Photo courtesy Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles began the international signing period by announcing on Saturday that they had signed 24 players.
Outfielder Braylin Tavera, a 16-year-old from the Dominican Republic who was rated as the 18th-best prospect by Baseball America and rated 22nd by MLB Pipeline, signed for $1.7 million, the most given by an international prospect by the Orioles, according to MLB Pipeline.
César Prieto, a 22-year-old Cuban second baseman, signed for a reported $650,000, and Leandro Arias, a 16-year-old switch-hitting shortstop from the Dominican Republic, signed for $600,000. Arias was the 46th-ranked prospect, according to MLB Pipeline.
The bonuses for Prieto and Arias’ signings were reported by MLB Pipeline.
“We’ve been here three years,” Koby Perez, the Orioles’ senior director of international scouting, said. “We’ve been working with [the top prospects] and their agents for three years. That’s the reason we’ve been able to go a little bit towards the top of the signing classes. In future years, we’ll continue to do that. It takes time to get these players to commit to us. We’ve been working on these players for two or three years now.”
Tavera is a potential five-tool player, according to Perez.
“He does everything easily and effortlessly,” Perez said. “He was a player who was highly coveted by most of the teams in the league. A lot of it had to do with us offering the opportunity. I think us not having given out these types of bonuses in our history makes the player feels special to be the highest-paid international player. I think that helped us land Braylin because there was a lot of competition for his services.”
Other top prospects are 17-year-old switch-hitting shortstop Edwin Amparo, and left-handed hitting outfielder Thomas Sosa, who turns 17 on Tuesday. Both are from the Dominican Republic.
Perez said Amparo and Sosa signed for about the same as Prieto and Arias.
“These kids are so young when we sign them,” Perez said. “We’re happy that we’re able to land this type of talent.”
Perez said that the international players have a head start on American high school players. Most of the players the Orioles signed a year ago would be eligible for this summer’s draft. One of them, catcher Samuel Basallo, would only be a high school junior.
“Hopefully, when they’re 19, 20 years old, they’re on their way [to] the upper levels of our affiliates,” Perez said.
Prieto was able to be signed because most teams had already committed money to this year’s class when he was declared eligible by Major League Baseball in November after his defection from Cuba.
“He chose us,” Perez said. “He liked the opportunity the Orioles can offer him.”
Perez said executive vice president/baseball operations Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde helped recruit Prieto, who’ll attend a minicamp in Sarasota this month.
“His talent ability probably puts him in the mid- to upper levels [of the minor leagues] right out of the gate,” Perez said. “You’ve got to remember he’s been in the U.S. only three or four years. He’s got a lot of a learning curve as far as the U.S. culture and language. We’re going to try to put him in a situation where he can succeed and feel good.”
Other players signed by the Orioles are: 16-year-old shortstop Cristian Benavides, from Venezuela; 16-year-old right-handed pitcher Ezequiel Bonilla, from Panama; 16 year-old shortstop Edrei Campos and 17-year-old shortstop Elis Cuevas, both from the Dominican Republic; 16-year-old right-handed pitcher Adrián Delgado, 17-year-old infielder Aron Estrada, 17-year-old outfielder Jean Mata, 16-year-old right-hander Elías Moscoso, 16-year-old catchers José Noguero and Andés Nolaya, 16-year-old righthander Jesús Palacios, 16-year-old left-hander Andrés Parra, all from Venezuela; 17-year-old shortstop Fernando Peguero, 17-year-old right-hander Juan Peña, 17-year-old outfielders Raylin Ramos and Yirber Ruiz, 17-year-old shortstop Adriam Santos, 17-year-old right-hander Henry Tejada, all from the Dominican Republic; and 17-year-old infielder Alfredo Velásquez, from Venezuela.
The Orioles haven’t had a player signed from the Dominican Republic play for them since Pedro Florimon in 2011 and have never had a player signed from Venezuela play for them. This year, they signed 10.
“There’s a lot of talent in Venezuela,” Perez said. “It’s a difficult country to get to right now with the politics. I go there every month. Geraldo Cabrera, our Latin American supervisor goes there every month, and we have a staff there, which we didn’t have in the past. We’ve been combing that area really, really well, and we think that we’re going to get some talent out of there.”
The Orioles had $6,262,600 to spend, and Perez said that money was already spent. They can sign players for less than $10,000, and that money isn’t counted against the bonus pool.
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Granted, I don’t understand this as the O’s were never really involved much with it, but I do have questions:
1. These MLB pipeline rankings it mentions, is that the rankings of
only the Latin America players?
2. The top guy they got was only the 18th rated. Why couldn’t they get at least a top 10 ranked player?
3. The players they signed, will they come to the USA or play at the new facility they’re building in the DR?
Lastly, how would the talent level of the Latin American players they’re signing, mostly 16 and 17 year kids, rate with the American born 16 and 17 year olds that play on travel teams?
