BTW Kyle Isbel is having a night in Idaho Falls...

Go bankrupt yourself in online poker. Again.

Freddie Freeman was doing it in the first round too. It wasn't just one person.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">According to our sources, Kyle Isbel has been promoted to Lexington. The 2018 third rounder hit .381/.454/.610 in 25 games with Idaho Falls. Was slashing .439/.511/.683 over his past 10 games.</p>&mdash; Royals Farm Report (@RoyalsFarm) <a href="https://twitter.com/RoyalsFarm/status/1019126837744717825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 17, 2018</a></blockquote>
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You have to wonder where they view his long term position since if it is in the OF they are already getting somewhat crowded there.

Can't find the stats now but there was some site that had some really interesting things about the "old for his class" deal. Higher chance at busting seemed to be the thought. If I remember right that was one knocks on Starling.

I saw Adley Rutschman play in Omaha this CWS and that guy can rake. He didn't wow me behind the plate but looks like a good prospect overall.

@JonHeyman: Breaking; The Dodgers appear to be the leading contender for superstar Manny Machado as talks head toward the finish line. The situation is fluid and brewers and phillies may still have an outside chance. Barring turnabout, deal should be done this week. Story comin on @Fancred

Gotta think moose gets traded shortly after this.

JJ Cooper of Baseball America likes him over Bobby Witt Jr.

In an article about the Royals 2015 international signing class (where they got Matias) there was this little gem...

Yeah, that would be Juan Soto. Evidently they were also in the running on Vlad Jr. but were unwilling to match the $3.5 million he eventually signed for.

The Vlad thing happens but man - what does 'unable to secure the funds' even mean? The billionaire owner of a major league team need to call the bank and get his credit line extended or something? That's just odd...

Soto and Vlad JR were literally 1 and 2 on the prospects list until Soto went up...that's crazy.

You sure?

Soto was in A ball to start the year and missed almost all of 2017. He was in the mid-20s in most pre-season lists and had been promoted off of them by the time the mid-season lists came out.

Acuna and Vlad were 1-2 on all pre-season lists with Freddie Tatis in 3rd on most of them, IIRC. Forrest Whitley was generally the top pitching prospect until his PED suspension.

I don't recall Soto being as much as a top 20 guy anywhere I looked.

My understanding is they would have had to go over 3.5 for Vladito due to his relationship with Toronto.

The Royals top 4 2015 prospects were Vladito, Soto, Acuna, and Matias.

Scouts were on point. Suspect they probably had less set aside for international signings that year than normal... and paying the tax for blowing it out.

Rany wrote about it a while back


http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/2011/...f-age.html?m=1

Ah ok, I just heard a baseball america guy in the radio and he implied that they were 1-2 until Soto went up.

The article doesn't mention Acuna but says their top 4 that summer were Vlad, Soto, Matias and Jeison Guzman.