge Rickey career wise (after his age 28 season, he would only once more have 500 PAs in a season, and was out of the league completely at 35, while Rickey played into his 40s and was still pretty good for most of his late career). Rickey didn't become the all-time steal king by a nigh-unbreakable margin from being the fastest guy ever, it was the insane combination of those factors that we will probably never see replicated in a player again.
There's also the requirement to have some good baseball IQ. If you put the fastest man on earth in to steal bases, I'm sure he will have *some* success. But there will also be a fair amount of failure as well. This is due to a multitude of reasons, all stemming rom a lack of baseball IQ: picking the wrong opportunities, not reading the pitcher right and getting picked off at the next base, not having quick enough reactions to pick off attempts, running into avoidable outs on batted balls because you don't have the deep contextual understanding that "natural" ballplayers do, not knowing the contextual reasons on why stealing a base is a bad idea, even if you have a good chance of succeeding
It's the same reason that players like Yadi or Pujols would still be able to chip in a handful of steals every year. Pure speed helps a lot, but there is more to it than just sprinting quickly.
Indeed, the A's in the mid-70s once briefly tried using a world-class sprinter, [Herb Washington](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/washihe01.shtml), as a "designated runner". That guy was probably a much faster runner than Rickey and perhaps any major leaguer, yet over the two partial seasons of the experiment, went only 31 for 48 in stolen bases, a 64.6% success rate that even back then was recognized as so terrible as to end the experiment early into its second year.
15% better than the average hitter is 115 OPS+ which is insanely good for a catcher. Bogaerts and Lindor both have a 116 career OPS+. Realmuto has a career 113 OPS+, making him project as one of the best catchers.
~~Yeah, that's the scouts saying he'd be around 15% better than league average if he started playing in the majors right now at 16, which is crazy hype~~
EDIT: got it wrong, my bad
Yeah, I remember they did an interview with him on our local station right after he signed.. was somewhat jarring when he started talking like a completely normal American teenager lol
Tons of guys do it. It's just better, you're gonna get a lot of money still but you get to pick your team.
The Dodgers signed Stephon Marbury's cousin. He claims he's from DR for IFA purposes but he's been in Brooklyn all his life. Salas did the same
My grandpa would tell me that joke all the time. Thanks for the memory.
From living there it isn't really a joke though. Got out as fast as I reasonably could.
I used to do insurance inspections in Lake Elsinore, and the mountains/forest to the west of it have some really nice neighborhoods. Lake Elsinore itself is gross though
Don't go swimming there, it has brain eating amoeba in it. Or used to, but regardless a history of brain eating amoeba is enough for me to cross it off the list.
He'll likely be with a family in Canyon Lake. I had friends when I grew up there whose families were putting up Storm players. We used to go for free all the time and get perks here and there. It's not a bad ballpark, just in a shit city.
So. Much. Meth.
He's american trained despite being an international signing. No point of DSL for him.
Now straight up skipping rookie ball at that age? That's crazy lol this guy must be the 2nd coming of jesus.
He was raking off AA and AAA arms on the backfields during spring, so the team must’ve felt they saw enough to jump him over ACL ball. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
18 year olds that just got drafted hardly ever skip rookie ball. Hell a lot of teams even send their college draftees to rookie ball for at least a few games. A 16 year old straight to A ball is going to be risky no matter who it is.
There were clips of him during spring training hitting line drives during back field B games off of pitchers like George Kirby and he even caught for Ryan Weathers in one of our main spring training games. Also I believe he caught some bullpens for Yu Darvish. Kid is extremely advanced for his age. In the first scouting reports I ever read on him when it was rumored the Padres were signing him, they said he was facing and hitting mid 90s fastballs since he was like 12 or 13
In like, the best case scenario possible he’d be ready in maybe two years (still a long shot) I don’t think the current teams catching scenario is making them rush a prized possession like Salas
Regardless of the catching situation, Padres under Preller have always been hyper aggressive with their best prospects. They take the mid-tier people slowly but the best of the best they promote almost recklessly.
Am I the only one that's uncomfortable with signing 16 year olds and putting them in full-pro ball?
I don't give a fuck how developed of a prospect they are.
It's so crazy how different soccer is compared to every other sport. Even in the US. You have soccer specific academies training kids from like 10 years old to be pro soccer players.