MLB TradeRumors has a tracker to the international signings. The top prospect got over 4 million from the Yankees. The Nationals also signed someone for over 4 million. It appears the Orioles signed the most players at 24. Teams that signed the top prospects signed very few players. So it appears the Orioles tried to spread the money around and sign as many players as possible as opposed to putting all their eggs in one basket. Time will tell if it works
I kind of have the same question in that most of these players are 16, 17 years old. No way they would be close to major league ready until maybe 3 years from now. In the meantime, where are they playing?
The Dominican Summer League. I believe the Orioles have 2 teams in that league. They will play with the holdovers from the last 2 years
Maybe they’ll add a third team now that there’s 23 more players.
Kind of like throwing something against the wall & seeing if anything sticks….go O’s…
You have to remember, the Orioles have not been active in the International market for that long. The fact that only after three years under Mike Elias that we actually landed the number 18 ranked player says volumes for how far we've come. Many of the top rated players have been actively pursed by teams who have been involved in the international market far longer than the Orioles. It takes time to develop relationships with the players representatives and establish a positive reputation in that market. The multimillion dollar facility the Orioles have commetted to build in the Dominican Republic has gone a long way to improve the team's reputation.
Or not seeing legit players blocking their way to the majors…go O’s…
2. Why can't all 30 MLB teams *at least* sign a top 10 ranked player? It's like they aren't even trying!
Only 10 teams can sign a top 10 player. Or am I missing something?
Splat!
It is good to see the Orioles finally making a splash in the international free agent market. Now that they are signing highly rated int prospects like other real big league teams, maybe signing quality free agents won’t be too far away. Oh who am I kidding, they’ll probably be a quadruple a team for at least a few more years
Gotta give Mike Elias a little credit here. This is where he's been saying were going all along. Spreading the money around may just be a way of setting up a base on which to add over time.
Mind you this doesn't help the big club this year one bit.
My question regarding this many players (24) is how many of these guys pitch? It looks like Rich mentioned 6 or 7?
BRR, I’m shocked that ANY of them pitch. Not to brag but when I was 16, 17, 18 I thought I was pretty good. Mind you I was never good enough to get scouted but I had a lot of success at the legion level of baseball. Then, the very next year when I played twilight ball where you’re facing guys who were college and even some who played minor league ball, I quickly found out I wasn’t all that. I see no way, even no matter how hard someone can throw at 16 or 17, how good they really are until they’ve faced much better competition. Believe me, it was a shock to my system getting shelled when it had never happened before in my life.
Really like that one pitcher named Elias…:)…go O’s…
Probably a love child from a long-ago vacation on the island.
Ken, in previous classes, they signed fewer pitches. When I asked about it last year, Koby said they signed fewer pitchers because they develop later.
If you look at the list of notable players signed on MLBTradeRumors that John referred to, none of the 12 listed are pitchers, so it seems that teams don’t spend heavily on 16-year-old pitchers.
No credit is due, top two international signings from last year have been disappointments. Don't hold your breath waiting for this crop of signees to develop. Fire Elias Now!
What I find amazing is that they give a 16 boy 1.7 million while only 4 grown men on their 40-man roster make more than that. Andone of those ...Lyles...hasn't even put on the uniform yet.
And I don't want to hear one word about Chris Davis' contract.
Mike Elias is the devil.
Hasn’t tried yet to win at the major league level…go O’s…
Is that Braylin Tavera in the photo? No way that's a 16 year old child.
You’re kidding right?…go O’s…
OK. Is it Koby Perez? The article doesn't identify the photo. It's not a face that I've seen on ESPN, or any baseball sports blogs.
Yes, sorry, thought you were kidding…go O’s…
For what it’s worth, I heard an interview with Koby Perez on the local sports talk FM radio station today. I don’t know much about him at all, but I came away impressed. You could sense his commitment to the club and that he had deep knowledge of these young players. Though it’s difficult to get any sense of what’s happening in El Salvador, Venezuela et al, I’m hoping we see all this effort come to fruition in the next few years.
It’s the new way, like it or not.
Will be paying for a game this year in pesos? Its nice that we're putting so much money into Latin Americans and bringing them to baltimore, but you are losing your loyal fans.
I want a team that represents Baltimore - I want to be able to talk to the players and not always have to go through an interpreter. They dumped a lot of money in the Dominican , maybe they could have put that facility here in Maryland and brought the players here to live in that facility. It could have also helped some American players and added jobs to Maryland.
Between the danger of going to a game in Baltimore now and the insane amount of money it costs to go to a game, I see no reason to continue to go to camden yards. If they get rid of mancini and means - there'll be no reason to even follow them.
Young people have no real interest in the game, except for fantasy baseball, and older people no longer go to games because of the city and the way the game has changedl - so who are the orioles trying to get to show up in the stands???
Thought the same thing many times before, weirdly wondering if child-labor laws are involved, you honestly tell me the US doesn’t have the same quality of young talent?…go O’s…