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Archive for the 'ryan sullivan' tag
Nats Rule-5 Draft History; updated for 2015
Jesus Flores remains our most successful (only successful) Rule 5 Draftee. Photo Toni Sandys/Washington Post
The Nats for years were heavy participants in the Rule-5 draft, thanks to some pretty awful teams and some shrewd scouting. I first did this history post in November 2011, updating in in January of 2014 and here I update it for the last couple of draft results and drafted player disposition updated for the latest season.
Borrowing a chunk of the text for the previous years from the previous post, here's a list of the Rule 5 drafts since 2005, with our players taken/received noted and with some thoughts on how the player turned out for either side. Even though there wasn't much 2015 Rule 5 action for the team, I've added a bunch of updates for all the recently involved players, updating their career dispositions.
Note: this post used to be to pass judgement on our Rule-5 picks, so when you see "Verdict: Failure" that's what it means. Its been so long since we tried to draft someone that I forgot what it was like.
2015 Rule 5 Draft (ahead of the 2016 season)
What just occurred on 12/10/15. The Nationals did not take anyone in the major league phase, nor did they have anyone taken.
In the minor league phase, the Nationals selected 3B Zack Cox from the Miami organization. He's entering his age 27 season, is a former 1st round pick and has bounced around AA and AAA the last four seasons. I'm calling him "Anthony Rendon" insurance for 2016.
These minor league acquisitions are essentially $12,000 purchases and the Nats now own these contract; I'm not entirely clear on the rules that drive them, nor how the players are determined to be eligible.
For the first time since their arrival in DC, the Washington Nationals neither took a player in Rule-5 nor had one taken.
The team did not select anyone in the major league phase. We did lose one player in the MLB phase:
C Adrian Nieto was the 2nd overall pick in the major league phase, by the Chicago White Sox. As commenters at the time noted, it seemed like an odd pick for the White Sox, who had a couple of younger developing catchers in their system. Meanwhile Nieto had never played above A-ball but did hit .285/.373/.449 prior to the 2014 season. Those are pretty good numbers for a catcher … even if he's an old 24 in A-Ball. I didn't even mention him in my own pre-Rule5 analysis piece at the time, but amazingly he stuck on the White Sox roster for the entire 2014 season, hitting .236/.296/.340. The White Sox sent him to AA for 2015, he elected FA (presumably after being DFA'd) and signed as a MLFA with Miami for 2016. Given the struggles of Jose Lobaton this past year, I'm slightly surprised he didn't consider coming back to his original franchise. Or, perhaps more to the point, knowing what I know about his dealings with the Nats front office over the years … perhaps I'm not (his agent Joshua Kusnick is a frequent guest on the NatsGM podcast, hosted by Ryan Sullivan).
In the minor league phase, the Nats took a couple of players for organizational depth: Theo Bowe, a AA outfielder from Cincinnati and Martires Arias, a low-A right-hander from the New York Mets. Neither player really panned out: Bowe was left in XST the entire year and Arias was released before the season started.
2012 Rule 5 Draft
Again, the team did not select anyone but got poached for four players in the major and minor phase.
LHP Danny Rosenbaum was drafted by Colorado to take part in their unique rotation experiment (where guys work up to a certain pitch count each night). Rosenbaum didn't make the Rockie's pitching staff out of spring training (somewhat an indictment of Rosenbaum's skills; Colorado's rotation was one of the worst in the majors in 2013) and he was returned to Nats. Rosenbaum toiled in AAA for the Nats for the 2013 full season. He was the AAA opening day starter in 2014 but blew his UCL and had TJ Surgery. In Jan 2015 the team flipped him to Boston for Dan Butler, and he got roughed up in Boston's system (0-8, 5.81 ERA). As far as I can tell he's still in the Boston organization, perhaps for one more year to see if he pans out.
Utility player Jeff Kobernus was drafted by the Boston Red Sox, traded to Tigers and then eventually returned to Nats. Kobernus turned out to be quite the speedster, stealing nearly a base every other game in the minors and earned a call-up to the big team in 2013. He struggled with injury, spending a chunk of 2014 on the 60 day D/L and had just a handful of MLB atbats. The team released him mid spring training 2015, he picked up with the San Francisco organization and played near his home town in San Jose in 2015, struggling in High-A ball.
In the minor league phase, Nats draft bust Jack McGeary was taken by the Red Sox. He threw 21 ineffective innings in short-A and low-A for Boston in 2013. He's from Boston, so it was a nice gesture, but it just doesn't look like he's ever going to recover from his arm issues. Hey, at least he got his Stanford education and his bonus money. He signed as a MLFA with the Los Angeles Dodgers organization for 2014, struggled again in A-ball, and did not sign for 2015.
The Dodgers poached Hector Nelo from the Nats AA team and stuck him on their own AA team … where he promptly made the all-star game again and had another excellent season. I'll be honest; I do not know the minor league rule-5 protection rules, but I wonder why an all-star player was exposed, no matter what his age. Nelo struggled in 2014, was released and looks like he's out of affiliated ball. So perhaps the team was a year early but still right in exposing him to Rule 5.
The Nats did not take anyone for the first time in years, but had two players themselves taken. Neither player drafted was a surprise; I posted at the time that I thought both these players should have been protected.
Brad Meyers (RH starting pitcher) was drafted by the New York Yankees, but he suffered an injury in spring training and was DL'd all year. He was returned to the Nats and subsequently missed all of 2013 too. I listed him as a "release candidate" in my 2014 rotation projections, not knowing if he was healthy or if he could win a AAA rotation spot that year; he ended up making 6 starts in AA and was released. He's now out of baseball.
Erik Komatsu was drafted by St. Louis (in retaliation for our taking Broderick the previous year?), made their 2012 opening day roster, played for a while before being waived, got picked up by Minnesota, and by Memorial Day was returned to Washington in a whirlwind set of transactions. He got hurt in 2013 and played just a few games for the Nats AA and AAA teams, then was released on 5/9/14. He signed immediately with the Angels, bounced to Milwaukee, was a MLFA after the season and did not play in organized ball in 2015.
Elvin Ramirez, RH reliever, drafted from the New York Mets: he was injured in spring training and spent the entirety of the season on the DL. Interestingly, the team returned him to New York in October, long before they needed to, and with New York in 2012 he made his way to the majors for some appearances. The Mets eventually sold him to the Angels, then he bounced around in MLFA to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and in 2015 was playing in the Mexican league. Verdict: impatience leading to failure.
Brian Broderick, RH Starting Pitcher, Drafted from St. Louis and stuck into the 2011′s bullpen as the long-man/mop-up guy. He was awful, he was costing the team wins, and was eventually returned to St. Louis before May was out. However, St. Louis waived him towards the end of 2012 and we picked him back up. I projected him to be one of our AAA starters in 2013 but he struggled and ended the season in AA and was cut loose. He pitched in Indy ball in 2014, well enough to get a MLFA contract in 2015, spending the whole year in the Royal's AAA team. He's still hanging in there. Verdict: failure for the Nats, jury still out for the player.
The team lost one player in the 2010 draft:
The Phillies drafted Michael Martinez away from the Nats, and he stuck on their roster as a backup middle infielder. His batting lines were awful though, and the Nats clearly had depth at middle infield at the time, so losing this player was not that big of a deal. Martinez has continued to hit sub .200 but has bounced from Philly to Pittsburgh to Cleveland, splitting time between AAA and the major league rosters providing MIF cover.
Jamie Hoffman; OF, Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Los Angeles Dodgers and immediately traded for Brian Bruney in a pre-arranged deal. NY returned him to the Dodgers later that spring. Bruney, meanwhile, immediately went to arbitration and lost with the team in the spring of 2010, was awful out of the gate, and the team outright released him before the end of May. Verdict: failure, all the way around this transaction.
The team lost one player in this draft:
Zech Zinicola was drafted away from us by Toronto, who eventually returned him to the Nats without any Toronto appearances. His selection was probably due to Dana Brown's hiring in Toronto, going from Washington's Scouting Director to being a special assistant to the GM in Toronto. Zinicola remained in our farm system until 2013, when he was released.
Terrell Young: Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Cincinnati. He got hurt, never played for us, and was eventually returned to the Reds. His injury was severe enough that he was out of baseball after being drafted; he has no professional games after 2008. Verdict: failure.
Ricardo Nanita, selected in the minor league phase, played most of 2009, then went to the Mexican league, then got picked up by Toronto in minor league free agency and has been there ever since, playing all of 2013 in Buffalo. Verdict: failure.
The team lost two players in the minor league phase:
RHP Luis Ortega to Royals was picked up off the Nats rookie squad, pitched one more season for Kansas City's rookie squad and was cut.
RHP Josh Perrault was picked up by the Orioles, who bounced him around their farm system for a couple of years before he retired in 2010.
Matt Whitney: 1B/3B, Drafted and then eventually returned back to Cleveland, who eventually made the former 1st rounder a ML free agent and we signed him after the 2008 season. We cut him after the 2009 season and he retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.