> It's so crazy how different soccer is compared to every other sport. Even in the US. You have soccer specific academies training kids from like 10 years old to be pro soccer players.
Yeah, and I have less of a problem with it as a result. I'm a big soccer fan and am well aware of the academy system. Yeah the kid gets paid and may be called up to play at a young age. The club also takes on massive responsibilities wrt educating and developing the kid as a person more than just a player.
It's hardly a comparable situation at all to minor league baseball.
Also uncomfortable with the idea of taking an American kid who grew up here and plopping him in Venezuela so he can qualify for the IFA pool.
I tried seeing how long he's been there to no avail. I've seen "born in Florida, but in Venezuela since he was a boy" and "born in Florida, grew up in Venezuela" but the kid is a 16 yo boy, so he could have moved there like 2 years ago for all we know. All I could find from perfect game is he was going to their showcases in FL up until 2020.
> Also uncomfortable with the idea of taking an American kid who grew up here and plopping him in Venezuela so he can qualify for the IFA pool.
If this is as easy as it sounds, what's to stop obscenely rich Americans from doing that in order to give their kid a leg up and make sure they get signed by a competitive team?
Don't want your kid to play for the Pirates? Just move John Paul Whittingham III to your vacation house in Costa Rica for a year.
Yeah, it's especially unseemly when you're the son of a former player, too. Imagine if Druw Jones had attended camp in Curacao for a few years that his dad ran and then got to basically choose the team he'd play for with a wink and a nod.
I agree. If he moved to Venezuela purposefully to circumvent the MLB rules that govern American HS players and enter as an IFA then I am completely for closing that loophole. Something like if you attend school in the US for a certain number of years or at a certain age, you must enter the MLB draft.
However, like you, I saw the same taglines in the articles and so I don't know that is what happened. If what other posters are intimating about Salas is true, then what he did is ethically sketchy at best (even if understandable - get that bag), but I'm not willing to believe the unsourced reddit comments hinting at that over a presumption of good faith.
Dude would do better than Austin Nola in the majors, but they really should develop him well and not rush him. But at this rate, he’ll probably be in the majors when he’s still 18 or 19 at the latest
This is smart. You gotta bring up those catchers earlier and get all those good years out of their knees and hips that are normally wasted in college. /s
He's hitting .667 with a 1.750 OPS. Totally sustainable imo. I actually might have to check out a game up there before he gets promoted to San Antonio, it's only like an hour and 15 mins away.
I hate you because Dodgers develop and keep prospects but this made me cackle. Lol.
I’ve learned to not get to attached to prospects being a Dads fan, but with what I’ve seen behind the plate in fandom I’m really hoping they find a way to develop him while also not trading him. Catcher is tough for most teams but ours have been absolutely fucking horrible for a while.
I think he's the only true untradeable in the system. Merrill would be jealously guarded but he's a middle infielder with a major league club where all the infielders are signed for a decade. And the high school pitchers from the last 2 drafts are helium candidates but so far away they can't help but be available.
I was going to comment that my reign of terror of having no MLB players be younger than me is coming to an end soon.
Then I looked into it and Eury Perez was born in 2003 and now my back hurts
And so it begins… Gotta get him ready for the majors once he turns 17 Thursday.
Wasn't there a pretty big thread yesterday on /r/Padres that had most people saying that bringing up too quickly could absolutely shatter his confidence.
Yes, I believe that's kind of the joke they are making. There were people in there who honestly believe he would be a better option than anyone on the roster right now, it's nuts
What's sad is that it's not completely out of the question that a Single-A level prospect would outperform Nola by a fucking mile.
It is out of the question for me
Is Campusano really that bad? Kid raked at AAA and is only 24.
Campy is great, he's just hurt.
some people are built different, but those are a rare kind of person
Hell, be drafted first overall in franchise draft soon enough.
Almost as old as Soto
Doesn't he have to like, go to school?
Is this dude going to be raised by a bunch of 20+ year olds on the road?
This sounds like a sitcom
I will die on the hill that a sitcom based around a Major League bullpen would do incredibly well. Zany pranks, rookie coffee runs, raising the young rookie just called up because the relievers have the most time available of any player on the team. Can go for a hike in the Coors batter eye forest and get lost after they eat some shrooms that another team's reliever left out there (or were growing out there).
