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Some early thoughts on the 2019 Blue Jays draft
By Matt W Jun 6, 2019, 11:48am EDT
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Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images
With the 2019 Rule 4 Draft in the books, it's now possible to reflect and make some assessments and snap judgments about this draft class for the Blue Jays and the general strategy employed. Granted, we need to see who signs and for what, and of course how the draftees develop and perform in the fullness of time — but the bulk of the talent has been allocated, some important trends are clear and there's some interesting takeaways.
The first major takeaway is the overall balance. For the second straight year, the top four picks were spread across the four demographic groups — one college pitcher, one college hitter, one high school pitcher, one high school hitter. It's even more balanced across the two years, as last year the high school hitter the first rounder and the college pitcher in the 4th round, this year that flip flopped.
That's in contrast to the first two years under the current regime, where the Jays went very college heavy, with 19 of the 21 picks on the first two days being college players and over 80% of the dollars spent on college players. Because about half the pool (see below for more discussion) is tied to the 11th overall pick, the spending will once again skew towards college, but it'll be roughly equally split over two years. It's a major positive to me that the Jays are not pigeon-holing themselves as in the Riccardi years (and Shapiro years in Cleveland), and following the talent where it is in the draft.
Where there was less balance is that after taking two pitchers to start, the Jays took hitters with their remaining eight picks in the first 10 rounds. That's not inconsistent with what they've done in the past few rounds, with a heavy focus on college bats though they've usually turned back to college pitchers later on the second day which they didn't do this year. It's worth remembering though that in using their top two draft picks on pitchers, that alone will mean over 60% of their total spending will be on the pitching side.
Where there was a very different approach was on the third day. In recent years, the Jays haven taken a run of college pitchers who sign for $100-$125K, with a very heavy college skew generally (they didn't even take a high school player last year until the 21st round, with 22 of the 30 picks in rounds 11-20 being high school players). That didn't happen this year, and the Jays took three high players in their first six picks with a fourth in the 19th round.
Overall, the draft class skewed to adding premium arms and position player depth. One clear point of emphasis seemed to be drafting for the hit tool, as their 4th through 6th rounds picks were college hitters with track records of hitting both in college and wood bat summer leagues, but who are either bat first players with defensive limitations or positional questions. 9th round Philip Clarke fits this profile too.
Finally, one last potential thing I found interesting is that the Jays are not shying away from high school players who are on the "oldish" side. In recent years, there's been a lot of research suggesting older high school players (closer to 19) historically have been overdrafted and underperformed in pro ball (presumably because they were more physically mature than their younger peers), with the reverse holding true for younger players (closer to 18). That tended to hold more for position players than pitchers, where stuff can be measured more independently of competition faced.
That was one of the major hits on Brett Baty this year, who was well over 19 on draft day. He was one of the best performing high schoolers, but was it because he was nearly a year older and more advanced than them? So there's been a big shift in the industry in incorporating this into evaluations.
Looking at the high school players the Jays drafted, a number of them are closer to 19 than 18. This isn't universally true — Dasan Brown and Nick Neal are both really young — but Kendall Williams is, Jordan Groshans was last year, and the two Puerto Rican draftees are both 2000 both years when that would normally have had them in last year's draft (like with most Canadians as opposed to most American states whose school year cutoffs are in the summer). It may be they see the pendulum as having swung too far in the opposite direction, leaving talented talents being overly passed over.
Update: One last thought on the late rounds. It seemed underwhelming compared to last year when they drafted — and signed — some really interesting guys like Cobi Johnson, Cre Finfrock and even Andy McGuire. This year, by contrast, it arguably looks like they started with essentially courtesy picks about round 25 (players unlikely to sign), and constituted a majority of picks from that point. That would change if some of the seemingly less likely picks sign, but otherwise I don't see additions on the same calibre.
In terms of individual players, for the most part it's too early to really say anything. But at the very least, it's not obvious that either of the first day picks were overdrafted. Some considered Alek Manoah as the top college pitcher available, and there was potential for him to not even be on the board. He's certainly not in the Deck McGuire/Jon Harris/Chad Jenkins genre of first round pitchers, with a wide arsenal of useable pitchers, but nothing plus, as he's got a big fastball and sharp slider as carrying tools. There's risk, but considerable upside.
The question will be, as usual, the opportunity cost of the other players on the board. The one that stood out to me was not other college pitchers, but high school outfield Corbin Carroll, who went 16th (possibly somewhat overslot, though probably less than the 11th slot). Will the Jays regret passing on him?
High school pitchers are always risky, but I like the building blocks for Kendall Williams. He's not one of these big arms with little idea where the ball is going who tend to high pretty high failure rates, but there's still reasonable upside. Dasan Brown in the 3rd round isn't everyone cup of tea as the toolsy athlete who might/probably doesn't hit but is a potential star if he does. I don't like the profile early (as with D.J. Davis), because of the opportunity cost of the more refined talent on the board against the risk, but it's a lot more palatable lower down. And that risk is balanced by taking the opposite profile, hitters with track records but defensive/positional shortcomings.
Let's turn to the financial implications. For the most part, the Jays appeared to play things pretty up straight-up, but below is a rough estimate of how I see things coming together, as well as some possible scenarios:
Note that the conservative/aggressive bonuses (from the team's point of view) are done on an individual player basis, not the overall scenario. The overall total for the conservative scenario is well overslot, even with the 5% wriggle room, that certainly won't happen. Likewise, there's no way the total will come in $1-million plus under slot.
At the top, Manoah should more or less come in at slot. They might have been able to save a little, just because the slot falls by over $150,000 per pick if the Jays didn't take him, but he wasn't going to fall much further and had no incentive to cut a significant discount, so I see something like $4-million as an absolute floor.
Kendall Williams is a Vanderbilt commit with considerable upside, so I feel confident saying the $1.4-million slot value would be an absolute floor. I expect it'll take a little bit more (or more to the point, the deal was more a bit more), noting that Hagen Danner came in about $450,000 over slot two years ago (before the slots were flattened).
The next several picks should come in more or less at slot. Dasan Brown went a little ahead of consensus, balanced against his alternative of going to Texas A&M, so I expect neither savings nor extra cost. The next two were college juniors — who rarely go overslot — but were ranked ahead of where they went so are unlikely to go underslot or in any event much or at all. It's similar to Riley Adams, Kevin Smith and Sean Wymer in recent drafts.
There should be some savings after that. College seniors typically take big cuts, almost always signing up $50,000. Lesser ranked college juniors can sign a little under slot, that may be the case with Cameron Eden but it's not going to be a huge cut.
Some of that money is likely going to Philip Clarke, a draft eligible sophomore at Vanderbilt who turned down $1M+ out of high school two years ago. He's not going to get that now, but it's going to take well more than slot (again, this should be a case where the number was agreed before the Jays took him). Glenn Santiago is a high school player, which could theoretically require above slot, but likely not much as Puerto Rican draftees in lower rounds tend to sign around the slot numbers.
In aggregate, I'd estimate the total bonuses for the top 10 rounds coming in around the total slot pool. Teams can go 5% those pools without triggering draconian penalties, so gives the Jays just over $400K and maybe a couple hundred thousand of savings to sign players for more than $125,000 in round 11-40. Three of those first six choices were high school players, and to prioritize them like that one has to think they're likely to sign. The first two will likely require a good portion of that money between them, with the last being more likely to come in near slot as a lower profile Puerto Rican high schooler.
Overall, it appears to be a pretty solid and balanced draft class, with no obvious reaches and the Blue Jays showing a flexible approach strategically.
Blue Jays 2019 MLB Draft Coverage
2019 Blue Jays MLB Draft Signing Table
2019 MLB Draft Day 3: Blue Jays Picks, Notes, and Open Thread
Assessing the 1980 Blue Jays drafts It yielded them nothing. Zip. Nada. Literally not a single major leaguer.