Garrett Guzman: LF/RF: after Rule-5 selecting him, the team eventually traded a PTBNL for him to Minnesota, then we cut him outright and nobody picked him up. He played two years of Independent ball and was out of baseball after 2010. Guzman is more infamously known as the player who was caught having sex with an underage girl while playing for our AA team in Harrisburg in 2008, likely the reason why nobody picked him up after his DFA. Verdict: embarrassing failure.
The Nats lost one player of note in the minor league phase in this draft:
Brett Campbell was drafted by Milwaukee in the AAA phase of the rule-5 draft. Milwaukee released him in spring training of the subsequent 2008 season and Campbell never played another inning of pro baseball. This seems especially odd to me: he was drafted in 2004 and rose all the way through the Nats system to debut in the majors by Sept of 2006. He pitched in just two games in 2006, and returned to the minors in 2007. Was he hurt? He was only 26 when he apparently hung them up. Oddity.
Jesus Flores, C, drafted from the New York Mets, stuck with the team all year despite having only played high-A ball in the minors. Despite his eventual injury issues that plagued him for the better part of 3 seasons, Flores remains the best example of a "found gold" prospect that can be had in the Rule 5 draft. After the Nats DFA'd him last off-season, he bounced around both LA and Tampa's AAA teams in 2013 but did not appear in the majors. Verdict: success.
Levale Speigner RHP (a closer) was drafted from Minnesota and, as with Booker above, eventually was traded for by the Nats so they could keep him and stash him in the minors. After some awful outings for the big team, he passed through waivers mid 2008 and was released from AAA in 2008, bounced around a couple other organizations, and retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.
The Nats lost one player in this draft:
Alejandro Machada was drafted by Minnesota just a month after the Nats had re-signed him to a minor league contract. So Machada didn't have to stay on their active roster. And indeed he didn't; he was injured all of 2007 and stayed with Minnesota's AAA team until 2009, never again broaching the majors.
The Nats did not draft anyone, but had a player taken who went on a whirlwind tour of MLB organizations before getting returned mid 2006.
Chris Booker was rule-5 drafted by Detroit, who immediately sold him to Philadelphia, who then waived him in May of 2006 with the intent of returning him … except that Kansas City picked him up, hung onto him for a couple months and eventually returned him to Washington. The Nats eventually called him up but he was relatively ineffective and he washed out of the game (seemingly due to injuries) after 2008.
Tony Blanco: 1B; drafted from Cincinnati. He batted .177 as a 1st baseman backup while eating a roster spot all season, then we cut him from AAA after 2007. He kicked around Colorado's system for a year and has been playing in Japan ever since. Verdict: failure.
Tyrell Godwin: CF, drafted from Toronto. Prior to the 2005 season, the team traded another minor leaguer to keep his rights, so this really played out less like a Rule-5 pickup in that Godwin didn't have to stick on the 25-man roster all year. He played a grand total of 3 games for the Nats, kicked around AAA for a while an hung them up in 2007. Verdict: failure.
Summary: we've drafted 11 guys in the MLB phase Rule 5 draft since 2005, and I'd classify 10 of the 11 draftees as eventual failures. Not a great track record. Plus its safe to say that most every player drafted FROM us has been a failure for the drafting team. Clearly the Rule 5 draft isn't a great way to reliably find players. Why do we do so much analysis on it? I dunno, because its fun? Because its December and we're desperate for Baseball news? Fair enough
Posted in Nats in General,Rule-5
Tagged with adrian nieto, alberto gonzalez, alejandro machada, anthony rendon, brad meyers, brett campbell, brian broderick, brian bruney, dan butler, dana brown, danny rosenbaum, elvin ramirez, erik komatsu, garrett guzman, hector nelo, jack mcgeary, jamie hoffman, jeff kobernus, jesus flores, jose lobaton, josh perrault, joshua kusnick, levale speigner, luis ortega, martires arias, matt whitney, michael martinez, ricardo nanita, ryan sullivan, terrell young, theo bowe, tony blanco, tyrell godwin, zach zinocola, zack cox
Nats Blogosphere/Blog-Roll and RSS Feed Review 2015
So, with the addition of TalkNats.com to the Nats Blogosphere, I decided to re-visit my blogroll and to do some adding/removing as necessary. I culled through my RSS feed and did some re-arranging. The last time I really dug into a review of the Nats blogosphere was in March 2013, and lots has changed since then.
Here's what my collection of Natsmosphere links looks like now. Let me know if you think i'm missing any. This is a combination of Nats blogs and "blogs" run by Nats beat reporters. I don't count baseball columnists like Tom Boswell or Thom Loverro as "bloggers" here since they're columnists and don't entirely focus on the nats.
Note: in some cases i've found that blogs that I thought went dark really just changed affiliations, changed their host name, eliminated their RSS feeds (like redporchreport.com), or something else. And it definitely seems like we've lost a "blog" from the Washington Times after Amanda Comak left the Times to go work for the team. So, please help me correct this list and tell me if I'm missing anyone.
Active blogs (generally have posted something in the last week, though some have been idle for a few months and have been given a pass):
All Nats All The Time (Ladson) therocket.mlblogs.com
Citizens of Natstown (Landwermeyer, Huzzard, Hogan, OHara, Davila) citizensofnatstown.wordpress.com
Clem's Baseball (Andrew Clem) andrewclem.com/Baseball.php
DC Baseball History (Audley, Hornbaker, et al) dcbaseballhistory.com
Distinguished Senators (Senators Ryan) distinguishedsenators.blogspot.com
District on Deck (Flax, Book, Somers, et al) districtondeck.com
District Sports Page (Nichols, Levitin, et al) districtsportspage.com
Federal Baseball (Reddington & Huzzard) federalbaseball.com
Hagerstown Suns Fan Club (Spedden) sunsfanclub.blogspot.com
IBWAA – DC (Nichols) dc-ibwaa.blogspot.com
Let Teddy Win (Scott) blog.letteddywin.com
MASNsports Byron on the Nats (Kerr) masnsports.com/byron_kerr
Mayflies & Bigflies (Mick Reinhard) mayfliesandbigflies.com
Nationals 101 (Frank and Susan Lattuca) nats101.com
Nationals Baseball (Harper) natsbaseball.blogspot.com
Nationals Buzz (MASN beat rptrs Kerzel, Witherite, etc) masnsports.com/nationals-buzz
NationalsProspects.com (Erickson, Whitzman) nationalsprospects.com
Nats Enquirer (ck) natsenquirer.com
Nats Insider (Zuckerman & Hughes) natsinsider.com
Nats Journal (Wagner, Janes) blog.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal
Nats Noodles (Nat Anacostia) natsnoodles.com
NatsGM (Sullivan) natsgm.com
Natstradamus Blog (Luigi de guzman) natstradamus.wordpress.com
Notes from Natstown (Comak) curlyw.mlblogs.com
Red Porch Report (Eaton & Sullivan; RSS feed broken) redporchreport.com
TalkNats (Ghost of Steve M et al) talknats.com
The Nats Blog (Yoder, Drugan, Flax, et al) thenatsblog.com
The Nationals Review (Fleigel) thenationalsreview.com
Washington Nationals Blog: Nationals Home Plate (Yahoo) nationalshomeplate.com
Recently Inactivated blogs: per my RSS feed, no new posts in months or years. Could be because of RSS issues; let me know.
z DC is for Baseball (Sean Hogan now at Citizens) dcisforbaseball.blogspot.com
z First Ladies of Baseball (Ashley & Maggie; blog seems dead) firstladiesofbaseball.com
z For Love of the Nationals (Lint; inactive) flotn.blogspot.com
z Lady and the Nats (NatsLady; was blogging in Apr2015 and then stopped) ladyandthenats.blogspot.com
z MASNsports The Goessling Game (went to ESPN) masnsports.com/the_goessling_game
z Nationals Inquisition (Drew Kinback; quit after 2015 season) natsnq.com
z Nationals Watch (was Comak; no WT blog?) www.washingtontimes.com/blog/nationals-watch/
z Nats Exposed (Karl Kolchak: stopped blogging Oct 2014) natsexposed.wordpress.com
z Nats Fan Girl (Jenson; no longer blogging) natsfangirl.com
z Nats Nation (Section 138; stopped writing) gnatsgnation.blogspot.com
z The Zimmerman(n) Telegram (stopped 2014) thezimmermanntelegram.wordpress.com
Beat Reporter Review
By the Way, am I missing any beat reporters? By my count, here's the outlets covering the Nats and their beat reporter:
MLB: Bill Ladson
Washington Post: James Wagner, Chelsea Janes (formerly Adam Kilgore, Barry Svrluga)
Washington Times: Zac Boyer, Todd Dybas? (formerly Amanda Comak)
Comcast Sports Net: Mark Zuckerman, Chase Hughes
MASN: Byron Kerr, Chris Johnson, Pete Kerzel, Olivia Witherite
Washington Examiner: Stopped covering sports in 2013.
Does anyone else cover this team regularly in print?
Tagged with adam kilgore, amanda comak, andrew clem, barry svrluga, ben goessling, bill ladson, byron kerr, chase hughes, chelsea janes, chris johnson, dave huzzard, dave lint, dave nichols, de guz, frank lattuca, james wagner, jamie ohara, karl kolchak, mark zuckerman, olivia witherite, patrick reddington, pete kerzel, rachel levitin, ryan sullivan, sean hogan, susan lattuca, thom loverro, todd dybas, tom boswell, will yoder, zac boyer
DC-IBWAA 2014 Poll results and my vote
Each year, David Nichols of the District Sports Page blog does a great job getting all the Nats bloggers to participate in pre-season and post-season polls, voting on awards for the team for the year.
For 2014, here's his post-season awards as voted on by us nerd bloggers. 2013's post-season poll results and my post here.
Here's how I voted and why.
2014 DC-Internet Baseball Writers Association
POST-SEASON ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS BALLOT
AWARD FIRST (5 POINTS) SECOND (3 points) THIRD (1 point)
Goose Goslin Most Valuable Player
Player most valuable to the success of the Washington Nationals Rendon Werth LaRoche
Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher of the Year
Excellent performance as a starting pitcher Zimmermann Fister Roark
Frederick "Firpo" Marberry Relief Pitcher of the Year
Excellent performance as a relief pitcher Storen Clippard Soriano
Sam Rice Hitter of the Year
Excellence in all-around hitting, situational hitting and baserunning Rendon Span Werth
Frank Howard Slugger of the Year
Excellence in power hitting LaRoche Desmond Rendon
Joe Judge Defensive Player of the Year
Excellence in fielding
Rendon Harper Span
Mickey Vernon Comeback Player of the Year
Player who overcame biggest obstacle in the preceding season to contribute on the field Storen Roark Barrett
