July 2, 2019 International Signing Period

[andyb]

The high end bonuses dropped with the international pool. So there were probably just as many $2 million plus bonuses 7 years ago as there were today. Especially when teams were knowingly breaking the pool limit for a few years.

There is no way to spin Encarnacion as a good signing. But he had legit power and sometimes you buy a tool or two with these bonuses. I thought Ortiz and Luis Garcia were overpriced at the time of the signings and that was because their bonuses were ranked higher than the players were. That does not mean Luis Garcia is a bad prospect. I like him better than most. I just realize his ceiling is a good defensive shortstop that is probably in the 700-800 OPS range at his peak. That is a ceiling of a good player and not a great player.

[allentown]

But he had legit power and sometimes you buy a tool or two with these bonuses.

But that's the key point, isn't it, he did NOT have legit power. He had batting practice power. He never had game power. He had 761 minor league AB and 20 HR and a SLG of .332 in his minor league career.

[Austinfan]

A top defensive SS with a .750 OPS would be a 3-4 WAR player.
Paul DeJong, for example.
I'll pay top LA dollar if I could consistently land starters who were well above average.

[andyb]

But there are so many ifs about whether he can get there that it is too expensive. When somebody costs $2.5 million they generally have a higher ceiling. Think of it this way - he was a million more than Juan Soto, another easily identified top talent.

[el-pietro]

The atheltic are offering a free 30 day trial at the moment.

[nycphils]

“The self-assessment is important,” Agostinelli said. “I have done this for a very long time and the way everyone does it has changed. You’re looking at guys who are at a very young age. People are making earlier and earlier decisions on players. It’s hard. The bottom line is, guys are going in and seeing guys early and they (already) have a verbal agreement. Everybody is fighting over the same players. We all try to see the guys first — we have done a good job of identifying the right ones. But sometimes, a team gets a guy, and you have to give them kudos.“

What I infer from this quote - admittedly speculative - is that Agostinelli wants to get multiple looks at kids before committing big dollars because scouting 13/14 year old kids is hard, but that the process has changed with teams committing to players on limited looks and getting the verbal agreement. Ultimately that Sal is still Sal and very capable, but he’s been struggling with the new level of risk teams are willing to take and that’s what is preventing the Phillies from the kind of success they saw in LA before the last 10 years or so.

The risks teams are taking, by the way, makes sense to me because if you invest $4m in the best players you see 4 years in a row, for example, and three of them flop and one is Acuna/Soto/Devers, or a couple of them are even Cesar Hernandez, that $16m is a bargain compared to what it costs in the FA market or the cost in players to trade).

[gmwannabe]

Has anyone seen anything about the Dominican Summer league? is that off also? forgive me if it was mentioned before.
gm

[fish]

Has anyone seen anything about the Dominican Summer league? is that off also? forgive me if it was mentioned before

No baseball, no scouting. About the only thing that seems to be alllowed is to keep the Venezuelan players at the Dominican academies instead of sending them home.

[gmwannabe]

Thanks Fish for the response. stay well and also the same for all of our posters and families.
gm

[fish]

Thanks Fish for the response. stay well and also the same for all of our posters and families.
gm

Kiley McDaniel reported that mlb will allow virtual international scouting resume this week..but still no games.

[julio]

A post was split to a new topic: July 2, 2020 International Signing Period

[andyb]

Not expecting anything, but today is the official end of the 2019 J2 International signing period. This will be the first time in a couple of years I believe where we did not trade for additional allocations (and actually traded one slot in addition to losing money for Harper). I assume our class is Yhoswar Garcia, 4 or 5 prospects in the $200K-$350K range (Jean Hernandez, Randy Vasquez, Jackie Pertuz, Jeibert Silva), and then another dozen nominal signings.

If they had money in their pool remaining I am guessing they chose not to spend it this year though it is unlikely there was more than a few hundred thousand left. We would have had a little more than $4.5 million total.

[bkeich]

I assume our class is Yhoswar Garcia, 4 or 5 prospects in the $200K-$350K range (Jean Hernandez, Randy Vasquez, Jackie Pertuz, Jeibert Silva), and then another dozen nominal signings.

Am I the only one that is underwhelmed by the fact that the only big ticket item was someone who was trying to commit fraud and got caught?

At some point our international signings has to produce someone of note. I think Ruiz is still the last All-Star or even really solid starter. We once again have some maybes and a herd of bullpen arms from our International signings, but zero guys that are anything more than hope. Sanchez was of course a strong candidate, but he faded badly and was included in a trade.

[andyb]

On the surface it does not look good to spend $2.5 million on a guy a year older than advertised. I feel we should have been able to come to agreement for a discount. We should keep an open mind of course. Maybe the team really did identify a prospect worth the money.

I am a little annoyed our overall spending decreased. We did not try to increase our pool this year. It is more expensive to do so without teams in the penalty, but starting out $500K short meant we should have really tried harder.

[allentown]

Am I the only one that is underwhelmed by the fact that the only big ticket item was someone who was trying to commit fraud and got caught?

At some point our international signings has to produce someone of note

I'm very disappointed by our international program in general and this season's signings in particular. Always a great moment when almost all your $ go to such a high character guy. Maybe it works out, but to me it has the smell of face saving. Can't help but think of the two Koreans, who apparently scammed us out of, what translated into today's international budget, must have been equivalent $20 million. As with the Koreans: awful to be duped, worse to just plow ahead with the bad deal. I really hope I'm wrong about this.

[Squire]

I mean...none of us really know the circumstances behind the fraudulent age thing. If when you were 5 years old, your parents told you were actually 4 you would believe them. Its conceivable this was planned when the kid was a toddler, and he was not aware that he was in fact a year older. Phillies should have renegotiated but they never do that so I'm not surprised that they figured it wasn't worth it with regard to their attractiveness to the buscones.

[zambonir]

Yeah I would not put any blame for this stuff on the player. If anything, it reflects badly on the Phillies for what it says about their relationship with the buscones, even if that doesn't make them any different from any other team. Heck, for all we know, someone in the organization may have known about it.

[fish]

Can't help but think of the two Koreans, who apparently scammed us out of, what translated into today's international budget, must have been equivalent $20 million.

I don’t recall that being a scam, but more the work of one awful scout who sold the Phillies on signing them. If you told me he got a kickback on those deals I would not be shocked.

[allentown]

I remember a comment in the press from someone in the scouting department on the day that the Koreans got off the plane in America, that they didn't look like the guys we had signed.

[California_Dreamin]

allentown...I remember that also. IIRC, one of the pitchers was very short and other looked like he weighed 250 pounds...and not in a good way. I recall trying to be very optimistic, as in that the Phillies were ahead of the game in the procuring of Asian talent. I soon realized that it was merely the opposite, the Phils had been had.

Its almost funny, in a painful sort of way, that for the greater part of this decade we [yours truly is a charter member!] have been touting Uncle Sal as the indispensable guy in the organization, and even people like Salisbury have bought the bait. Yet, he has produced very little and I am very much in doubt about his "strength in numbers" philosophy which says give me 10 guys at $50,000 vs 1 guy at $500,000. He is a huge proponent of that and I have often wondered if this is an indelible weakness based on his affinity for these youngsters and his desire to potentially get them out of poverty and into the states.

Whatever his reasoning it hasn't worked and this Uncle Sal routine has kind of grown old with me. That said, he had nothing to do with the two Korean hurler signings, just more a general painting of a canvas Internationally that has been one of the organizations major weaknesses.