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Luther Vandross's Lifelong Friend Fonzi Thornton Remembers Emotional Final Session With R&B Legend
Caroline Frost
Entertainment Editor, HuffPost UK
17/11/2014 11:51am GMT
Luther Vandross's lifelong friend and musical partner remembers bursting into tears at their final recording session together, moved by the personal sentiment of the tune 'Dance With My Father' and by seeing his pal Luther's ill health.
Backing singer Fonzi Thornton tells HuffPostUK:
"I looked at him and said, 'You don't feel well,' but he told me he was okay.
"Then, on the morning of his stroke, I was on my way to perform on the Letterman show, and his assistant called me. They'd got him to hospital, and he later moved into rehab. He was a very powerful man, and I think it was difficult for him to have people looking after him."
Luther Vandross was an in-demand backing artist to female stars, before finding solo success
Luther's health problems marred the last years of his career, when his weight ballooned, something that saddens Fonzi.
"I saw him lose that weight, maybe, 15 times," he sighs. "He wanted to be slim, he was a fan of designer clothes. But some people just have a propensity to be larger. He tried so hard, but food is not like cigarette smoking, you can't just give it up. It was a battle for him."
Fonzi was a lifelong friend of Luther, after meeting him in the East Harlem Projects where they both grew up. "I was 13 when I joined his vocal group. He was 14, and was already multi-tasking. I remember him babysitting his baby sister, the same time as he was running rehearsals."
The pair went on shows like 'Sesame Street' together and performed together for years, into Luther's prime, when hits like 'Never Too Much', 'Wait For Love', 'Best Things in Life are Free' and 'Always and Forever' made him a global star. Looking back on that time, Fonzi says the most remarkable thing about Luther, was his humour.
"He appeared serious, but it wasn't arrogant," he remembers. "He was just confident and clear, and so caring and generous with his friends and their families. He'd be very proud of what they've achieved."
Not to forget his talent…
"He had an ear like no one else," says Fonzi fondly. "He could hear all the layers. I can remember sitting with him when we were really young, listening to Aretha Franklin on the stereo, and Luther telling me, 'Fonzi, listen to the fading, listen…'"
Luther Vandross 'The Greatest Hits' is out today. Click here for info.
luther vandrossukmusicLuther Vandross Greatest HitsFonzi ThorntonLuther Vandross Fonzi Thornton

