Updated list of all (known to me) international signings (I don't have most birthdates/age, or signing bonuses, so I've excluded those columns):
Pretty sure that bonus would make him the third most expensive player in our current class.
Matt Winkelman had us with up to $1.2 million remaining in our pool, though his count of $3.5+ million probably did not include some of the lower level signings where we have no bonus info. So this probably uses up just about the rest of our $4.73 million pool and note that the international period closes on 6/25. That close date is probably because signings in this class are eligible to play this year. In previous cycles the July signings would wait till the next year, but all these delays means we are already in that next year.
I am not sure I have ever heard Sal speak before. Here he is on our newest prospect from Taiwan:https://twitter.com/PatMcCarthy_/status/1406650679091998722
He really likes the offense. Has power and supposedly good pitch recognition. Threw up a Jeff Kent comparison though makes sure to qualify he is not as big. 5'10" 190, so he is more of a 2B/3B type than a middle infielder. And Sal really kind of glossed over any mention of defense.
Updated list of reported signings - 25 in all (so far?):
The lack of a good Dominican presence might be becoming a problem for the Phillies. I know there is an argument that they can get better value in Venezuela. The counter is that we are getting very few prospects in the country known to produce the most Latin American talent.
Still think it's time to make a change there, they've changed everything else. Though maybe that also reflects the fact that Sal has never been the executive level decision-maker, and it's the various Assistant GMs who've failed.
The imbalance towards Venezuela is much more apparent in the last few years. I am just curious as to whether anything changed. It is kind of an abrupt shift if you look at the DSL rosters and compare that to 5 years ago when we probably had more Dominican prospects.
It may well be that by paying their Venezuelan employees and trying to keep their academy running, they've earned a lot of good will that gives them an inside edge over teams that cut and ran - any dollars you can get people there are huge, given the current state of the country. So where 32 teams are all over the DR, there's probably only a dozen or so that were able to maintain their networks in Venezuela.
I suspect that every team has scouting networks in Venezuela. The Phillies don't seem to be doing better because of their network, certainly in the results we have seen.
I am just noting this. I have no idea if it is a bad strategy or a good strategy (and neither does anyone else here). We'll just have to see in 5 years, but since they have not really done too well recently and it is largely the same group of scouts, I am not expecting it to be a great strategy.
Another minor signing (18 year old Cuban SS Luis Pelegrin) for $50K: (Credit to Matt Winkelman)
https://twitter.com/francysromero10/status/1437875953213001728
Nice catch. Picture here:
His brother got $550K a few years ago.
Yep. No roster assignment posted as yet; no birthdate provided on the mlb player page. This will eventually change...
Matt Winkelman notes that we know of 7 specific bonuses for the 26 total signings. $607,700 leftover for the 19 other players signed plus anybody else. Probably not that much left if any.
https://twitter.com/Matt_Winkelman/status/1453400712856092679
I actually have nine bonuses in my spreadsheet - but as of now, I'm not sure of what my sources were, so I'm reluctant to add that column to the list I've posted. I may spend some time trying to track them all down... but I'm a bit under the weather this afternoon (I had a COVID booster yesterday...). We'll see what I can get done.
Here is his spreadsheet. Venezuelan bonuses hidden but they do show up in the total.
As I said, we are probably close to done anyway. The Taiwanese kid was probably the last larger bonus. And, good news, he played really well in his FCL time.
Hmm. I can make my numbers tie to Matt's total - but to do that, I have to assume different values than he's reporting for Yemal Flores and Hao Yu Lee. Flores' bonus was reported as $1.3 million (BA, Spotrac) or $1.4 million (MLB-Jesse Sanchez). Lee's bonus was reported as a range ($600-650k - Winkleman tweet). If I take the higher values for these two (which Matt is not showing in his spreadsheet), and add the bonuses that are available for Rickardo Perez, Leornardo Rondon, and Marco Soto (all reported at Spotrac), I tie to Matt's reported total bonuses.
I also have smallish numbers for two other players - totaling $45k. Unfortunately, I don't have a record of where I saw these two figures.
Your guess is as good as mine. I tend to believe the lower numbers when we see a small range. I wonder if there are small bonuses for relocation and maybe college that are not formally part of what MLB allocates when there is a difference.
Yeah. What it means is that the number we see as unallocated is a ballpark figure, not precise - and of course, a lot of it may have been allocated to the nearly 20 kids for whom we don't have reported bonuses.
A post was merged into an existing topic: 2021-2022 Winter Ball - AFL, Instructional, Latin America