I forgot about that Braves international thing. Thank goodness that nobody important was involved, although perhaps if anybody important were involved, the MLB wouldn't just cut them loose to start a bidding war and undermine their own system.
It's convenient there's a Blue Jay on here. I remembered Devon Travis being on one of the 2015 or 2016 playoff rosters, but apparently I was wrong about that. He was a pretty good 2B. It's a shame he could never get past the shoulder problems. As far as Anthony Gose, we were all led astray for so long on him, and it wasn't the first time that a promising prospect had utterly failed in Toronto. Young player development has never been something we're good at. It was a trade we all just knew we were going to lose (like we'd lost many before this), but we didn't lose this one.
None of those Braves prospects ended up significant, but one was a guy named Kevin Maitan who had been the top prospect in his international amateur class. He got a $4 million bonus from the Braves, got cut loose as a result of this scandal, signed with the Angels for another $2 million bonus afterwards, and then never even made it to AAA. I'm sure whoever made the decision at MLB was quietly thrilled that they don't have to worry about Kevin Maitan's stardom haunting them for years to come.
I also remembered Travis having some postseason involvement, but it might be from the nature of his injuries. His problems would seem to start as a short-term absence and then eventually progress into something worse, so it often felt like he was on the verge of returning. If he had been tearing ligaments in calamitous fashion like Ronald Acuna Jr.'s ACL injuries, maybe there's a more clear delineation that he was gone.
MLB prospect rankings are fortunately pretty unaffected by link rot (and MLB's own team lists go back at least a decade), so there's pretty compelling evidence to support how bad the Blue Jays were at developing young players in those years (I'm distinguishing "young" like you did because I think they have to get at least some credit for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion breaking out). Lots of names like Gose, Dalton Pompey, Anthony Alford, etc. Fortunately, the Jays are just about to start going all-in (kicking off with this week's next post) and trading all those prospects away for established stars before they bust on other teams.
I forgot about that Braves international thing. Thank goodness that nobody important was involved, although perhaps if anybody important were involved, the MLB wouldn't just cut them loose to start a bidding war and undermine their own system.
It's convenient there's a Blue Jay on here. I remembered Devon Travis being on one of the 2015 or 2016 playoff rosters, but apparently I was wrong about that. He was a pretty good 2B. It's a shame he could never get past the shoulder problems. As far as Anthony Gose, we were all led astray for so long on him, and it wasn't the first time that a promising prospect had utterly failed in Toronto. Young player development has never been something we're good at. It was a trade we all just knew we were going to lose (like we'd lost many before this), but we didn't lose this one.
Hallelujah.
None of those Braves prospects ended up significant, but one was a guy named Kevin Maitan who had been the top prospect in his international amateur class. He got a $4 million bonus from the Braves, got cut loose as a result of this scandal, signed with the Angels for another $2 million bonus afterwards, and then never even made it to AAA. I'm sure whoever made the decision at MLB was quietly thrilled that they don't have to worry about Kevin Maitan's stardom haunting them for years to come.
I also remembered Travis having some postseason involvement, but it might be from the nature of his injuries. His problems would seem to start as a short-term absence and then eventually progress into something worse, so it often felt like he was on the verge of returning. If he had been tearing ligaments in calamitous fashion like Ronald Acuna Jr.'s ACL injuries, maybe there's a more clear delineation that he was gone.
MLB prospect rankings are fortunately pretty unaffected by link rot (and MLB's own team lists go back at least a decade), so there's pretty compelling evidence to support how bad the Blue Jays were at developing young players in those years (I'm distinguishing "young" like you did because I think they have to get at least some credit for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion breaking out). Lots of names like Gose, Dalton Pompey, Anthony Alford, etc. Fortunately, the Jays are just about to start going all-in (kicking off with this week's next post) and trading all those prospects away for established stars before they bust on other teams.