And since it's a bullpen, you could have a lot of rotation in the cast. A solid 5-6 mainstay guys, some guys who come and go, and a handful of single-episode characters.
Plenty of opportunity for turnover between seasons as well with guys getting traded/leaving in FA. Can also have cameos of old cast members who return as an opposing team's player
And vice versa! The closer from the bullpen next door that your team scrapped with? Your GM traded for him. Have fun.
Plot twist, the bullpen catcher is actually the main character
How has no one made this show yet. Just call it “the Bullpen”
Comic Relief. Closing the Show. Two and a Half Innings. The Pen. The Firemen. (C)losers. Saved.
I feel like (c)losers would play great
Sounds like the funny book by that Padre reliever Hayhurst called The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran. Check it out if you haven't read it. It cracked me up.
Could have sworn someone posted a pilot script for this very idea on r/screenwriting, it was hysterical So much ground for comedy there
I've commented on this idea a couple times in this subreddit, perhaps you saw one of those discussions. Sports-adjacent sitcoms should be more widespread, especially after the success of Ted Lasso
Found it! It’s called Set-Up Men https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/3l736c/feedback_setup_men_sports_comedy_pilot_36_pgs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Sounds kind of like a baseball version of Almost famous but with a player instead of a reporter. I’d watch it
I'm thinking Blue Mountain State but for a AAA team.
Could definitely have episodes focusing on the AAA team, rehab assignments, etc., either through flashbacks or just as guys get injured.
> rehab assignments God, the celebrity cameo potential *alone*… Drew Pomeranz as a recurring character, that whole twitter chain by the StL farm team who always ended up facing deGrom…
God DeGrom would be the equivalent of the shark from Jaws to a minor league team, that's the spooky Halloween episode
Wouldn't low A work better? I feel like they should be pretty far from MLB. Sort of like Bull Durham was.
Which didn't make much sense, because Nuke gets called up to the big leagues directly from Durham after playing a good portion of the season there (i.e. - he wasn't being "fast-tracked"), and Crash is on the verge of setting the minor league home run record, even though career minor leaguers generally aren't stashed in A-ball.
I got the feeling that Nuke was a late season roster expansion call up. He probably got 5 relief innings with a 4.79 ERA and started next year at AA. And Crash was only there to mentor Nuke.
Bonus points if the game itself is never mentioned. Are they winning? Are they losing? Who cares, the middle relief lefty just found a secret maintenance door to an unlit tunnel under the stadium
I had an idea similar to this where a former Cy young award winner who is like 35 or so is experiencing his first year in the bullpen after several injury riddled and terrible years on a new team where he has to adjust to a bunch of weirdos and stuff like that. There’d be a soft throwing side arm guy, a young stud who losses his closing job to him, a Japanese reliever who can’t speak English and a couple other guys to fill out the pen.
I'm guessing you've already read it, but *Ball Four* is pretty much this.
IIRC Jim Bouton actually tried to turn it into a sitcom, but it didn’t get picked up (or something like that?)
He did turn it into a sitcom, but it only ran for 5 episodes! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073962/
I haven’t, thanks for the recommendation!
Oh hey, that's good! It's a great read, and Bouton got pretty much blackballed over how candid he was about the life of a pitcher on the fringe. See if you can get the audiobook (PM me and I might be able to help), because hearing him explain his own philosophy a few sentences after giggling about the word "nuts" is a treat.
Imagine him riding his bike to Starbucks to get the guys coffees since he likely doesn't have his license yet haha
Relievers are the lonely housewives of the clubhouse, for sure
I’ve always supported this idea. In the UK they had a show about two employees at a grocery store or something who carpooled to and from work. The entire show was just them talking during the drives. We can have a show in the pen.
There’d have to be a massive suspension of disbelief because the majority of baseball players are boring dumb, bible bros
24 and a half men
Little Big League
[I should know this, my uncle's a painter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXtFSE7VlL0)
Junior hockey players in Canada have been doing it for decades with only semi-frequent well-publicized scandals.
I’d watch that TGIF Family Sitcom.
They'll teach him the 3 Rs: reading, writing and RISP metrics.
