January 15, 2026 International Signing Period

fish 2025-12-12 17:18:16 UTC #22

Awesome- 6'3, athletic with room to grow and a 94 mph fastball in rightfield. A package doesn't get much better than that when looking for prospects.

Squire 2025-12-13 14:53:54 UTC #23

Still a month away and I am really excited about 1/15/2026

fish 2025-12-13 16:43:18 UTC #24

Between Renteria and Romero this year, and Acuna and Blanco the next, the Phils look to be in a position to finally be adding some real international prospects.

Though if I’m understanding this post, Acuna is for 3 million in 2028.

owaistabish 2025-12-14 20:31:58 UTC #25

Also Juan Parra who is a top 50 prospect per MLB Pipeline, a shortstop

fish 2025-12-14 21:33:03 UTC #26

3 Renteria and #38 Para- happy new years!

andyb 2025-12-15 00:51:02 UTC #27

So this class will be $4 million for Renteria, maybe $1 million for Parra and $500K for Romero. Our pool is a little more than $6.6 million so we are definitely top heavy this year. If Renteria is the real thing it is worth it, though I guess it is a risky strategy with a bunch of $10K prospects on the back end.

Tomorrow is the closing day for the 2025 period so we will probably see a minor signing or two though doubt we have any cash left.

Parra bio here:
https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2026/international/juan-parra-832324

Bobby Abreu academy so it makes sense. Looks a little like Saltiban with the profile and athleticism to play multiple positions. Note we also signed a Juan Parra out of Venezuela last year who is a LHP (and not very good unfortunately).

andyb 2025-12-16 21:43:42 UTC #28

I did not see us do anything yesterday on the last day of the 2025 signing period, but we tied for most signings this year. I am not a huge fan of large classes since it is so difficult to develop so many players, though it is definitely looking like our 2026 class will be more top heavy and potentially smaller.

December 15 marks the official end of the 2024–25 international signing period.

More than 1,000 players from 23 different countries signed contracts, with the Nationals having the fewest signings (19), while the Red Sox and Phillies topped all teams with 48 signings each. pic.twitter.com/sqT7ZjvYPB
— Francys Romero ( @francysromeroFR ) December 15, 2025

Matt_Winkelman 2025-12-16 22:48:11 UTC #29

I pulled up my tracker, they signed 32 players at or near January 15, the remaining 16 were 13 pitchers and 3 hitters (I actually like the 3 hitters, Rey Cruz, Jonathan Alcantara, and Michael Nieto). The pitchers are almost certainly all not counting against their pool and are overage players who were depth and tryout, some have already been released.

Nationals (smallest class) have only one DSL team and if my math is right 22 of 30 teams have two teams.

owaistabish 2025-12-19 00:05:44 UTC #30

Mets signing Asigen (top 5 prospect) as Yankees cancelled their pre agreement with him and a bunch others.

fish 2025-12-19 04:27:41 UTC #31

As much of an embarrassment as that is for the Yankees, the Mets could do it because they lost their own top kid to age fraud. Could be worse of course, they could have pulled an Almarez and still signed him after waiting a year.

Austinfan 2025-12-19 15:52:52 UTC #32

It's not that hard to develop a large class.
The first year is probably about coaching basics, and nutrition and strength training.
Second and third years you weed out the ones that don't show upside.
At that point they're only 18-19 years old, if they've progressed, then you bring them stateside where they get more intensive and skill oriented coaching at the Clearwater complex - note they're basically HS players at that point.

bigegypt0417 2025-12-19 16:25:35 UTC #33

This statement is no longer the state of the modern academies.

there is so much money pumped in to those academies that this starts much earlier than they used to.

andyb 2025-12-19 17:43:11 UTC #34

It is harder to develop 75 players than 50 players. You need more coaches. Playing time does not expand. There are also organizational roster limits so we end up cutting almost half of a big class after one year.

You are forced to make decisions on 18-year-olds before they have really had a chance. This is not a fantasy world of no limits. There are limits on roster size and playing time and attention of the better coaches. Getting players with better tools is more important than just getting more players.

Austinfan 2025-12-19 18:59:14 UTC #35

Most of your $10K or so signings are fliers, 16-17 year olds that won't play for 6-7 years (before they have to hit the 40 man roster).
The first couple years physical development is the priority, a polished 18 year old is only going to help your DSL team.
What really matters is identifying the ones like Ranger who can add 4-5 MPH to their 88-90 MPH FB with body control.
Or hitters who can add strength so their contact and plate discipline can be turned into hits.

After a couple years, you know who is filing out, who is never going to have the body control/eye to hand coordination to make it up the ladder.
Notice the "real prospects" tend to come stateside at 18-19, most of the older outliers are pitchers who are held back to see if they develop velocity. Most of the older prospects are there to fill out the DSL teams and keep them competitive.

andyb 2025-12-19 19:15:11 UTC #36

You don't have a couple of years though. Roster limits are 35 per team I believe so you have 48 players going for 70 slots. Pitchers often need more than 2 years to develop also. It is a numbers game that forces you to make decisions earlier and I'd rather be making the decisions on players with tools and giving them 2-3 years as needed. You seem to think you can just sign a huge number of players and magically prospects will emerge. That is not how it works.

Everybody knows the top 5 guys in a class. It is the bottom 30 guys we largely don't know and likely need time to develop.

Austinfan 2025-12-19 19:28:47 UTC #37

Every year they weed out the nonprospects, and that opens plenty of slots.
The real reason to limit signings is not to give false hope to kids who have zero chance.
So it's more about finding gambles worth a year (converting catcher and IFs to pitcher, etc.)

andyb 2025-12-19 19:51:55 UTC #38

No. The rosters ARE limited. You can't give a couple of years to the prospects. Your whole theory is based on giving time to prospects and they simply don't have that time.

allentown 2025-12-19 21:29:53 UTC #39

Matt Winkelman gave the brief explanation of this. First, most of these guys are guys who can be evaluated in a year, because they are older players. It's a cattle-call audition for potentially developable pitching talent by an organization which is light on pitching prospects and is spending pitifully little $ in draft or international undeveloped pitching taln.t. Winkelman says some of the guys have already been released after a short audition. I heartily approve of this action (in the absence of a willingness to devote more of bonus pool to pitchers). What is there to lose? The Phillies couldn't do this if it violated roster limits, so clearly it doesn't. There is no shortage of $, employee or hired consultants to work with them this off-season.

If the Phillies didn't think they could profitably evaluate these extra signees and possibly steal at least a chance prospect, then they wouldn't have made these late, almost certainly cheap, signings. It seems smart baseball.

The Phillies will keep the guys they value most and cut others to stay below the DSL roster limit. They will have a new crop of young LA talent after 15 January, but almost certainly not a class as large as this one, almost all of their budget is supposedly going to 3 guys.

Austinfan 2025-12-20 15:43:20 UTC #40

I think $10K bonuses don't count against your total. So no limit on long-shot signings.
Over time you'd expect fewer signings as they get better at recognizing which long-shots are actually viable.

fish 2025-12-20 20:58:11 UTC #41

I wonder what a war with VZ would mean to ballplayers.