Oh my god Stetson Allie dropped to us, assuming the Nats don't take him in round 2.  He's a top 15 or 20 talent by many accounts.  He's another prep pitcher though. They say he has stuff similar to Taillon, but less polish, so obviously he has a much higher chance to bust than Taillon.   He's a beast and can wrench his fastball up to 101 mph. It may be too expensive for us to try to sign both and it would be prep pitcher heavy, but if we got them both in our system, they'd both be top 30 prospects in baseball (or close to it) and we'd just need one of them to stick to get our #1 starter of the future.  Anyone else think we should take a chance?  Anyone else intriguing?

A lot a Pirates fans on this site and others (myself included) have been extremely critical of Aki's slow and undeniably frustrating start.  Although he has obviously played horribly, both offensively and defensively, this fangraphs article suggests that his slow start has been almost entirely the result of bad luck and a small sample size. 

It would be easy to write Iwamura’s slow start off as bad luck and nothing more, but it’s just really hard to find anything wrong with his numbers. Drawing a walk in 13% of his plate appearances is better than his career ratio and he’s actually striking out a little less often than normal. Even his .082 ISO isn’t too far off pre-established expectations.

The article goes on to argue that Aki's unluckily low .207 BABIP, far below his career low of .337, is the reason for his low numbers.  He will improve as this number regresses to his career average.

Aki's defense, on the other hand, is more difficult to explain, but his UZR is so poor that even if his knee injury is affecting him, some regression to the mean would be expected.

It is evidently too early to give up on Aki for the year (although this is more of a hypothetical argument anyway, as we don't have any better MLB-ready options).  If we give him some time, his luck should balance out, hopefully making him a solid mlb regular.

Although our system is very shallow when it comes to starting pitching, I'm a fan of drafting the best talent available, regardless of position, because (obviously) it's still very hard to project college/ hs talent to the mlb.  Putting aside team needs, what do you all think about Grant Green (SS, USC)?  Do you think we should draft him, assuming he falls to #4? 

Many of you probably know who he is but for those who don't, he was considered a premier talent entering this year and is often compared to Troy Tulowitzki and Evan Longoria (I had either Green or Ackley at #2, following Strasburg).  However, he has struggled this year, especially early on.  Many analysts still think he will go towards the top of the first round, but many advocates of deeper stat analysis aren't sold on him as the sure bet an early first rounder should be.  Some view him as somewhat of a lottery ticket, more suitable for the end of the round.  If you haven't already seen it, check out this article from Project Prospect and let me know what you think about him. 

How Good a Draft Prospect is Green? 

Is it just me or does it seem like the Nady/Marte trade was in part meant to instigate a bidding war for Bay? Don't get me wrong. I don't think anyone was too hot on Nady, and NH didn't flip 'em for just anybody (I personally like the trade, especially Tabata)... However, we probably could have been able to get a bit more for these guys if we would have waited until closer to the deadline. It seems like we chose to pull the trigger quickly, sending them to an AL East team (Yankees) in order to get the others (Rays and Sox) to compete for Bay. The prospect of a much stronger Yankee opponent is forcing the others to dig deeper into their talent reserves to keep pace. The Sox/Marlins and Rays trades look like just that. Maybe the tightness of the AL East race factored into Huntington's decision to make the trade so quickly, even if it wasn't his primary motive...or maybe this is just another crazy conspiracy theory. Anyway, whether it was intended or not, Huntington's trade might yield much more than we originally thought.