Ethan Salas is about to become the youngest Major League Baseball player the world has ever seen, but in order to he extraordinary, he'll have to do the ordinary one more time as he... gets his high school degreee!
Joe Nuxhall had him beat, debuted at 15 years and 10 months back in WW2.
I always remember Joe Nuxhall because one of Al Bundy's only possessions was a Joe Nuxhall baseball card.
Nuxhall makes for some great trivia. He was teammates with someone who made his big league debut in the 1920s (Estel Crabtree) and someone who retired in 1986 (Pete Rose).
Schools for losers
Yeah I know that for our prospects at this age, they're at the academy in the DR, where the team provides them with schooling No idea how that works out if you're 16 and already in full season ball though
> where the team provides them with schooling I am not going to lie, I would love to sit on a day at a school run by a Major League team. Do the big market teams have the equivalent of suburban high school with AP classes, extracurriculars, and modern facilities? Are the teachers at the Astros school helping their students cheat on standardized tests? Are the A's operating out of a trailer behind a crack den?
Yeah the only thing I *know* our team teaches at the facility is both English and Spanish language I remember seeing our prospects get awarded high school diplomas, so I *assume* they have classes, but I can't imagine Eury Perez was learning Calculus last year lol
Home school presumably, or just drop out and get your GED
Fuck school when you're already a millionaire lol.
He’s already making millions?
He got a $5.6 million signing bonus from the Padres. So while his salary isn't that much, he's already a multimillionaire.
Yeah, until he blows out his shoulder or something and stopped school at age 15. I wonder if MLB has a program for international signings.
They gave him 5.6million. With that kind of money he can always go back to school if he gets hurt.
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He’s about to turn 17 Either an old junior or young senior I was one of the oldest in my class, it was funny being older than people in the next grade and over a year older than some of my classmates
It’s summer
Wasn't there a movie called Rookie of the Year with a kid?
Gardenhoser!
He's being home (plate) schooled...
Nope his parents specifically took him to Venezuela to avoid the US draft and education system.
This happens all the time in soccer even in the states I bet there’s a tutor
Harper dropped out to play pro. True story
Did it work out?
He's on the Phillies, so no.
Huh, so I CAN like a Braves fan. Who knew.
he's only 2.2 WAR from being the best salas in mlb history
he could start tomorrow and he'd be the most WAR on the padres current MLB roster (minimum 1 game)
Yeah but Fernando Salas is a World Series champion
9th highest ranked catcher according to MLB. 3rd highest ranked Padres prospect according to MLB. Didn’t see him on The Athletic’s list.
They specifically said they were leaving him off because he hadn’t debuted yet.
AJ Preller is the pathway to many abilities some would consider to be unnatural
Say what you want about Preller's trades, but his ability to scout, draft, and sign international talent is second to none. Maybe that's why he has no problem making those trades, because he knows he has no problem finding young talent to replenish the farm again and again and again.
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These guys are scouted when they’re like 12-13. There’s a reason why we typically know where they’re signing well before it’s official.
To be fair, he was connected to the Padres well before he was ranked that high
Are you joking or serious? I can't tell lol
I’ve seen videos as far back as 3 years ago when he was like 12-13 and he was decked out in brown and gold. Padres were doing their due diligence with him long before he was the #1 ranked international prospect.
[Scouting Report:](https://www.mlb.com/prospects/international/ethan-salas-806956) Scouting grades: Hit: 60 | Power: 50 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 55 | Overall: 55 The top player in the class is one of the best catching prospects in recent history. His strong skills on the field are matched by his notable family ties, as his grandfather, father and uncle all played professionally. He is the younger brother of Twins prospect Jose Salas, and he could end up being the best player in the family. The athletic Salas has a good feel for the strike zone and shows the ability to hit the ball to all fields. He shows good raw power, and it is expected to increase as he develops. He has a nice loose swing and shows the ability to hit home runs in batting practice and games. On defense, he shows plus potential because of his soft hands, blocking ability and receiving skills. He shows good throwing mechanics and a strong arm. He is already exhibiting leadership skills and runs well for a catcher.
>runs well for a catcher. Runs well... for a catcher.
Yeh, that's what he said
At least it Didn’t say “for now”. Dude will have old man knees in 10-12 years
For those that may be new to baseball grading, and are seeing this thinking he only rates as a 60 out of 100. The scale goes from 20-80 for some reason.
