Around the Horn

I was wrong about Livan Hernandez and the Atlantic League.  The Nationals signed him today.

The Atlantic League has to be the next stop for Livan, though, if things don’t work out for him in the Nation’s Capital.  There aren’t any more major league stops after the Nationals.

mlbtraderumors.com reports that Mets’ starter Oliver Perez will have season-ending arm surgery.  Bart Hubbach of the New York Post notes that the Mets now have $100 million worth of salary this year sitting on the DL.  Ouch!

Needless to say, now that Johan Santana is having season-ending elbow surgery to clear out bone chips, the articles are being written how he won’t be worth the money the Mets gave him and how smart the Yankees not to trade for him.  Santana probably won’t be worth the entire amount of his contract, but giving the Yankees credit for passing on Santana and then giving even more money to C.C. Sabathia this past off-season is a joke.

At the time the Mets acquired Santana, it was a better gamble than when the Yankees signed Sabathia.  Sabathia is pitching great this year, especially of late, but Santana pitched even better for the Mets last year.

Even with Santana’s current arm problems, the odds are still better than 50% that he’ll give the Mets a better value over the entire course of his contract than Sabathia will give the Yankees over the entire course of Sabathia’s contract.  It will require nothing short of a minor miracle for a pitcher of Sabathia’s age, size and past workload to make it through the life of his current contract without at least one injury as serious as Santana’s current problem.

Here’s an article about much-hyped high school prospect Bryce Harper.  The article suggests that Harper is both over-hyped and a terrific young prospect.

What sparks so much enthusiasm about Harper is how good he is at such a tender age.  Rule 1 of scouting, particularly for position players, is how young they are when they reach a certain level of performance.  The younger a player is when he’s first ready to play every day in a professional league, the better.

Harper will apparently drop out of high school this year at age 16, so that he can be available for the 2010 draft.  He will play junior college ball next Spring barring injury.

That will be the test.  If he can excel in junior college ball in early 2010, presumably for one of the JC powerhouse teams in SoCal or Florida, he will be the obvious choice for No. 1 pick in next year’s draft and will likely get a bigger signing bonus than Stephen Strasburg got his year.  If not, he’ll still likely be drafted next year and sign for a $1 million plus bonus, or else he’ll return for another JC season.  At his age, Harper can’t really lose, so long as he stays healthy.