The Dominican Dilemma

In the last 5 months Major League Baseball has been rocked by two age-scandals involving star players. In September, the Miami Marlins placed Leo Nunez on the restricted list. Later in the month it was revealed that Leo Nunez was actually Juan Carlos Oviedo, and was 18 months older than originally thought. Then just today January 19th, the Cleveland Indians learn, Fausto Carmona, wasn't actually Fausto Carmona, but rather, Roberto Hernandez Heredia. On top of that, he wasn't 28 but rather 31.

No then here comes the interesting twist... Why would a player falsify his information? Simple answer, money.

Take it from Edward Mujica (Oviedo's good friend and teammate with the Marlins) "[a]t 17 years old, you maybe lose $100,000 or $150,000 when you sign [compared to a 16-year-old with the same skills]. And if you're like 18, you might sign for $5,000 and maybe they give you an opportunity."


He is completely right, teams love taking risks on 16-year olds, pumping millions a year into the international free agent market, but they also rarely pay much for 18-year olds, despite the fact that they are essentially the same age as a high school player. 


Now with the new CBA spending in the international market may be curtailed. And within the next few years we may see an international draft. That said, the international draft may have some major consequences (I personally am not a fan of the International Draft), especially because of the 18-year old age and high school graduation rules put in place in the 1990's when the MLB added Puerto Rico to the Rule 4 draft.


So with that said, what is the easiest solution?


In my mind the solution will come when teams begin to realie a couple things: Dominican players (and all foreign players) are currently being signed at 16-years of age. Fausto Carmona signed when the Indians thought he was 16, in 2000. Now it has been revealed he was 19. That said, his development speed was very similar to a college junior draftee. He reached the majors at 25, and dominated the AL at 26. Five years later he is still a pretty decent pitcher but is he worth the $8 million dollar option the Indians just picked up? Well that's tricky, I didn't think he was before I knew he was 31, so now that he is actually 31 it definitely seems flawed.


Oviedo on the other hand is a different story, in the same year (2000) that the Indians signed the 19-year old Heredia (nee Carmona), the Pirates signed the 17-year old Oviedo (nee Nunez). Oviedo reached the majors in 2005 as a 22 year old (essentially the same route most high-round, successful high-school picks take), and broke through as a 25 year old. He'll be 29 this season and is still expected to be an effective closer for the Marlins (Assuming he gets a Visa).


There is no simple answer to the dilemma. The new CBA will limit the overall spending, but that coupled with the potential international draft could create even more age-issues and tampering. My solution is merely to continue to provide Dominican kids with the opportunity to be seen. The Dominican Summer League is a great place for MLB teams to develop Dominican talent, but what is missing is teams that are unaffiliated.


If you asked a scout how much he'd be willing to sign a 19-year old who as a 26-year old would go 19-7 with a 3.06 ERA in the MLB you'd almost certainly hear first round numbers. After all 19 is the age of a college freshman. 


Or how about a 17-year old who by 28 would have 317 MLB Appearances and 92 saves. His value may be a little less, but nonetheless he'd be worth top round money.


But if you told the same scout it was a Dominican kid who no one signed as a 16-year old, and he didn't know the future results you'd hear offers similar to that of a late round college senior.


As such my solution is simply, add two teams to the DSL that are sponsored by the MLB and feature talent that is under 20, but unsigned. Any MLB club can sign the players at anytime for $25,000 (5X greater than the average over 16-year old in the Dominican). What this does is it allows these players to continue to play under the watchful eye of Major League Baseball and helps lessen the burden of falsifying information. Is this solution perfect? No, it is far from it. But what other options are out there? I want to hear your ideas.


Drop me a tweet @AltitudeSports


'Til The Inspiration Strikes Again, 2012 is right around the corner.

The Stigma of Size

I am a huge proponent of scouts picking one player over another based purely on size and weight. As such it got me thinking about the stigma of size. We've seen players like David Eckstein and Dustin Pedroia succeed, but how many other smaller players have been passed over based purely on size?