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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crcommunity —
sylvershade ( sylvershade) wrote in crcommunity,
sylvershade
crcommunity
Hi there, I was surfing the news and came across this article...not sure if yall have read it yet.
http://mednews.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/6905.html
And excerpt:
" In an editorial in the April 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and an investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome, Italy, says calorie-restricted diets point to possible mechanisms of aging and suggest ways to intervene and modify its effects.
In January, Fontana and colleagues found that after an average of six years on calorie restriction, people's hearts functioned like the hearts of much younger people. And a team from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge is reporting that six months of calorie restriction reduces two key markers of aging: fasting insulin levels and body temperature. "


KOLKATA, Nov 20, 2016: The Con Sunday strongly opposed the central government's move against triple talaq and imposition of uniform civil code, saying divine Sharia laws regarding marriage, divorce and adaptation cannot be modified or altered by any person or authority.
The AIMPLB has submitted an affidavit before the Supreme Court and also approached the Prime Minister and five Cabinet Ministers to explain their stand on these issues.
"The Board (AIMPLB) is competent to take up issues with the honourable Supreme Courtand is hopeful that the constitutional guarantees to all religious units in the country would not be disturbed," the Board said at the end of its 25th Annual General Meeting in Kolkata.
The Board also said the entire Muslim community, including women, are in favour of the Sharia laws and government's attempt to interfere with the personal laws stands defeated.
"The Muslim women are coming out in large numbers to support the Board. The government's attempt to project Muslim women as suppressed and oppressed is a ploy to show the entire Muslim community in bad light," Dr. Asma Zahra, the Convenor of the just-formed AIMPLB Women's Wing, said.
The Board announced the formulation of a "Women's Wing" that would work to resolve issues, like divorce, dowry and female foeticide among Muslims. It would also launch a toll-free service called "All India Muslim Women Helpline" in Urdu, English and eight regional languages to support women.


A companion to Demonising the media: Threats to journalists in Europe, the numbers contained in this document are drawn from 3,187 press freedom violations reported to Mapping Media Freedom, an Index on Censorship project, between May 2014 and July 2018 covering 35 European Union member states, candidates and potential candidates for entry.
MAPPING MEDIA FREEDOM — partially funded by the European Commission — investigates the full spectrum of threats to media freedom in the region – from the seemingly innocuous to the most serious infractions – in a near-real-time system that launched to the public on 24 May 2014.
Driven by Index on Censorship's decades-long experience in monitoring censorship across the globe, Mapping Media Freedom set out to record the widest possible array of press freedom violations in an effort to understand the precursors to the retreat of media freedom in a country. The ambitious scope of the project called for a flexible methodology that draws on a network of regional correspondents, partner organisations and media sources.
Mapping Media Freedom defines a media worker as anyone partaking in the gathering, assessing, creating and presenting of news and information.
Each report is fact-checked with local sources before becoming publicly available on the Mapping Media Freedom map. The number of reports per country relates to the number of incidents reported to the map. The data should not be taken as representing absolute numbers. For example, the number of reported incidents of censorship appears low given the number of other types of incidents reported on the map. This could be due to an increase in acts of intimidation and pressure that deter media workers from reporting such cases.


PPF is a critical guide to short stories, books, and film, primarily in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, thriller, and suspense. What you will find here are brief reviews that not only give you some idea of what the stories are about, but also leave you with an idea of their relative quality.
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This site is new and most of the content is currently in the Short Stories section, and more will continue to be added to that. Feel free to add your own content here or to any other category. Pages have already been created; they are just waiting for you.