The Montreal Minute(49:1): Will Montreal Come out 0 for the Draft in '49?

[HerbD]

"We knew coming in that this would be a very weak draft!" stated Montreal Blazers GM Herb DeSpain at his weekly press conference just days after the 2049 draft concluded. "If you didn't have a top 10 pick then you really didn't have a first round pick this year." Most GMs around the Brewster agreed that this draft pool was very weak but it had a cloudy five year out look. What that means you may ask? Well a lot of the draftees were much younger than what we normally see in the draft and it's very difficult for the best GMs to predict how a 16 or 17 year old kid might end up with. It's only been a couple of weeks so why are the Montreal media being so tough on DeSpain? Four of the six draftees demanding a signing bonus to play have already broken off talks with the Blazers while the other two are getting close.

"Did you ever intend to sign your draft picks this year?"

"No, we as an organization understood the talent level of the draft and decided to spend the allocated signing bonus money for other needs." DeSpain responded. "We relayed those intentions to the agents involved and that is why they were so quick to break off negotiations, because there were no negotiations."

"What did you use the money on?"

"If you remember back in January we spent $12 million(plus the tax) for international free agent Jabril Abdul-Matin. He was the top international guy on the market." DeSpain replied, his chest swelling with pride. "It's not often the Blazers mingle in the international market so when we do we like to go big."

"How do you feel about your farm system right now?"

"We feel good," he shot back quickly. "We have six guys in the top 100 with two of them in the majors right now and a third in AAA. We don't all look at things the same so we value our guys a little more than other teams value our guys and they all feel the same about their guys."

"Last question, do you expect to sign the two college kids asking for a bonus or will Montreal be 0 for the 2049 draft?"

"Don't count on it," he laughed. "Martin has all of their money!"

[Dington]

Nashville was quite the opposite. Lost out on Jabril-Matin and didn't go over $5M in IFA so we had extra cash to blow on really bad players. Should have just kept the cash, but oh well.