Josh Gibson Humanitarian Player of the YearPlayer who meritoriously gave of himself to the community Zimmerman Desmond Ramos
Minor League Player of the Year Minor league player most destined for big league success Souza Taylor Giolito
Award by Award:
Team MVP: Have to go with Rendon; easily leads the team in WAR (by a nearly 3-win margin in bWAR over Werth/Span in second place). Werth continues to steadily hold on to his skills and contribute well into his mid 30s, while LaRoche put up a great contract year performance.
Starter of the Year: No argument here: Zimmermann was the best starter on the year. Fister's advanced stats don't like him (his FIP is above 4.00) but he gets results. And Roark remains the best "found gold" the Nats have had in terms of prospect matriculation since the likes of Brad Peacock.
Reliever of the Year: Storen's great bounce back year has to put him in the lead, followed closely behind by Clippard. Still think the Soriano acquisition was worth it? I have him 3rd here just by virtue of his first half … and because the rest of the relievers were either long guys (Stammen, Detwiler), matchup loogies (Blevins, Thornton) or guys who spent more time in AAA than the majors (Barrett, Treinen).
Hitter of the Year: Rendon, Werth obvious top 3 guys, but I like what Span's done this year in terms of jacking his average up. Another classic contract year performance.
Slugger of the year: I just went with the team leaders in homers 1-2-3. You would have thought that Harper would be here by now.
Defender of the year: looking at the various advanced stats, I ended up with Rendon for his excellent work at 2B and 3B, then Harper (an excellent UZR/150 in left on the year). Span has a negative UZR/150 in center on the year, but passes the eye test. I'll be curious to see how he ends up looking in the other defensive metrics. So he gets 3rd place essentially because there's not another regular who has a positive UZR/150 on the team.
Comeback player: Storen makes the most sense … his comeback has been two years in the making. Roark isn't really a comeback guy as much as he's a "making the most of his chances guy." Neither is Barrett honestly; but there's not a good example of someone who was hurt or really came out of nowhere to make this team better.
Humanitarian: Honestly I only know of two guys on the Nats who actively do humanitarian/charity stuff and that's Zimmerman and Desmond.
Minor League Player of the Year. As discussed in the comments of another post recently, for me "Minor League Player of the Year" is a completely different list than the subtitle offered of "Minor league player most destined for big league success." POTY for me this year went Souza, Taylor and Giolito, while the top 3 prospects in our system probably are Giolito, Cole and Taylor.
1) Of the players on the current active roster (or DL), which players do you think will not be part of the organization next season?
Pitchers: Blevins, Mattheus, Ohlendorf, Soriano, Detwiler
Out-field players: Solano, Cabrera, LaRoche, Frandsen, Span, Hairston, Schierholz
I'm guessing the team declines Soriano's option, non-tenders Ohlendorf, Mattheus and Detwiler, and DFAs Blevins after his poor season.
Of the positional players, the team won't exercise its options on LaRoche or Span, will have to end up DFA-ing Solano (and perhaps others; I havn't done my options analysis yet) due to having no more options, and will let veteran FAs Frandsen, Hairston and Schierholz hit free agency. I think Cabrera is going to command too much money for the team to realistically consider him.
2) Will Ian Desmond or Jordan Zimmermann sign a contract extension before they hit the free agent market?
No. Both will go to FA. Desmond to the Yankees to be the next Derek Jeter, Zimmermann to highest bidder.
3) Who was the biggest pleasant surprise on this year's team?
Rendon's advancement and central role on the team.
4) Who was the biggest disappointment?
Zimmerman's continued inability to stay healthy. A close second is Harper's injury riddled season and struggles.
5) Who is your favorite professional Nats writer?
Mark Zuckerman #1. After him, i'll go with Adam Kilgore 2nd and Byron Kerr third.
6) Which is your favorite non-professional Nats blog or writer?
Luke Erickson; sorry to see him take a step back. My #2 probably is NatsGM Ryan Sullivan, #3 Luigi de Guzman of Natsradamus (when he infrequently posts).
October 1st, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Tagged with aaron barrett, adam kilgore, adam laroche, aj cole, anthony rendon, asdrubal cabrera, blake treinen, brad peacock, bryce harper, byron kerr, craig stammen, denard span, derek jeter, doug fister, drew storen, ian desmond, jayson werth, jerry blevins, jerry hairston, jhonatan solano, jordan zimmermann, kevin frandsen, lucas giolito, luigi de guzman, luke erickson, mark zuckerman, matt thornton, michael taylor, nate schierholz, rafael soriano, ross detwiler, ross ohlendorf, ryan sullivan, ryan zimmerman, steven souza, tanner roark, tyler clippard, wilson ramos
Blogging goodbyes and hellos
When I first started blogging here (4+ years and 750+ posts ago), the sole local coverage of the Nats farm systems was thanks to Brian Oliver's Nationals Farm Authority blog. Oliver covered the farm systems with daily recaps of each minor league affiliate's game, some quick stat lines for stars and duds, and generally made it quite easy to follow the minor league affiliates.
Following the minor leagues was important in 2010, because the team had just bottomed out with two straight 100+ loss seasons, had jettisoned a GM that seemed out of his depth to turn the team around, and had just drafted two of the biggest draft-day names in a generation in Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. I was personally convinced that the pathway to success at the MLB level, and the most undervalued resource in the game, was developing quality pre-arbitration starters out of your system. I began tracking the rotations of the minor league teams closely, looking for the next Jordan Zimmermann (arguably the best starter this team has developed not named Strasburg in the Washington era of baseball).
Eventually, Oliver "took a real job" and had to step down from daily posting. When Oliver hung 'em up, a new blogger stepped up to take his place. Initially going by a pseudonym (literally, "Sue Dinem"), but eventually "coming out" and revealing his name, Luke Erickson's Nationals Prospects blog picked up where Oliver left off and has served as the go-to place for tracking Nats affiliates for the past several years. I would not be able to track the minor league rotations like I do without his work. And, as was probably an inevitability, Erickson too has announced he's hanging them up (clarification per Luke: "dialing it back") and heading back into the workforce himself.
Back in the 2009 time-frame, I covered for Oliver for a week of doing his weekly recaps on NFA. He was going on vacation and would not have any time to do the coverage. I quickly discovered the time involved; it took 2+ hours a day to run through the links and drill down into the recaps done at various local papers to do this daily coverage. In fact, I created a links page at my own personal website just to assist with the linking (a links page that I maintain and use to this day in fact; scroll to the bottom for all the minor league affiliate links). At the end of the week I questioned how Oliver found the time … and always marveled at how Erickson kept it up for years on end.
Nowadays, there's more people covering the farm system (just off the top of my head, Ryan Sullivan's NatsGM does a great job, especially in draft coverage, and the likes of Byron Kerr at MASN and some of the MLB guys are doing more farm coverage than ever before), which is great, but the stuff that Erickson provided was invaluable. I sincerely hope that someone steps up to continue the daily farm coverage like we've seen (I know that Erickson had some help writing the dailies this season; if you're reading this Jason Crocker, Julie Goldberg, Souldrummer and whoever is "the two SDs" I hope you consider taking over). In fact, if someone doesn't take over perhaps we could propose a daily summary by community to spread around the work, where volunteers would take certain days to keep the summaries alive. I'd certainly be up for this arrangement, committing to one day a week instead of seven.
In the meantime, as discussed in the comments, long time commenter "bdrube" (real name Karl Kolchak) has announced his own blog and I'd like to welcome him to the fold. Nats EXPOsed has started with a strong set of prospect-centric posts and I encourage everyone to give him a RSS subscribe and join the party.
Thanks again to Luke's years of efforts.
Posted in Local Baseball,Minor League Pitching
Tagged with brian oliver, bryce harper, byron kerr, jason crocker, jordan zimmermann, julie goldberg, karl kolchak, luke erickson, ryan sullivan, stephen strasburg
Suarez is the Nats 2nd round pick. Photo via 247sports.com
As we did last year, here's a quick introduction to the Nats top 10 picks for 2014.
A quick glance on our high-end draftees from 2014 draft. I'll put in the rankings from several prospect ranking shops (Keith Law, Baseball America, MLB.com and MinorLeagueBall). overall player ranking after the player name where appropriate (though as we'll see, Keith's top 100 quickly runs out of names). Here's a link to the draft order, and here's a link to MLB.com's fantastic draft tracker database for reference.
As he did last year, NatsGM.com's Ryan Sullivan is live-blogging and does a great job of pulling up stats on each of our picks. I depend on his reports as well as those from the four links above to give a quick overview of our draftees.
Note: I wrote most of this over the weekend as the guys were picked; we're already hearing plenty of rumors about signings. I havn't updated this post with such intel but I'm sure its readily available from Ladson and Kilgore and the like.
