Interesting how now that Gilbert is in the Mets system he’s suddenly a top 60 prospect.
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Stacked system or masterful sales pitch?
The top prospect list is a little like reading pre-season college football polls.
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Poor reading comprehension.
to The Mets lost their game yesterday by 18 points. They only managed to get one field goal.
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Preseason game.
Verlander often complained about the Mets’ analytics department, which he deemed inferior to the one that served him in Houston.
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Tampa Bay did not detail the nature of the social media posts.
The posts in question are rumored to connect Franco with an underage girl. Certainly hope that’s untrue for all involved.
I can’t confirm that Mike Fiers “liked” the posts in question.
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I hope that’s not true as well. I wonder what kind of morals clause is in his contract? A man in his position with his means shouldn’t have a problem meeting adult women.
I believe MLB contracts have a pretty limited “morals clause”, restricted mostly to drug use or illegal activity. Being a freak isn’t covered, unless it’s illegal, such as with someone underaged. The CBA also specifically states that clubs cannot ban the use of social media for legal activity, other than certain restrictions around disclosing salary negotiations. But yeah, let’s hope the rumors of an underaged girl are just that.
One of the reasons it’s so important to let an investigation take its course is there’s sometimes all kinds of nuance for these issues. I’ll give you a very real (to me) example. One of the more common issues with my foster kids, especially the girls, was that they often acted 5-7 years beyond their biological age and as much as 8-10 years beyond out on social media. This, despite the fact that many of them were delayed across a number of areas like maturity, academics, socially, etc… This was a coping mechanism developed as a way to regain some sort of agency in truly warped familial power dynamics. We saw, time again, our 14-17 year old girls posing as young 20’s women interacting online with 25-30 year old men in learned, thoroughly convincing manners. We knew this because 1) we knew this was a common maladaptive behavior for this demographic coming into our family, 2) we were watching ALL of their online activities and 3) we wanted to have a record to protect them AND those they were interacting with online as we slowly restricted their online personas as they integrated into the family. And, this behavior is not limited to troubled teens in the foster care system. We saw versions of this with many, many of their friends that came from loosely parented (think dual working parents or single hardworking parents) households with little or no online use policing and the behavior often started as early as 9 or 10 years old.
When confronted, the kids say very predictable things; “we’re just talking”, “nothing was ever going to come of it”, “this is all just a game played on social media” but the reality is, when young kids with no adult interaction experience have touchpoints with those that are very experienced with the online “foreplay” that adults regularly engage in these days, they are in no way intellectually or socially prepared and emotionally fall prey to what most adults know to be suggestive smooth talking. But, they pick up enough queues from their friends and those in those online communities to sound very convincing.
Which leads to my (limited) perspective from my experience raising 38 kids: 95% of the online “relationship” on the other side of the convo is absolutely horrified to find they’ve been talking to a 15 year old. And, immediately apologize and exit stage left. Another 4% or so have developed actual emotional attachment and take some prodding to disengage. This is especially so if they are on the younger 20-23 age side and the kid is nearing 18 years old. And, the remaining 1% do everything in their power to overtly and secretly maintain connection (and often control) to the underage person, even when they find out their actual age. Even when threatened with legal consequences. And, regarding gender dynamics, it’s usually the men, young and old, that disengage quickly. It’s usually the older woman interacting with our teen boys that struggle the most to disengage when confronted.
So, as @jim said, it’s always, always, always best to let an investigation play out before assigning blame. It’s a tough social environment out there where truth, and the lack thereof, is a commodity easily traded or discarded. I can imagine it’s even more acute for high visibility people like ballplayers.
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Very interesting insight. Thanks.
I, of course, believe in this principle and said it early and often to my clients when confronted with allegations of abuse or sexual impropriety. With absolutely no facts outside of my law practice, I have a difficult time accepting the percentages you cite or the assignment of the overwhelmingly predominant percentage of blame to the females involved in improper online activities. These numbers may be accurate when considering the females you raised, which I admire immensely, but I caution you against applying your experience and its percentages to this problem in society generally.
One cannot rush to judgment without a thorough and fair impartial investigation.
Or horrified that they almost got caught.
You are exactly right on the dynamics that feed the behavior of the teens. I find you may be giving a bit of a pass to the people on the other side of the conversation.
Early in my career I did child abuse investigations. It really jaded me to inappropriate relationship situations.
Right but that isn’t always easy when you’re a parent, or uncle.
They have no business investigating because impartiality is impossible.
Exactly
I meant rushing to judgement, not the investigation.