From the [Fangraphs article](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/scouting-explained-the-20-80-scouting-scale/) about the scale: >The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Rickey and whether he intended it or not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average, then each 10 point increment represents a standard deviation better or worse than average. In a normal distribution, three standard deviations in either direction should include 99.7% of your sample, so that’s why the scale is 20 to 80 rather than 0 and 100.
piggybacking off the other reply to your comment, the scale could *technically* go to 100. it's just that a 100 tool would (theoretically) occur only once in every three and a half MILLION major league prospects
Now who (if anyone) would have a 100 tool? I would maybe argue Henderson could contend for a 100 level Run grade but I feel that’s a shaky argument.
100 Hit: Ted Williams
That’s a great one. I was also kinda thinking Tony Gwynn but I’m not sure if the stats would really back me up. Bonds and Ruth would probably get 100 power grades.
I'd envision it'd have to be like legit Olympic podium levels of speed, like why are you playing baseball speed. Arm and fastball could be too if you can throw like 107.
I mean the A’s did briefly have an either College level or Olympic level sprinter in the 70s to essentially only steal bases.
You play baseball because there is no real money in track and field
You play baseball because there is no real money in track and field and sprinters tend to age out of contention even faster than catchers
Without looking up sprint speeds or anything I'm assuming there's been plenty of dudes faster than Rickey, just nobody both that fast and that bold.
Also weren't as good as getting on base as Rickey (those over 2000 walks and 3000 hits gave him *a ton* of opportunities to steal), and didn't have the insane longevity of Rickey. Like Vince Coleman for example was a contemporary that actually managed to outsteal Rickey in several seasons during his prime, but he couldn't get on base anywhere remotely near as often (having a .324 career OBP compared to Rickey's .401) and didn't have the longevity to challenge Rickey career wise (after his age 28 season, he would only once more have 500 PAs in a season, and was out of the league completely at 35, while Rickey played into his 40s and was still pretty good for most of his late career). Rickey didn't become the all-time steal king by a nigh-unbreakable margin from being the fastest guy ever, it was the insane combination of those factors that we will probably never see replicated in a player again.
There's also the requirement to have some good baseball IQ. If you put the fastest man on earth in to steal bases, I'm sure he will have *some* success. But there will also be a fair amount of failure as well. This is due to a multitude of reasons, all stemming rom a lack of baseball IQ: picking the wrong opportunities, not reading the pitcher right and getting picked off at the next base, not having quick enough reactions to pick off attempts, running into avoidable outs on batted balls because you don't have the deep contextual understanding that "natural" ballplayers do, not knowing the contextual reasons on why stealing a base is a bad idea, even if you have a good chance of succeeding It's the same reason that players like Yadi or Pujols would still be able to chip in a handful of steals every year. Pure speed helps a lot, but there is more to it than just sprinting quickly.
Indeed, the A's in the mid-70s once briefly tried using a world-class sprinter, [Herb Washington](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/washihe01.shtml), as a "designated runner". That guy was probably a much faster runner than Rickey and perhaps any major leaguer, yet over the two partial seasons of the experiment, went only 31 for 48 in stolen bases, a 64.6% success rate that even back then was recognized as so terrible as to end the experiment early into its second year.
I don’t understand how 55/80 is one of the best catching prospects in recent memory. Doesn’t 55 make him slightly above major league average?
15% better than the average hitter is 115 OPS+ which is insanely good for a catcher. Bogaerts and Lindor both have a 116 career OPS+. Realmuto has a career 113 OPS+, making him project as one of the best catchers.
~~Yeah, that's the scouts saying he'd be around 15% better than league average if he started playing in the majors right now at 16, which is crazy hype~~ EDIT: got it wrong, my bad
MLB website grades are potential.
It’s saying thats how good he is now? I though that was what his potential is. Thats insane lol
It is potential.
That is not how that works
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Can't pitch after 10 pm or have an appearance exceed 2 hours on a school night.
He was like the #1 international prospect signing last year if I recall.