1st round/#18 overall: Erick Fedde, UNLV RHP (Law #27/BA #24/MLB #33/MinorLeagueBall #70). Most of the credible mock drafts had the Nats drafting Fedde here, and that's exactly what happened. In my quickie preview post, I thought Fedde would be an overdraft and hoped that either Tyler Beede or Brandon Finnegan would drop. Well, Beede went 14th and Finnegan went 17th. I liked Touki Toussant as well as a prep HS that may drop to the Nats, but he went 16th. I'm not sure I agree with pundits who say that Fedde was a "top 10 talent" prior to his injury; I still think this is an overdraft on Fedde given the fact that he's rehabbing a blown UCL. Look at the placement of Fedde on the four prospect ranking shops; that's an awful lot of trust being placed into the hands of the surgeon, the rehab process, and the recovery. That being said, looking at the next several players picked, there wasn't a name that really stood out as someone that I would have rather had who at the same time was a prototypical Mike Rizzo pick Maybe Connor Gillaspie would have worked (he went #20). Ryan Sullivan thinks we got a steal here; i'm not so sure. I think the Nats were looking at their board while the Giants were picking at #14, and then had their next best three names get snatched out from under them, leaving them taking a gamble on Fedde.
On the player himself; Fedde is tall (6'4″) but *skinny* (listed at between 165 and 180), sits 91-93 and touched 95 with excellent movement. Secondary pitches can flatten out because of his lower arm slot, but he's listed with a decent slider and decent change. ESPN thinks he projects a 65 fastball and a 60 slider but needs to work on his command. Very preliminary ceiling/projection is as a mid-rotation starter. The thought is that he can fill out his frame and add velocity, though he's done neither in his three college years.
He's a Scott Boras client, he was a HS teammate of Bryce Harper, and he's rehabbing a torn UCL, so he fits in nicely with the Nats on several levels. It was easy to see why the mock drafts were all over the Nats taking Fedde. In reality, I'll bet the war room was rather dejected watching the three a-forementioned pitchers drop off the board in the 4 preceding picks to #18.
2nd round/#57 overall: Andrew Suarez, LHP from U-Miami (Law out of top 100/BA #75/MLB #86/MinorLeagueBall #103). A re-draft (he was picked in the 9th round out of HS but chose to go to school), he suffered a torn labrum early in his college career but reportedly picked up velocity this past season and held it through most of the year. Law alludes to other medical issues that clearly had him down on Suarez (Law ranked him lowest of my 4 resources). He spent the year as Miami's saturday starter (aka, their #2 starter). BA mentioned him in their draft preview specifically because of his fantastic control; he had just a 1.34 BB/9 rate despite throwing a low 90s fastball that can reach 95. He pitched a shut-out in game 1 of the Coral Gables regional, a 7-hit, 10K, 0 walk outing that matched his career high; nice way to finish off your college career (Miami was elminated from CWS play before Suarez could throw again). Scouting reports say he profiles as a 4th starter. (Note: my fingers just automatically typed Luis Suarez, aka Liverpool and Uruguay's striker. Part of me is in World Cup mode already).
3rd round/#93 overall: Jakson Reetz, prep Catcher from Nebraska (#38/#62/#40/#36). A prep catcher isn't who you normally expect to see this high on the National's draft results, but his pre-draft rankings show that he's clearly a steal at the mid-3rd round. The question is; is he signable here? $567k is his bonus slot figure; he might be a tough sign unless the Nats have a pre-draft deal with Fedde to save some money for a guy like Reetz. His pedigree is good: MVP of the PG all-american game, member of the same world champion U-18 team that #1 overall pick Brady Aiken was on. In prep games he was showing 91 from the mound and reportedly has a great arm, but some scouting reports say he may struggle to stay behind the plate. As pointed out by NatsGM.com's Ryan Sullivan, BA did a "day in the life" piece on Reetz that is worth checking out; once you watch this you'll really like Reetz. Last note: Keith Law even likes the pick and says he'll sign.
4th round/#124 overall: Robbie Dickie, juco RHP from Blinn college in Texas (na/210/179/173). 95-97 on the gun, led his team to the Juco World Series, but he may project as a reliever thanks to questionable mechanics. Quite a pop-up guy, but an over draft based on the rankings in the major publications. He's committed to Texas State if he doesn't sign, which isn't exactly a baseball powerhouse, so is this a value/slot saving pick?
5th Round/ #154 overall: Drew Van Orden, a senior RHP from Duke (na/395/na/na). Good numbers on the year as Duke's Friday starter (6-5, 3.19 ERA, more than a k/inning). He finished off his college career with a 5-hit complete game shutout over Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament, Duke's only win in their post-season tournament. I like his pedigree despite the fact that he's a senior 5th round pick with zero leverage. Who are the Nats saving all this money for? Update: Van Orden quickly signed, terms undisclosed.
6th Round/#184 overall: Austen Williams, junior RHP from Texas State ( na/#276/na/na). Nats clearly saw something in Williams that other draft pundits did not; even MinorLeagueBall (who ranked to 350) didn't have him listed. Texas State's friday starter continues a long trend of the Nats plucking talent out of Texas. Williams posted solid numbers as Texas State's Friday starter (8-3, 3.65 era, good K/9 rates). I'm sure he'll take a bit more than slot to sign, but the Nats should have some pennies saved.
7th Round/#214 overall: Dale (D.K.) Kerry, a senior Center fielder from the U of Miami (na/#332/na/#133). MLB's scouting report on him says he's a great athlete and he has a "4th outfielder" projection. Sounds like the perfect senior 7th round draft pick to me (sarcasm). Ryan Sullivan is more bullish on him than I.
8th Round/#244 overall: Jeff Gardner, senior corner OF from Louisville (na/498/na/na). He may be a senior, but he's also the clean-up hitter for a CWS-bound team and had great stats on the year (.321/.403/.538 with 9 homers). Not a bad find for the 8th round.
9th Round/#274 overall: Austin Byler, junior 1B from Nevada (94/123/166/271). Well, now we see why the Nats are saving their pennies; getting Byler here is a find. He should have been taken in the 3rd or 4th round if you believe the pundits, and he may take an over-slot deal to buy him out of his senior year. He's got serious power (he led his conference in homers and is an offensive threat) and would be a great find if he signs.
10th Round/#304 overall: Matthew Page, senior RF from Oklahoma Baptist (na/na/na/na). A d-2 pick for a team that a) loves guys from the south west already and b) has shown itself more than willing to gamble on non D-I players. I can't imagine he'll be expensive to sign. He's also the first player the Nats have picked that didn't appear anywhere on any of the draft previews.
Summary: Through the first 10 rounds the Nats picked 5 pitchers and 5 hitters for good balance. Of these 10 players selected, 9 are college. So, in other words, this is exactly the type of draft we expect to see out of a Rizzo-run organization (with the possible exception of perhaps predicting a few more arms).
Of these 10 draftees, I'd say that at least 5 are "expected under slot guys" (Dickie, Van Orden, Kerry, Gardner and Page). You have to think the team may play some slot hardball with Fedde. Suarez and Williams should sign for about slot. That leaves two guys who may take over-slot deals to sign; the sole HS draftee in Reetz and the decently ranked Byler. I'll bet it works out and all 10 guys sign.
Some useful draft links for you:
Here's the first round draft order for the 2014 draft. Nats pick #18th.
At mlb.com, here's a tracker of the top 10 rounds of signings with known bonus figures.
Detailed first round order (and why teams gained or lossed picks) from Bill Chuck on GammonsDaily.com.
Allmetsports.com DC area Baseball signing status for all notable local players.
BaseballAmerica's Draft Preview with write-ups on top 200 players. Furthermore for subscribers they have a top 500 list and Links to final college stats of all BA top-200 players.
Keith Law's Mock Draft and top-100 list. (espn insider only).
MLB.com's top 100 Prospect Watch
MinorLeagueBall's Matt Garrioch's top 350 draft prospects. But more importantly his Mid-Atlantic draft preview, a great resource with home towns and college committments of all DC/MD/VA players.
MLB.com's draft central home page, which includes the incredibly useful Draft Tracker database, which lets you search for players by Name, position, home state, school, etc.
Yahoo's Jeff Passan obtained copies of the letters MLB sent both to agents and teams, describing the "rules of behavior" agents and teams are supposed to follow.
Draft Slot assigned bonus values per BA for the first 10 rounds. After round 10, every subsequent spot has a slot value of $100k. Here's a link to the total bonus pool per team: Nats are at $5.275M for the whole draft.
Quick link to the college stats of BA's top prospects
PerfectGame.org for information on prep players, college committments, etc
d1baseball.com as an entrypoint to get to any college's statlines.
Tagged with adam kilgore, andrew suarez, austen williams, austin byler, bill chuck, bill ladson, brady aiken, brandon finnegan, bryce harper, connor gillaspie, dale kerry, drew van orden, erick fedde, jakson reetz, jeff gardner, jeff passan, keith law, luis suarez, matt garrioch, matthew page, mike rizzo, robbie dickie, ryan sullivan, scott boras, touki toussant, tyler beede
DC-IBWAA Poll results and my vote
http://dc-ibwaa.blogspot.com/2013/10/dc-internet-baseball-writers.html
David Nichols does a great job getting all the Nats bloggers to participate in pre-season and post-season polls. He got 18 voters this time around. The link above is the results of the post-season poll. Here's his post-season survey questions, the poll results and how I answered them and why.
Goose Goslin Most Valuable PlayerPlayer most valuable to the success of the Washington Nationals Werth Desmond Harper
Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher of the YearExcellent performance as a starting pitcher Zimmermann Strasburg Gonzalez
Frederick "Firpo" Marberry Relief Pitcher of the YearExcellent performance as a relief pitcher Clippard Stammen Roark
Sam Rice Hitter of the YearExcellence in all-around hitting, situational hitting and baserunning Desmond Span Harper
Frank Howard Slugger of the YearExcellence in power hitting Werth Harper Zimmerman
Joe Judge Defensive Player of the YearExcellence in fielding Span Desmond Espinosa
Mickey Vernon Comeback Player of the YearPlayer who overcame biggest obstacle in the preceding season to contribute on the field Jordan Ramos Werth
Josh Gibson Humanitarian Player of the YearPlayer who meritoriously gave of himself to the community Zimmerman