As such, size is a topic that has bothered me for awhile. You frequently see scouts (both real and armchair alike) discussing a players size, and how so and so is undersized or too skinny. You see things like it's ok that so and so is overweight, he has good size. So I got to wondering, how much of an impact does size truly have.

In order to analyze this I found the average height and weight of every player on an MLB opening day roster in 2011. For the MLB last season this was 73.27 inches (roughly 6 foot 1 and 1/4 inches) and 206.8 pounds. There was a difference for the National League and the American League as well. In the NL the average was exactly 73.25 inches (6'1 1/4") and 206.75 pounds. In the AL the average height and weight was only slightly different, 73.29 inches, and the weight 206.86. That said, for this this analysis, I will view players in regards to the league they played in.

The first step to assessing this question is I went and found the Top five players according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in the AL and NL.

In the AL the top five players were:

• Jose Bautista
• Justin Verlander
• Jacoby Ellsbury
• Miguel Cabrera
• Adrian Gonzalez

In the NL:

• Matt Kemp
• Ryan Braun
• Clayton Kershaw
• Cliff Lee
• Roy Halladay

I then decided to eliminate the first-basemen and the pitchers from this abbreviated study because of the fact that most of them are typically bigger bodies and you don't commonly think of first basemen as "normal" sized players. Because of this I added the following players to the study in the American League.

• Dustin Pedroia
• Evan Longoria
• Alex Gordon
• Mike Napoli
• Alex Avila
• Ian Kinsler

In the National League this added:

• Pablo Sandoval
• Jose Reyes
• Troy Tulowitzki
• Mike Stanton
• Andrew McCutchen
• Lance Berkman
• Hunter Pence

For the sake of the study I also took the four players with 0.0 WAR with the most plate appearances in both the AL and NL and added them to the study. In the AL this added,

• Juan Pierre
• Delmon Young
• Carl Crawford
• Hideki Matsui

In the NL:

• Seth Smith
• Greg Dobbs
• Paul Janish
• Ryan Theriot

For there I simply took a look at those players heights and weights in comparison to the league averages.

What I found was as follows:

OF THE STUDIED 31 Players:

• HEIGHT AVERAGE (72-74) 14 Fall in This Range/6 Below/11 Above
• WEIGHT AVERAGE (200-210) 10 Fall In This Range/7 Below/14 Above
• The AVERAGE 0.0 REPLACEMENT PLAYER in THE AL WAS: 73.5"/200 LBS
• IN THE NL The AVERAGE 0.0 REPLACEMENT PLAYER WAS: 73.25"/198.75 LBS

• FOR THE TOP PLAYERS IN THE AL (NON-1B/P): 72.125"/201.875 LBS
• FOR THE TOP PLAYERS IN THE NL (NON-1B/P): 73.666"/216.111 LBS

In conclusion, my extremely short-hand study found the following conclusions.

For the top eight players in the AL (Non-1B and P): the average height is only 6 Feet and a quarter inch. A full inch shorter than the league average (though keep in mind that the overall league average includes EVERY player) and the average weight, 201.9 pounds is nearly five pounds less than the league average.

In the National League the average height is only around a quarter of an inch less than average, but the average weight is nearly ten pounds greater than league average. In other words, the stars of the National League are heavier than the overall average of the league.

For replacement players (0.0 WAR) the American League players average a slightly taller height (quarter of an inch), but weigh only 200 pounds 6.86 less than average.

For replacement players in the National League (More likely to be defensive replacements, pinch hitters and role-players than those in the AL) the average height is precisely the same as the league average, but the average weight is 8 full pounds less than average.

As such I am concluding size overall is relative at the normal range (6'0"), the overall average of stars is not dramatically different from league averages. That said, weight seems to play a much bigger role than I previously would have thought. For stars in the American League this is seen in the fact that the stars are well below average weight, but the replacement players are of average weight. In the National League the stars have nearly 17 pounds on average over the average replacement player despite only a quarter of an inch size difference between the two groups.

Yes this study was random, yes it is flawed, but I do find the finding interesting.