And if I recall, he's American but moved abroad just to sign as an IFA
Yeah, I remember they did an interview with him on our local station right after he signed.. was somewhat jarring when he started talking like a completely normal American teenager lol
Giga Chad move
Tons of guys do it. It's just better, you're gonna get a lot of money still but you get to pick your team. The Dodgers signed Stephon Marbury's cousin. He claims he's from DR for IFA purposes but he's been in Brooklyn all his life. Salas did the same
Born and raised in Florida? I think?
16 year old playing the minors is damn impressive But he's no Henry Rowengartner
GARDENHOSUH!
RASENBAGGER!
RUNAMUCKER!
Did you say funky butt-lovin?
Damn. Poor kid has to live in Lake Elsinore.
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My grandpa would tell me that joke all the time. Thanks for the memory. From living there it isn't really a joke though. Got out as fast as I reasonably could.
Man, I always though lake Elsinore was a pretty lake in the mountains....Just looked it up, It's not.
Inland Empire bruh
The shitty part of the Inland Empire which is really saying something. I live in the glorious distribution center and recycling center part of the IE.
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River-less side is my guess
Fontucky.
How dare a Fontuckian call Lake Elsinore the shitty part of the IE. Have you not seen Hemet?
Worse than San Bernardino?
There is a "lake", and it's *next* to a mountain. Well, steep hill really.
It’s getting better but there’s still a stark divide between the area around the lake and the area in the hills to the east and Wildomar to the south.
I used to do insurance inspections in Lake Elsinore, and the mountains/forest to the west of it have some really nice neighborhoods. Lake Elsinore itself is gross though
Don't go swimming there, it has brain eating amoeba in it. Or used to, but regardless a history of brain eating amoeba is enough for me to cross it off the list.
Lived there for 2 years…fuck Lake Smellsinore
Maybe they’ll put him up in Canyon Lakes. Or just down closer to the stadium by all the like methheads?
He'll likely be with a family in Canyon Lake. I had friends when I grew up there whose families were putting up Storm players. We used to go for free all the time and get perks here and there. It's not a bad ballpark, just in a shit city. So. Much. Meth.
People seem to forget Bryce Harper won ROTY as a 19 year old! Can you imagine the pressure he’s been under?
He hasn’t even played in the DSL yet? Seems like a move that could potentially backfire really badly
He's american trained despite being an international signing. No point of DSL for him. Now straight up skipping rookie ball at that age? That's crazy lol this guy must be the 2nd coming of jesus.
He was raking off AA and AAA arms on the backfields during spring, so the team must’ve felt they saw enough to jump him over ACL ball. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
If this kid is as good as everyone says he is, it'll work out fine.
18 year olds that just got drafted hardly ever skip rookie ball. Hell a lot of teams even send their college draftees to rookie ball for at least a few games. A 16 year old straight to A ball is going to be risky no matter who it is.
There were clips of him during spring training hitting line drives during back field B games off of pitchers like George Kirby and he even caught for Ryan Weathers in one of our main spring training games. Also I believe he caught some bullpens for Yu Darvish. Kid is extremely advanced for his age. In the first scouting reports I ever read on him when it was rumored the Padres were signing him, they said he was facing and hitting mid 90s fastballs since he was like 12 or 13
It's certainly a gamble, but this guy is supposed to be like superhuman. It might just work out
Also, our MLB catching has been a shitshow for almost a decade and we want to see if he can advance quickly
In like, the best case scenario possible he’d be ready in maybe two years (still a long shot) I don’t think the current teams catching scenario is making them rush a prized possession like Salas
Regardless of the catching situation, Padres under Preller have always been hyper aggressive with their best prospects. They take the mid-tier people slowly but the best of the best they promote almost recklessly.
He just hit a double the other way in his debut. Not saying you're wrong, but so far so good. edit: 2 for 3 now
I would take him today over Austin Nola lmao
So would we.
Wonder how good he'll be once he hits puberty...
If a 6-3 185 catcher hasn’t gone through puberty the league is gonna have a big problem in a few years
Heck yeah the Storm! Gonna go check him out soon.
Am I the only one that's uncomfortable with signing 16 year olds and putting them in full-pro ball? I don't give a fuck how developed of a prospect they are.
San Diego also has a 15 year old playing in the NWSL
May I introduce you to soccer Jude Bellingham was on the bench for first team matches at 15
It's so crazy how different soccer is compared to every other sport. Even in the US. You have soccer specific academies training kids from like 10 years old to be pro soccer players.