Minor League Player of the YearMinor league player most destined for big league success
Giolito Burns
Cole Souza
Goose Goslin Most Valuable Player: Werth, Desmond, Zimmermann. I went Werth, Desmond and Harper. I don't like voting pitchers for MVP; they have their own awards
Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher of the Year: Zimmermann, Strasburg, Gonzalez: Same way I voted. I do like the few side-votes for Roark.
Frederick "Firpo" Marberry Relief Pitcher of the Year : Clippard, Stammen, Soriano: I voted Clippard, Stammen and then Roark. Honestly I did not think Soriano really did that great a job this year. He had a 0.9 WAR for his $15M salary (with deferred payments). That just doesn't cut it for me for a high-end closer. I want Craig Kimbrel-esque dominance for that kind of money. Roark on the other hand had a 2.0 bWAR in his limited time on the team.
Sam Rice Hitter of the Year: Werth, Desmond, Zimmerman. I went Desmond, Span, Harper. I dunno; I guess I got caught up on the definition, which included "baserunning" and "situational" hitting. I think I just plain forgot how good a season Werth had here.
Frank Howard Slugger of the Year: Werth, Harper, Zimmerman: same way as I voted. Maybe we should have put more thought into it besides just listing the team leaders in homers.
Joe Judge Defensive Player of the Year: Span, Desmond, Ramos. I went Span, Desmond and Espinosa. Despite how bad his bat was, Espinosa was still awfully good in the field. You always forget about the catchers when rating defenders. I'm guilty here.
Mickey Vernon Comeback Player of the Year: Ramos, Werth, Ohlendorf. I went Jordan, Ramos and Werth. Remember, Jordan had Tommy John surgery and was buried in high-A to start the season. That's a heck of a comeback. Fair enough on Ramos after his kidnapping ordeal and his injuries.
Josh Gibson Humanitarian Player of the Year: Zimmerman, Desmond, Gonzalez. Honestly I only voted for Zimmerman; do the rest of these guys do events? Maybe i'm just unaware of what the rest of the team is doing in the charity world, but clearly Zimmerman's MS causes is well known.
Minor League Player of the Year : Giolito, Rendon, Cole: I voted Giolito, Cole and Goodwin, thinking that Rendon was "graduated." I have two lines of players because I wasn't sure how to answer the question at first; was it "3 best prospects" or "3 best minor league players THIS season?" Because the answer to the latter question clearly is not the same as the answer to the former question.
1. Which players on the 40-man roster at the end of the season are least likely to return in 2010?
I said Cedeno, Haren, Ohlendorf, Tracy (which were the top four answers among all the responses) but i'd like to change my mind on Ohlendorf. I think the team is going to tender him and keep him around as a long man, considering that he can't refuse an option until mid-next year. I also think a couple of these random guys picked up on waivers late in the season (Tyler Robinson and Mauro Gomez) may not stick around for the long haul. These two guys in particular never even got numbers assigned to them.
2. Will the Nats sign Ian Desmond and Jordan Zimmermann to long-term contract extensions before they reach free agency?
I said "Desmond yes, Zimmermann maybe." Honestly, I feel the team can replace Zimmermann from within and may be better served to flip him for prospects if his price tag gets too high. At some point the Nats are going to have to make tough choices like this (they are not going to be able to give 9-figure deals to everyone on this team who deserves them) in order to maintain their core group and contine to compete. You already have two 9-figure deals, and you have to think that Desmond, Harper and Strasburg are going to merit them. can you have a team with that much top-heavy payroll? Now, if you got Zimmerman for Gonzalez prices (5 yrs $50M or so) then you have yourself a deal.
3. What player was the biggest surprise for the Nats this season?
I went with with Jordan, Roark, Werth. The group went with Roark, Werth, Jordan.
4. Who was the biggest disappointment?
I went with Haren, Span, LaRoche. The group went with Haren, Espinosa, Span. Maybe I didn't include Espinosa because I already had my doubts on him; frankly he didn't disappoint me, he met my low expectations for him in 2014.
5. Who is your favorite professional Nats writer?
I went with Mark Zuckerman. The survey results went Kilgore, Comak, Zuckerman and Wagner. Coincidentally bon voyage to Comak, who is leaving The Washington Times Nats beat.
6. Who is your favorite non-professional Nationals writer?
I went with Luigi de Guzman, writer of the blog Natstradamus. He doesn't write that frequently, but when he does they're usually thoughtful, well researched opinion pieces. Though that's no slight to Luke Erickson at Nationalsprospects.com, whose blog I absolutely depend on to write this blog. I also really like Ryan Sullivan's NatsGM blog and its focus on prospects. Generally speaking my preference in reading baseball writing on the internet leans towards opinion pieces. I know that lots of blogs out there try to be replacement newspaper writers/beat reporters. That's not what excites me. I want to see opinion pieces, criticism where criticism is due, etc. Harper Gordek at Nationals Baseball is one that definitely writes opinion pieces and I look forward to his stuff too. Unfortunately a lot of these guys have retired (Steven Biel, Chris Needham in particular were always good for a scathing piece when the team deserved it). I know there's a couple others out there who write good opinion pieces that i'm forgetting.
Yours truly got one vote! That's awesome, to whichever fellow blogger voted for me.
Tagged with adam kilgore, adam laroche, aj cole, amanda comak, anthony rendon, bryce harper, chad tracy, chris needham, craig kimbrel, craig stammen, dan haren, danny espinosa, denard span, gio gonzalez, harper gordek, ian desmond, james wagner, jayson werth, jordan zimmermann, lucas giolito, luigi de guzman, luke erickson, mark zuckerman, mauro gomez, rafael soriano, ross ohlendorf, ryan sullivan, ryan zimmerman, stephen strasburg, steven biel, tanner roark, taylor jordan, tommy john, tyler clippard, tyler robinson, wilson ramos, xavier cedeno
First Look; Nats top 10 rounds of 2013 Draftees
Meet Jake Johansen, the Nats 2nd round 2013 pick. Photo via DBU website
A quick glance on our high-end draftees from 2013 draft. As with other posts, I'll put in the Keith Law and Baseball America ranking after the player name where appropriate (though as we'll see, Keith's top 100 quickly runs out of names).
Two other blogs are doing a far more in-depth look at these picks than I am here; definitely see Ryan Kelley's fantastic scouting reports on each pick at BaseballNewsHound.com and see Ryan Sullivan's excellent draft day blog coverage at NatsGM.com for more and better in-sight than what I've got here. Plus Tom Schad at MLB.com has posted nice per-player summaries for all the Nats picks. I'm just looking for a quick hit observation on our new guys.
Rnd #1/#28 overall: In what would have been the Nats first round pick, the Cardinals selected Rob Kaminsky, a prep RHP from New Jersey. However at that point in the draft high-end prep lefty Ian Clarkin, pre-draft top-10 pick LHP Sean Manaea from Indiana State University and highly-regarded Arkansas RHP Ryne Stanek (another guy who was seen as an upper-end 1st rounder earlier this year with fantastic stuff) were still on the board. Don't you think the Nats wouldn't have minded a shot at Manaea or Stanek at above-slot and then punted on below-slot guys the rest of the way (kinda what they did in 2012 with Lucas Giolito and a senior-heavy first 10 rounds)? Both Manaea and Stanek dropped just in the past few weeks because of short-term injuries and both seem like steals at the end of the 1st round. Man I would have liked to see one of these two guys added to the farm system. Was this worth the Rafael Soriano signing?
Rnd #2/#68 overall: Jake Johansen, RHP from Dallas Baptist University. Keith Law ranked #63, Baseball America ranked #180. This is a classic Mike Rizzo pick; a big guy (6'6″) with a big arm (98-100mph on the fastball, sustained through out the game). Its almost like they're trying to replace Alex Meyer in the farm system. Johansen's college numbers leave something to be desired: 5.40 era this season, a career ERA > 6.00. Some have pointed out he has a very high BABIP on the year and that his conference is a hitter's paradise; fair counter points). For a guy who throws so hard, he had surprisingly few Ks this year (75 Ks in 88 1/3 innings). His size and profile seems to trend towards an automatic reliever, but the Nats profile him as a starter. You can't teach velocity right? The Nats execs are already on record saying that they're drafting the tools and they believe they can coach him up. FederalBaseball has a nice writeup on him with good quotes and the Nats press release on the pick too. Masn's Byron Kerr's write-up is here. Already some pundits questioning the pick (HardBallTalk). My thought? I would have liked to have drafted a polished guy with our highest pick, not a project. 6/8/13 update: already signed for slot value. Wow that was fast. Clearly smells like a pre-draft deal here.
Rnd #3/#105 Overall: Drew Ward, prep SS/3B from Oklahoma. BA #88. Prep 3B who's graduating a year early and with an Oklahoma commitment. I don't think he graduated HS a year early so he could get to college; he'll sign. Nice FederalBaseball writeup about him. Keith Law isn't a fan.
Rnd #4/#136 Overall: Nicholas "Nic" Pivetta, RHP from a New Mexico Juco. BA #155. The MLB scouting reports say he's an upper 90s fastball in short spurts and may be headed for the bullpen. Sounds like a Rizzo pick to me. Are you sure we're not drafting for need at the MLB level right now? :-). All signs point to reliever. Maybe we're so happy with our High-A rotation right now that we're just focusing on relivers who can go straight to AA and matriculate up the ranks with our current set of starters?
Rnd #5/#166 Overall: Austin Voth, RHP from University of Washington. BA #260. Seems like an over draft, might be a signability pick, though Voth fits the profile of a good K/9 guy. He was the University of Washington's friday starter, he was 2nd in the Pac-12 in strikeouts to #1 overall pick Mark Appel and had pretty good stats for a sub-.500 college team.
Rnd #6/#196 Overall: Cody Gunter 3B/RHP from Texas Juco. BA #249. Could be another reliever, but likely was drafted to play the field. MLB.com's writeup on him is here.
