FarAwayFish

clarkspencer @clarkspencer #marlins Michael Hill said all slot $$ saved with higher Draft picks applied to lower picks and team's entire allotment will be spent. Sounds good but lets see if this is true. If it is then I don't understand their strategy. If you are going to spend all of the allotted money then why reach for prospects at the top of the draft? Either way, let's see if they do spend all of the money. Anyone know who these hard to sign later picks might be? They didn't "reach" for prospects at the top of the draft. They took the guys they liked the best and were still able to save the money because they knew the signability. Just because Baseball America and other pundits had them reaching doesn't make it fact. The Kolek pick speaks for itself. There were several clubs on Blake Anderson in the top 2 rounds, and most likely would have been taken by Pittsburgh at 39 and certainly no later than 60 by Tampa, if not Cincinnati at 58. At 43, they got the best athlete in the draft in Justin Twine. There's no guarantee they will pan out but at least they took the kids they wanted and were still able to save money to spend elsewhere.

Not only is CF harder to play but your talking about more overall chances, ergo more overall runs. UZR is based off an average from a position. A +5 UZR LFer saves a lot less TOTAL runs than a +5 UZR CFer does even though they both have the same UZR. Actually, CF is easier to play than LF, from a standpoint of reads off the bat and playing balls off the wall...there's more room for error in CF if you're a good athlete because you have more time to react and balls generally hang in the air longer...the reason CF appears harder to play is because there's more ground to cover and a mistake can be costly...a mistake in LF can be covered up pretty easily because the ball is in front of the batter/runner a majority of the time and rarely will a misplayed ball result in a triple or inside the park home run...screw up in CF and the basepaths become a merry-go-round...but I've played all three OF positions and CF is the easiest to play technically...but if I'm building a ballclub, I would much prefer my better athlete and better defender to be in CF because mistakes are magnified so much more.