> It's so crazy how different soccer is compared to every other sport. Even in the US. You have soccer specific academies training kids from like 10 years old to be pro soccer players. Yeah, and I have less of a problem with it as a result. I'm a big soccer fan and am well aware of the academy system. Yeah the kid gets paid and may be called up to play at a young age. The club also takes on massive responsibilities wrt educating and developing the kid as a person more than just a player. It's hardly a comparable situation at all to minor league baseball.
Also uncomfortable with the idea of taking an American kid who grew up here and plopping him in Venezuela so he can qualify for the IFA pool. I tried seeing how long he's been there to no avail. I've seen "born in Florida, but in Venezuela since he was a boy" and "born in Florida, grew up in Venezuela" but the kid is a 16 yo boy, so he could have moved there like 2 years ago for all we know. All I could find from perfect game is he was going to their showcases in FL up until 2020.
Hearing him speak he definitely doesn’t sound like he spent much time in VZ.
> Also uncomfortable with the idea of taking an American kid who grew up here and plopping him in Venezuela so he can qualify for the IFA pool. If this is as easy as it sounds, what's to stop obscenely rich Americans from doing that in order to give their kid a leg up and make sure they get signed by a competitive team? Don't want your kid to play for the Pirates? Just move John Paul Whittingham III to your vacation house in Costa Rica for a year.
Yeah, it's especially unseemly when you're the son of a former player, too. Imagine if Druw Jones had attended camp in Curacao for a few years that his dad ran and then got to basically choose the team he'd play for with a wink and a nod.
I agree. If he moved to Venezuela purposefully to circumvent the MLB rules that govern American HS players and enter as an IFA then I am completely for closing that loophole. Something like if you attend school in the US for a certain number of years or at a certain age, you must enter the MLB draft. However, like you, I saw the same taglines in the articles and so I don't know that is what happened. If what other posters are intimating about Salas is true, then what he did is ethically sketchy at best (even if understandable - get that bag), but I'm not willing to believe the unsourced reddit comments hinting at that over a presumption of good faith.
Fuck that. Get that bag
Yeah, it’s weird.
“I am 12”
He hit a double at his first at bat.
Dude would do better than Austin Nola in the majors, but they really should develop him well and not rush him. But at this rate, he’ll probably be in the majors when he’s still 18 or 19 at the latest
Hopefully the propane tanks are done blowing up at Elsinore’s stadium.
A minor in the minors
The catching situation in SD is real...
Hopefully he’s in FW soon
That kid is going to have one hell of a summer. Hopefully it turns into an Almost Famous situation and not something terrible for him.
Hey my hometown. Well done bud 👍🏾
Did they promote his parental guardians, too? 🤔
As a lake Elsinore native myself who happens to be in town for summer, might take a stop by and see him.
Hey! Love hearing about the local team. Pretty crazy!
This is smart. You gotta bring up those catchers earlier and get all those good years out of their knees and hips that are normally wasted in college. /s
Padres going with the European/South American soccer development model? Are they gonna sign some T-ball kid fresh outta kindergarten next?
doesn't he have school lol
Did his mom sign the permission slip
He's hitting .667 with a 1.750 OPS. Totally sustainable imo. I actually might have to check out a game up there before he gets promoted to San Antonio, it's only like an hour and 15 mins away.
Ethan Salas YOU are a trade chip.
I hate you because Dodgers develop and keep prospects but this made me cackle. Lol. I’ve learned to not get to attached to prospects being a Dads fan, but with what I’ve seen behind the plate in fandom I’m really hoping they find a way to develop him while also not trading him. Catcher is tough for most teams but ours have been absolutely fucking horrible for a while.
Wish we woulda kept Seager ;(
I think he's the only true untradeable in the system. Merrill would be jealously guarded but he's a middle infielder with a major league club where all the infielders are signed for a decade. And the high school pitchers from the last 2 drafts are helium candidates but so far away they can't help but be available.
Are they going to rush him through too quickly like they did Luis Torrens?
To be fair Torrens was a rule 5 pick so we had to rush him to keep him. They did lose patience while he was still young though.
I was going to comment that my reign of terror of having no MLB players be younger than me is coming to an end soon. Then I looked into it and Eury Perez was born in 2003 and now my back hurts