Rnd #7/#226 Overall: James Yezzo, 1B from UDelaware. BA #290. You usually don't like to draft 1B-only guys on NL teams, especially ones who are only 6'0″, but Yezzo clubbed his way to the CAA player of the year honor and hit .410 with power in a 3-big conference with some good baseball.
Rnd #8/#256 Overall: David Napoli, LHP from Tulane. Not BA ranked. A weekend senior starter for Tulane with a great BA against for one probable reason; he seems wild as heck. 33 walks in 66 innings and FOURTEEN Hbps this year. He had a fantastic batting average against (.176) and was even better in H/9 against (5.32 hits per 9, 2nd in the NCAA this year), but that's easier to do when you're all over the plate. Looks like a loogy to me; undersized (5'10" 180lb) and ok stuff (threw 87 in HS, reportedly can hit 93-94 in short stints). We'll see.
Rnd #9/#286 Overall: Jake Joyce, RHP from Virginia Tech. Not BA ranked. A prototypical round 6-9 pick; college senior, little leverage, will sign for below slot to save cash. Per the MLB.com story on him, a nats executive knows the family and made the recommendation. 95 out of the pen for Va Tech; you just hope that a reliever in college is going to be successful in the pros.
Rnd #10/#316 Overall: Brennan Middleton, SS from Tulane. Say hello to Auburn's starting SS this year.
First 10 round summary:
Four college RHP who mostly project to relievers
One college LHP who definitely projects as a reliever
Three college infielders; a 1B, a SS and a 3B.
One prep 3B who may be a tougher sign with a college commitment
So far, pretty typical Rizzo draft; college heavy with a focus on power arms destined for the bullpen. Is there one big name in this list to get excited about? Unfortunately not so far, but not having a 1st rounder and a crack at a big name (as described in the "possible 1st round missed" bullet point will leave a draft class wanting.
Tagged with alex meyer, austin voth, brennan middleton, byron kerr, cody gunter, david napoli, drew ward, ian clarkin, jake johansen, jake joyce, james yezzo, keith law, lucas giolito, mark appel, mike rizzo, nicholas pivetta, rafael soriano, rob kaminsky, ryan kelley, ryan sullivan, ryne stanek, sean manaea, tom schad
Mid-spring update on local draft prospects
High Schools are heading into post-season tournaments and local prep players have had their chances to make impressions through the Spring HS season. How are our local prep phenoms faring this year, and what players with Virginia ties may feature prominently in the upcoming MLB draft?
Note; it is difficult to find updated stats on Prep players. I tried. If you know where to find reliable prep hitting and pitching stats, let me know. So there's not much in the way of stats here unless they're college players. For all the players below I've listed if they appear in the latest top-100 draft prospect rankings from two reliable sources: Keith Law's top-100 draft list and BaseballAmerica's top 100 list and top 250 list. Instead of re-linking over and over, i'll refer to these two lists in shorthand via the links here.
First, quick updates on the players mentioned in my March 2013 posting on 4 local players:
Andy McGuire: SS/3B: leading Madison HS in Vienna to a 19-1 record (with 19 consecutive wins) heading into the District tournament and a #1 local ranking by the Washington Post. Madison is also an honorable mention in the latest USA Today national rankings. I asked Law in his 5/16/13 chat about McGuire's draft status (he's regularly in the lower 50 of pundit's top 100 draft prospects for this year, implying a mid 2nd round pick) but Law is "hearing" 4th round, which he's surprised by and may indicate that McGuire will honor his U. Texas committment. Draft Rankings: Law #74/BA #196. 6/6/13 update: some video of McGuire at this link; just watching him run and move and his body type I'm immediately thinking he's going to struggle to stay at SS, echoing what scouts say.
Alec Grosser: RHP TC Williams: Nothing else has really popped up about Grosser after the initial flurry of articles, and he's listed as "Signed" and committed to George Mason. PerfectGame has his best measured fastball at 92, ranging 89-92. That's still pretty good and I'm guessing he'll head to George Mason to see where his arm takes him. His HS has not had the success one would expect with a dominant arm, sitting at around .500 heading into the post-season. Not ranked by Law/BA #158.
Matt McPhearson: OF with Riverdale Baptist popped up on MinorLeagueBall's Mid-Atlantic report recently with the note that he has "game changing" speed. He's still listed as a "Verbal" Commit to U. Miami. I've seen him as a late 1st rounder on some mock drafts. Here's a good scouting report on him from BaseballHounds.com. Lastly there's some scouting video online of him, showing a good bat from the left-hand side and with some amazing speed stats: a verified 6.2 in the 60 yard dash and home-to-first in less than 3.8 seconds. As the articles say; that's Crazy fast. He's one of only three guys with an "80" scouting grade in this year's class per Jim Callis (the other two being Jonathan Gray's fastball, and Kris Bryant's power, and those two guys are both going in the top 3 of the 2013 draft). The only knock on him may be his size (just 5'10") but he profiles as a prototypical leadoff/center fielder. Law ranked #62/BA #136.
Thomas Rogers, LHP injured all year is still verbally committed to UNC. Nothing new to report. Not ranked in either Law/BA's lists.
A couple of new names that I've taken note of locally, by virtue of their college commitments to major Baseball programs:
Errol Robinson, SS from St. Johns, signed to play at Ole Miss. He was #92 in BaseballAmerica's top 100 pre-season draft prospects and had a nice Q&A with them in March 2013. His PerfectGame profile and draft write ups indicate he's a quick-bat SS who has the capability of going in the top 5 rounds. NatsGM's Ryan Sullivan scouted him about a week ago and wrote it up here. Based on this interview (where he talks about how his Mom, Dad and sister all attended or currently are at Ole Miss), I'm pretty sure he's going to honor his college commitment despite any potential drafting. Not ranked in either Law/BA's lists.
Alec Bettinger, a RHP with Hylton HS in Woodbridge, has a verbal commitment to UVA. PerfectGame has him with about a 90 mph fastball. He's "small but athletic" per this MinorLeagueBall article (6'0″ 165lbs), which may have him leaning towards a future professional bullpen role. 6'0″ is really on the low-end for what scouts like to see in a starter (think Tim Hudson is considered undersized and he's 6'1″ 175lbs), so it seems likely he'll take his fastball to college to see how it develops. Not ranked in either Law/BA's list.
Other Virginia-connected big names being talked about in the draft (thanks to this MinorLeagueBall article and comments for crowd-sourced Virginia-connected names to target)
Conner Jones, RHP with Great Bridge HS, the HS of Justin Upton down in Chesapeake. Jones is leading his HS to a current 19-0 record, good enough for being ranked 18th by USAToday/22nd by BaseballAmerica in the state title game. He's easily the best Virginia draft prospect this year and is the only guy that MLBDraftInsider.com has going in the top 50 of their mock drafts right now. PG has him at 93mph with a UVA committment that he has told scouts he intends to honor, but he's getting back-of-the-1st round notice for the upcoming draft. As scouts have noted, these "verbal commitments" are pretty meaningless unless a player specifically fails to file one specific item prior to the draft (which automatically invalidates them; i can't recall what it is right now but believe its a drug test). So we'll see. Law ranked #29/BA ranked #33.
Bobby Wahl: RHP from Ole Miss, a good sized Righty who is Ole Miss' Friday night starter and who hails from Springfield, VA (West Springfield HS). He's 9-0 with a 1.43 ERA on the season, quite a stat line considering who he's typically going up against (the #1 starters of other SEC teams, easily the best baseball conference in the land). Law ranked #66/BA ranked #36. If he last til the late 2nd round as Law suggests, he could be right around where the Washington Nationals could draft him with their first pick (#68 overall). However, John Sickels/MinorLeagueBall's latest mock draft has Wahl going #31, more consistent with BA's rankings. It doesn't seem likely he'll fall to the Nats.
Austin Nicely, LHP from Spotswood HS in Grottoes, Virginia (way down I-81 by my alma Mater James Madison University). PG has him as a lefty who throws 90 and is committed to UVA. Law #78/Not in BA's top 250, a huge disparity.
Chad Pinder, 3B Virginia Tech. Described as a plus-defender, decent bat. His season batting stats aren't that impressive as compared to his teammates, so he must be some defender. If he can really move to SS like the scouting reports say and still hit for average and some power, he's a good 2nd-3rd round prospect. Law ranked #86/BA ranked #53.
Jack Roberts, RHP from James River HS in Richmond, committed to UVA and per PG gets up to 92mph. Big guy (6'4″ 200lbs) who I'd bet can add more velocity if he goes to college. If he threw a couple ticks higher he'd probably be a big time prospect. Not ranked in either Law/BA's list.
Zach Rice, LHP from Suffolk (outside of Norfolk), tall lanky kid who slings it 89 from the left hand side. Committed to UNC. Worth mentioning since he's been recruited by the best team in the country. Not ranked in either Law/BA's list.
Kyle Crockett, LHP from UVA. He's UVA's closer (and a HS teammate of fellow draft prospect Chad Pinder). He throws 90-92 from the left side but has impeccable control; he has just one unintentional walk in 43 innings this year while getting more than a K/inning. Despite being used as a reliever, I can see someone moving him back to the rotation to see if his stuff can play for 6-7 innings at a time. Not ranked by Law/BA #103.
Conclusion: Looking at this list, UVA stands to lose an awful lot of pitching recruits if these guys don't honor their commitments. Bettinger, Jones, Nicely and Roberts are all UVA commits. But imagine that staff in a couple years if they all go to college. Phew.
2013 State Draft Report: Virginia
Tagged with alec bettinger, alec grosser, andy mcguire, austin nicely, bobby wahl, chad pinder, conner jones, errol robinson, jack roberts, jim callis, john sickels, jonathan grey, justin upton, keith law, kris bryant, kyle crockett, matt mcphearson, ryan sullivan, thomas rogers, tim hudson, zach rice


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Biografia
Esponente della Democrazia Cristiana, nel 1958 fu candidato al Senato senza risultare eletto, ma divenne poi senatore nel 1960, subentrando al defunto Adone Zoli. Terminò il mandato parlamentare nel 1963.

Fu sindaco di Pisa per quattro volte, per un periodo complessivo pari a circa dieci anni.

Collegamenti esterni

Senatori della III legislatura della Repubblica Italiana
Politici della Democrazia Cristiana
Sindaci di Pisa

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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How to manage tax disputes in the Netherlands
The tax authorities in the Netherlands have improved their reputation for fostering good relations with the taxpayer but the number of audits is still increasing. Job van der Pol, of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, explains the specifics of managing a tax dispute in the country.
International Tax Review: What advice would you give to companies operating in the Netherlands about how to reduce the risk of becoming involved in a dispute with the Dutch tax authorities?
Job van der Pol: Prospective new investors into the Netherlands can reduce the risk of becoming involved in a dispute with the Netherlands tax authorities through concluding an advance tax ruling (ATR) and/or an advance pricing agreement (APA).
This is not obligatory, but an option for investors who wish to have certainty in advance, without running the risk of having to debate the issue at stake a number of years later when the tax return is filed. As regards the matters covered by such ATR / APA, the risk of dispute would be (largely) non-existent, provided full disclosure of relevant facts has been given at the time the ATR/APA has been obtained and these facts have not materially changed.
Companies that are already active in the Netherlands also have the option of obtaining an ATR or APA. Large corporate taxpayers (and, increasingly, small and medium sized taxpayers as well), however, will typically conclude a horizontal monitoring covenant with the Netherlands tax authorities. As per such covenant, the tax authorities and the taxpayer will strive towards a transparent relationship in which the taxpayer will keep its tax inspector up-to-date on developments.
Accordingly, these taxpayers are less likely to request an ATR or APA, although on specific subjects this may well happen.
Also, less formalised rulings can be obtained in practice. Under the administrative concept of justifiable trust the tax authorities may be bound to honour confirmations given to tax payers on tax positions discussed, again under the condition that full disclosure was made and provided the tax payer is otherwise in good faith. One of the objectives of a covenant is to avoid becoming involved in disputes with the tax authorities, but in some circumstances the covenant leaves room for agreeing to disagree, which would mean that parties can agree to submit a technical dispute to the tax court.
What options do taxpayers in the Netherlands have to resolve tax disputes with the authorities other than litigation?
Settlement is a widely used and commonly accepted method of resolving tax disputes. Large Netherlands corporate taxpayers ,as well as the tax authorities, would often attempt to settle any disputes before going to court, and even after a dispute has been brought to court but a final judgement has not been given. This frequently occurs.
If a matter is taken to court, the larger taxpayers and the tax authorities would typically try to agree on what they disagree on – which ideally would only be technical matters of tax law, and not matters of fact.
This is primarily because of the cost, timing aspects (if disputes involve more instances, for example, Supreme Court and/or European Court of Justice, cases may take many years) and reputational risk a court case involves, even though tax court cases are typically only published in an anonymous form. Settlements obviously need to conform to the tax laws and case law.
Having said that, in cases where there is material uncertainty about the interpretation of the tax law, settlements can also take into account such uncertainty (in which case the tax under dispute is paid for a certain part only).
More recently, mediation has come up as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. Mediation was rolled out generally in 2007 and is now offered by the lower and district courts as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism in tax matters.
Mediation can be started both before and during a matter having been taken to court. In fact, the tax judge could bring the possibility of mediation to the parties' attention whilst the procedure is ongoing. Even after such suggestion by the tax court, both parties still need to voluntarily elect for mediation – which is obviously one of the key factors for any mediation; in other words, either party can decide to continue the court proceedings.
From my own experience in tax dispute matters I have worked on, mediation was considered in a situation where the relationship between the tax inspector(s) and the taxpayer's representative was difficult. In fact, this may have been partly to blame for the dispute in the first place and going to court was likely to result in the conflict escalating even further, whilst the parties involved would have to continue a working relationship for the years to come.
Whilst seeing the pros of mediation in this particular situation, there was some reluctance because mediation is still relatively new ground for large corporate taxpayers. Mediation is not generally considered a suitable instrument for resolving disputes on technical tax matters. One of the issues around mediation is the use of internal mediators employed by the tax authorities.
Are you seeing any trends in the types of cases the Dutch tax authorities are taking up, and those where they are succeeding in the courts?
The Netherlands tax authorities have, in recent years, been particularly active and successful in questioning the arm's-length character of intercompany loans.
Taxpayers will, in response to these court cases, ensure to have documentation in place substantiating the arm's-length nature of the terms and conditions of intercompany loan arrangements, in particular showing that the creditor is not taking any risks it is only willing to accept because of the shareholder relationship with the debtor. Despite the increased awareness with taxpayers, this issue is likely to be the subject of a number of future court cases.
The number of disputes in which large taxpayers have been involved seems to have decreased as a result of the horizontal monitoring approach. Cases that have reached the courts are more focused on principal matters of law, rather than on factual disputes.
What do you think taxpayers can expect from the Dutch tax authorities in the future?
Horizontal monitoring will continue to be high on the tax authorities' agenda. With the objective of devoting audit resources as efficiently as possible, the tax authorities endeavour to work in the present and to not have to audit the past.
As mentioned before, under the terms of a covenant, the authorities and the taxpayer will strive towards a transparent relationship in which the taxpayer will keep its tax inspector updated on developments. Before entering into the covenant, the tax authorities will typically audit any years not audited yet with a view to commence the horizontal monitoring approach with a fresh start.
In such cleaning up the past approaches, there is sometimes room for the taxpayer to settle past tax controversies. The taxpayer will have to commit not to actively seek the boundaries of what is acceptable tax structuring, to disclose to the tax authorities the accounting treatment of certain tax-driven structures and to transparently discuss all material tax risks. In return, the tax authorities commit to dealing with the tax assessments and questions from the taxpayer in an expeditious manner and in principle not to conduct extensive tax audits. Moreover, the taxpayer will have to set up a tax control framework, which is to be agreed upon (and audited) by the tax authorities.
A recent review of these practices by an independent committee, however, may lead to more confirmatory audits being carried out on the effectiveness and completeness of tax control frameworks. There is pressure from parliament (and recently also a policy intention by the new government was published) to confirm that disclosures made by larger tax payers are complete and correct. This may mean increased audit activity.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Domestic Homicide Demographics
Criminologists are not the only professionals within the criminal justice field who can benefit from, and utilize, analytical methods and statistics (Cadigan, 2016). Law enforcement administrators, like police chiefs or correctional wardens, may also find value in statistical analysis. For this assignment, I have chosen to focus on Fernandez-Lanier's report (2015) concerning domestic homicide in New York in the 2014 calendar year; this report breaks down the number of instances of domestic homicides (wherein the victim and perpetrator had an intimate or familial relationship) and examines the victimology of these events, as well as other statistics. The report contains a number of frequency tables as well as three pie charts (Fernandez-Lanier,…show more content…
Chart 1 demonstrates that domestic homicides are actually only a relatively small percentage of the total homicides that occurred in New York during the target year, as only about 20% of the 2014 homicides were domestic in nature (Fernandez-Lanier, 2015). Of the domestic homicides, there was a relatively equal split between intimate relation homicides and familial homicides (Fernandez-Lanier, 2015). Additionally, Chart 1 shows that only about 10.6% of New York's 2014 homicides were actually the result of intimate partner violence, making this type of violence seem like a relatively minor contributor to the homicide rate (Fernandez-Lanier, 2015). Chart 1 is not inaccurate or even necessarily misleading, but by itself it presents a picture of the justice system that lacks nuance and depth, because it does not demonstrate the disproportionate number of women who are negatively impacted by intimate partner violence (Fernandez-Lanier,…show more content…
It would also be helpful to gather more data about the domestic intimate partner homicides to learn if there were prior reported domestic violence incidents between the perpetrator and victim. If so, there may be more opportunity to educate and train officers who respond to domestic violence situations so that future incidents can be curtailed. For instance, if officers can be better informed about the patterns that pervade domestic violence relationships, like the fact that many women will leave their violent partners multiple times before finally escaping a violent relationship, they will be better prepared to assist the victims and prevent future danger (LeTrent,
Black On Black Crime
Department of Justice, within the years 1980 and 2008, 47.4% of homicide victims were black (Cooper & Smith, 2013). When one considers that the black population accounts for less than 15% of the United States population, it is apparent why this percentage is problematic. Of this 47.4%, 93% of these victims were killed by other black people (Cooper & Smith, 2013). Black-on-black crime is not limited strictly to homicides. From the year 2001 to 2005, of all violent victimization of African Americans, 77.1% of these victims were assaulted by other African Americans (Harrell 2007).
Murder In America By Karen Sternheimer Summary
The article by Karen Sternheimer provides some insight into the stats of murder in America. In doing so, the article also highlights some issues with the media today. We learn that the media turned a statistic in way to help themselves instead of properly providing the real statistic. What the media provided was based on a small number of people, but when looked at from a larger pool of people, it can be seen the opposite had occurred (the murder rate had decreased). We also learn that most murder victims are male, specifically, African American males.
Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Methods
The media is filled with violent news and stories of injustice in our society. Yet, Intimate partner violence (IPV) is rarely discussed or covered in the news. The term "intimate partner violence" describes physical violence, sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression (including coercive acts) by a current or former intimate partner (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). IPV is a serious issue which affects millions of people worldwide. However, IPV is becoming a growing concern in the United States; and it's become prevalent in the less educated Latino communities.
Ethnic Disparity In Criminal Justice Essay
Black's, and to a lesser extent Hispanics, suffer much higher rates of robbery and homicide victimization than do whites. Homicide is the leading cause of death among young black males and females These differences result in part from social forces that ecologically concentrate race with poverty and other social dislocations" (311). This suggests that certain races and ethnicities are predisposed to certain crimes and the reason behind this is the results of long standing social forces and bias that have been embedded in American
Janet Bakke's Transcending: Chapter Analysis
The National Crime Victimization Survey (2008), the rate of intimate partner violence declined from 1993 to 2008. Intimate partner violence affected about 1 in 320 households in 2005 (Klaus,
Domestic Violence And Gender
Domestic violence is a prevalent issue that is claiming grounds beyond national boarders, lives as well. This is an issue that does not discriminate against race, religion, education, and socioeconomic status. The criminal act of violence is a fragile but widespread issue that has become a typical and accepted behavior by some of its victims and perpetrators. The acts of domestic violence occur as traumatic incidents that are greatly influenced by socioeconomic status and complex psychological factors.
Uniform Crime Reports Vs NIBRS
This abstract will discuss the strengths, weaknesses and differences of both data sources. To articulate the nature and extent of a crime, criminologists use records that are collected, compiled, and analyzed by government agencies such as the federal government's Bureau of Justice Statistics (criminology
Nicole Simpson Case Study
In addition to the connection in homicide, intimate violence and stalking. Particularly, the case of Nicole Simpson. The theories of criminology
Intimate Partner Violence Research Paper
Intimate Partner Violence Fatalities: Prevention and Intervention Intimate partner violence is considered the most life-threatening and distressing family issue on a societal platform (Hamilton, Jaffe, & Campbell, 2013). The term family is utilized loosely as familial depictions vary, but to be certain the family has two partners that can be diversified roles and gender. By definition intimate partner violence illustrates a pattern of behaviors that are deliberate and intended to gain power and control over another person (Hamilton, Jaffe, & Campbell, 2013). Intimate partner violence does not need to be necessarily violent actions, but can be verbal threats, isolation, neglect, and disempowering tactics. The series of behaviors and violence can hastily escalate and the probability of homicide increases in those relationship dynamics.
Battered Women Syndrome
Domestic violence exists, it is a serious and an important issue I believe should be brought to the table of conversation. Domestic violence can rip family's apart, cause people to loose trust in one another, as well as bring victims to their lowest points of self-worth. The abuse can be issued from multiple persons in the family: father to child, mother to child, teenage child
Gordon Witkin The Crime Bust Analysis
In the article "The Crime Bust" by Gordon Witkin, it is introduced that in 1994, after a 9 year soar in crime rates, they began falling (1). According to preliminary figures released by the FBI, all across the board, the amount of crime committals were declining at a drastic rate. (Witkin 1). To determine the source of this sudden decline, several factors were examined, such as the economy, dismissed as "Robbery and burglary fluctuate with economic conditions--but murders generally do not…" (Witkin, 1-2) Prevention and domestic abuse were also discredited since "Studies show that prevention programs don't work, and others may or may not be effective…" and "...in 1996, there were only 447 fewer 'domestics' than in 1993, accounting for just 9 percent of the murder reduction."
Domestic Violence Problem Solution
Domestic Violence Problem Migdalia Villanueva Kaplan University CJ-333 Domestic violence is a crime that is faced in not only America but other countries across the globe. The overall purpose of this study is to show the impact domestic violence will not only have on the American society but also in other countries, I choose to look at the countries of Canada, Australia, England and Saudi Arabia The first pages of the essay illustrate the problems which have been faced in America because of the high increase in domestic violence rates. As portrayed in the essay, there are several problems which will be similar to the ones which encountered in the different countries that will be mentioned in the essay.
Police Brutality Controversy
As a result, there is a drastic increase of violent outburst between both sides. For the last years, it was reported that 51.5 percent of black were killed by police officers (ibtimes.com). On the other hand, there have been 51,548 assaults against law enforcement and it resulted in 14,453 injuries in 2015 alone (nleomf.org). In the United States, recently, police brutality has been a popular subject all over the news and social media.
Domestic Violence In Jackson Katz's Deceived By Jackson Katz
Jackson Katz's deficient diction portrays a fallacious idea that the majority of the victims of domestic violence are women with ideas that it's a "men's issue, and we are at fault" and "men are broken and need to be leaders, receive leadership training, and not sensitivity training." Multiple empirical studies conclude that ¼ of all relationships have violence, and nonreciprocal violence in a relationship was more than 70%, initiated by females, and only less than 30%, initiated by male. People say that females are more affected as the statistics show that women get the brunt of the damage, but that 's because men are usually stronger and have the ability to inflict that much damage. From this, we can assume that the stereotype that women are
Homicide In The Unted States
In the article, the author gives definitions for different kinds of homicide. The author also points out that when looking at from a legal standpoint, murder and homicide are two very different crimes. One of the author's sources says that homicide is "the killing of one human being by another" (cite). He also goes on to say that murder is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person, especially with malice or aforethought."(cite) This means that homicide can be accidental. If a person got ran over by a car, it would most likely be homicide because they did not intend to do it or plan on doing it. The author also explains that there is not an exact definition for mass murder, spree murder and serial murder. That is because there is very limited research done on these types of murder. He does say that serial murder is characterized by a string of victims murdered over a long period of time.
More about Domestic Homicide Demographics


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Q: WLAN device on Dell Inspiron not detected by Fedora 11 I recently installed Fedora 11 on a Dell Inspiron 14. I think it uses a Dell 802.11b/g Wireless LAN. Windows Vista can detect it but Fedora 11 can't. How can I fix this?

A: Try to connect wired first, then get latest system/driver updates from Internet. It worked me few times.
There's a network manager called wicd, did you try it? And check linuxwireless out, you can find the other managers and lots of information about wireless.

A: I finally made it work! I followed @emgee's lead and used lspci. Executing lspci on my terminal showed this line along with several other lines:

0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom
  Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

Googling BCM4312 lead me to Broadcom Linux STA Driver. As stated in the intro:

These packages contain Broadcom's IEEE
  802.11a/b/g/n hybrid Linux® device driver for use with Broadcom's
  BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4321-, and
  BCM4322-based hardware. However, this
  driver is known to support other
  chipsets labelled differently (such as
  the BCM4328.)

And then it was as simple as executing the following:
Install the broadcom-wl packages

yum install broadcom-wl

Loading the driver

modprobe wl

and restarting my machine.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Why Obama Strikes out in Court
By Ilya Shapiro
This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2012.
As the world awaits the Supreme Court's ruling on ObamaCare, there's a larger story that the pundits are missing: the court's rejection of the Obama administration's increasingly extreme claims on behalf of unlimited federal power.
This term alone, the high court has ruled unanimously against the government on religious liberty, criminal procedure and property rights. When the administration can't get even a single one of the liberal justices to agree with it in these unrelated areas of the law, that's a sign there's something wrong with its constitutional vision.
Let's take these cases in order:
First, in Hosanna‐Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government sued a church school that fired a teacher for violating one of the church's religious tenets: threatening to sue over an employment dispute rather than resolving the disagreement internally. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claimed this violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because the firing was related to the teacher's health issues.
[T]he Obama administration continues to make legal arguments that don't pass the smell test.
The Supreme Court ruled 9 – 0 in January that punishing a church for failing to retain an unwanted teacher "interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs." Such interference, it concluded, violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.
In United States v. Jones, also decided in January, the government claimed the power to attach a GPS device to a suspected drug dealer's car and electronically monitor his movements, all without a warrant. This claim drew opposition not just from the ACLU and the Cato Institute, but from the conservative Rutherford Institute, the liberal Constitution Project and organizations ranging from the Gun Owners of America to the Council on American‐Islamic Relations.
While the justices had differing opinions on why this action violated the Fourth Amendment — was it a physical trespass, a violation of privacy expectations, or something else? — all agreed it was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, last week the Justice Department was back in a lower court, using technicalities in Jonesto claim again (United States v. Pineda‐Moreno) that it could attach GPS devices without seeking warrants.
Third, in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the government denied the right of property owners to judicial review of an EPA order to stop building a house it claimed was in violation of the Clean Water Act. In March the court unanimously rejected that position. Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion, called access to courts the least the government could provide in response to "the strong‐arming of regulated parties" by government agencies. "In a nation that values due process, not to mention private property," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in a concurring opinion, the government's "treatment [of the homeowners] is unthinkable."
Later in March, the administration claimed in the ObamaCare case that the government could require people to buy something as a means of regulating a broader national market. And a month later in Arizona v. United States, the government said that a federal policy decision regarding immigration enforcement priorities could by itself trump state law — a position that seemed to trouble even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the president's own nominees.
More recently, the Justice Department has been suing states over voter‐ID laws. Attorney General Eric Holder makes speeches claiming these laws herald the return of Jim Crow. Never mind that the Supreme Court has found them to satisfy the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution, most recently by 6 – 3 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), where plaintiffs claimed that needing a photo‐ID placed an undue burden on their right to vote.
The government's arguments across a wide variety of cases would essentially allow Congress and the executive branch to do whatever they wanted without meaningful constitutional restraint. This view is at odds with another unanimous Supreme Court decision, Bond v. United States (2011). Bond vindicated a criminal defendant's right to challenge the use of federal power to prosecute her. As Justice Kennedy wrote, "[F]ederalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power. When government acts in excess of its lawful powers, that liberty is at stake."
If the government loses in the health‐care or immigration cases, it won't be because its lawyers had a bad day in court or because the justices ruled based on their political preferences. It will be because the Obama administration continues to make legal arguments that don't pass the smell test.
Ilya Shapiro
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor‐in‐chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.


What actress do u think would be perfect to play Lucy Westenra in a new film adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel?
Real and True Love...! Wich one?
de keuze van de fan: Dracula & Mina ?
In Coppola's version of Dracula, what's your favoriete Lucy's outfit?
In Coppola's version of Dracula, what's your favoriete Mina's outfit?
Who are the 3 women in Jonathan Harker's room?
Which Dracula movie has the same plot with Bram Stoker's book?
a comment was made to the poll: In Coppola's version of Dracula, what's your favoriete Lucy's outfit?
an answer was added to this question: what are the difference between DRACULA & VAMPIRE???
a comment was made to the poll: Do u think Dracula is attractive in any way? Why?
a comment was made to the poll: What actor do u think should play Count Dracula in a new film adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel?
What is Dracula's assistant called?


Adding a vintage touch to any setting, the Paris wall plaque will make a wonderful feature in any room with its Eiffel Tower design. Made using durable MDF, the plaque is given a grey finish which helps to accentuate the Eiffel Tower and worded 'Paris Je T'aime' detail. A decorative border further accentuates French flair. Adding a vintage touch to any setting, the Paris wall plaque will make a wonderful feature in any room with its Eiffel Tower design.


Thanks for the response. No I am going with the ones I am making up. If it is just a matter of safety then my opinion is nobody should go up without harness anyway - I certainly won't. So that is not part of my criteria.
i have nice woood masts and no steps.
zeezee just ties her feet together and climbs her mast like a coconut tree - monkey style!
Pros and cons for each. I guess I am leaning to a stainless hex head screw that will penetrate no more than 1/8 in beyond the mast interior.
Good point. Initially I was thinking three holes - with aluminum rivets maybe 4 or 5 would be better? This is a problem for an engineer me thinks. Too bad my old buddy the late Don Jordan isn't around - he would figure this out for me tout suite.
I am an engineer, but from experience 5 all aluminum rivets would give you the margin of safety you would want.
They can be put on in just a few minutes and if you ever want to remove one, they can be drilled and removed in just a few minutes.
Are you anodizing the steps you put on?
Anodizing is cheap and if you ever seen aluminum mast steps after a few years you will know what I mean. The salt spray will make them look pretty nasty.
Anodize may cost less than a $1 usd each.
Valley Plating in Springfield Ma, does all my aluminum anodizing work.
Never thought of that! Good idea - I will check it out and thanks for the referral.
I am wondering what the structural implications are for drilling 60 to 100 holes on the P & S sides of the mast. Seems like something is not as strong as it was.
Lots of good advice. What about the use of various fastners to the mast. Is there a best way?
AH-HAaaaaaaaaaa! Now that's the issue. That is why I seldem fasten anything to the mast. (start with a wooden mast - - -) I use machine screws, tap holes, lay tape between the SS and the mast, fill the holes and threads with 4200 or whatever will probably keep the water out. Remember, water runs down the inside too.
What size rivets? I suppose since the sum of the parts are greater than the whole as the more rivets used the diameter could be reduced while maintaining same strength.


text:
Photo by Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
NCAA to hear Missouri's appeal over postseason ban
As it stands right now, the Missouri Tigers will not be going to a bowl game at the end of the 2019 season even if they go 12-0. That is because the NCAA slapped the Tigers with a postseason ban for the upcoming college football season as part of a litany of sanctions levied against the program in January for violations of NCAA rules linked to ethical conduct, academic misconduct and academic extra benefits. However, Missouri is hoping their appeal will relieve the sanctions with enough time to make some postseason plans.
A report from Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports says Missouri is expected to appear in front of the NCAA's Infractions Appeals Committee this week to state their case. However, no decision on the appeals is expected to be made for at least another month. A decision to lift a postseason ban could even come as late as September after the start of the 2019 season.
Missouri formally filed its appeal of the sanctions in March. Missouri Athletics Director Jim Sterk said in June he was hoping the appeal would be heard before the football season.
"We really think we have a strong case for overturning the majority of the decisions that they made," Sterk said in a radio interview. "The people that are a lot smarter than me that worked on this case really presented an appeal that's strong and compelling. And we'll be doing an in-person hearing, we're expecting somewhere in the middle of July and then hear something hopefully by before football starts or shortly thereafter."
The NCAA lifting a postseason ban during the current season is not unprecedented. In 2014, the NCAA lifted sanctions against Penn State after the start of the season, thus allowing the Nittany Lions to have the opportunity to play in a postseason bowl game at the end of the year. At 6-6, Penn State went on to play in the Pinstripe Bowl against Boston College. The 2014 season was supposed to be the third year in Penn State's four-year postseason ban as part of the sanctions in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Penn State served just two years of a postseason ban before the NCAA dropped the sanctions against the program amid legal battles.
Tags: Jim Sterk