January 15, 2022 International Signing Period

[bkox]

Full list of 10 players signed by the Phillies from Jim Salisbury:

William Bergolla Jr., SS, Venezuela

Romel Mendez, CF, Venezuela

Aaron Escobar, 2B, Venezuela

Enrique Segura, RHP, Dominican Republic

Jeffrey German, RHP, Dominican Republic

Edwar Chirinos, LHP, Venezuela

Neify Rosario, OF, Dominican Republic

Leny Carela, SS, Dominican Republic

Manolfi Jimenez, CF, Dominican Republic

Nolan Beltran, SS, Columbia

Phillies sign Latin American prospects, including top shortstop

[julio]

Scott Lauber is reporting 13 signings:

In addition to Bergolla, Baseball America reported that the Phillies signed nine other players from Venezuela (shortstops Aaron Escobar, Juan Villavicencio, Kilwer Colmenares, and Andres Hernandez; outfielders Romel Perez and Manolfi Jimenez; catcher Angel Mata; left-hander Eduar Chirinos; and right-hander Luis Gonzalez). They also signed outfielders Leny Carela and Neifi Rosario from the Dominican Republic and shortstop Nolan Beltran from Colombia.

https://www.inquirer.com/phillies/phillies-shortstop-prospect-william-bergolla-venezuela-20220115.html

Interestingly, there are discrepancies between Lauber's list and Salisbury's. I'm going to assume (for now) that Romel Perez and Romel Mendez are the same player, and otherwise include all players named by either reporter - a total of 15.

[Note: I've updated the following table with bonus amounts as reported at mlb.com by Jesse Sanchez. I have not adjusted the spelling of Aaron Escobar's first name, or Manolfi Jimenez' last name, pending confirmation - these things in Sanchez' writeup look like typos. Also, it appears that Romel's last name is Mendez, not Perez (as reported by Lauber).]

Player	Position	Signed	Nationality	Birth	Age at Signing	Bonus
Beltran, Nolan	SS	1/15/22	Colombia		#VALUE!	350,000
Bergolla, William	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	10/20/04	17	2,050,000
Carela, Leny	OF	1/15/22	Dominican		#VALUE!	400,000
Chirinos, Eduar	LHP	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
Colmenares, Kilwer	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
Escobar, Aaron	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!	450,000
German, Jeffrey	RHP	1/15/22	Dominican		#VALUE!
Gonzalez, Luis	RHP	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
Hernandez, Andres	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
Jimenez, Manolfi	OF	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!	300,000
Mata, Angel	C	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
Mendez, Romel	OF	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!	450,000
Rosario, Neify	OF	1/15/22	Dominican		#VALUE!	400,000
Segura, Enrique	RHP	1/15/22	Dominican		#VALUE!
Villavicencio, Juan	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela		#VALUE!
					Bonuses Total:	4,400,000
					Pool:	5,179,700
					Remaining:	779,700

[julio]

I expect we'll get clarity on this... eventually. The signings will be posted to the Phils' web site when they're officially blessed by MLB. At that point, we'll likely get birthdates (and thus, ages at signing) for most of them.

[allentown]

Only 4 pitchers vs 11 position players. I had read that the cream of this year's crop strongly favored position players, but wouldn't expect that difference in quality to extend deep into the signing list. AndyB suggested earlier that MLB teams have decided that the larger bonuses to pitchers don't make sense. I wonder whether the trainers haven't already responded by switching kids whom they would have trained up to throw higher velocity FBs to be position players, so they can earn more. Also, no players outside Latin America. We do sign another Colombian.

[julio]

Also, no players outside Latin America.

It's only day one. The signing period runs for eleven months; I expect we'll see some kids from... somewhere else.

[fish]

Lenny Carela video- it’s over a year old so much could have changed. Very thin but seems to have some strength in his swing. The video of his defense looks like he’s a bit slow at SS.

[julio]

Hey fish - that video provides Carela's DOB. That's a small piece of info we didn't have - but that's exactly what we need! Thx!

[Austinfan]

How come Bergolla wasn't signed at 16?

[Squire]

I think because he wasn't 16 as of July 2, 2020. While they pushed back the signing date I do not think they pushed back the eligibility date.

[andyb]

The age cutoff for this period is the same cutoff as the previous July period. Just over 6 months later. Players need to turn 16 by September 1 (remember July and August birthdays of players turning 16 were eligible in that pervious period). This period means players need to be born before September 1 of 2005. Last year Bergolla was still 15 at that time. FWIW he is one of the older players among the group turning 16 this year. Hopefully that has not overrated his prospect status.

Interestingly our top prospect for next year (Jesus Starlyn Caba) is already 16 too, so he'll be one of those early birthdays in the period also.

[andyb]

I do like the strategy this year on the surface. Go get your best player in Bergolla with whatever it takes because the system needs star potential players. Then sign as many players in the $300K-$500K range you can that have some tools but might develop over time. Think of this as a bunch of overslot 11th rounders in the draft.

It really looks like spending money on pitching is not good analytically. I assume they will fill out their roster with a bunch of cheap sub $100K pitching arms and hope some of them develop. Or they just figure they are having better luck signing guys who throw 98 without control from the domestic draft and they are safer and less expensive to develop.

Quickly running out of room for that Taiwan pitching prospect though. Sure would be nice to be able to trade for some allocations from cash strapped teams this year.

[nycphils]

I thought no trading allocations this year due to lockouts - am I misinformed?

[andyb]

That is correct. My question is why? It hardly made sense last year too. It is not as if it is saving any money for any team.

MLB just puts these limitations on player acquisition (draft 5 rounds then 20, pools frozen) for little reason other than to save tiny bits of money and keep amateur prospects poor. Trading allocations might help the poorer teams get prospects for less money. Why can't this happen?

Edit - it has nothing to do with lockouts. These limitations were put in place because of the pandemic.

[allentown]

Washington signs Christhain Vaquero for $4.925 million.

[Squire]

Washington's total allocation was $5,179,700. They used up all but 255K on him.

[allentown]

And $250K of that went to signing SS Jorgelys Mota. All the other Washington signings must be $10K or less, which don't count against allocation. Washington Post says they signed a total of 10 players. If you want a star, busting big on a top guy likely a good approach. So far failed for us with Ortiz, but one primo bonus, a $250K signing, then a lot of $10Ks is an interesting strategy, which has some logic behind it. A pick the best addition to AF's strength in numbers approach.

[andyb]

Interesting analogy to the Ortiz year though was Marchan was our $200K signing after Ortiz. The only other announced signing that year (I have no idea if any of the low dollar guys have made it). Ortiz clearly was a failure but that year might merit a major leaguer.

[Austinfan]

I think the strategy is focus on the best position players, then spread your money around a lot of undeveloped pitchers and hope some develop velocity down the road, better than gambling on LA arms with real money. Sanchez and Saurez turned out better than all our real money LA pitchers combined.

This is causing LA prospects to shift from pitching to position players - but if they have bad hit tools, provides the opportunity to sign good arms cheap by focusing on arm strength with position players then converting them to pitchers after you sign them.

[andyb]

Carlos Silva and Carlos Carrasco were pretty good high dollar Latin American signings. I get the strategy of avoiding risk with the team's money, but at the same time it is really hard to develop lots of great pitching prospects on mediocre bonuses. Morales was a good risk even if he does not make it. That was a guaranteed top arm.

We are also undertaking the strategy in part BECAUSE we took on risk with pitching in the draft. Abel and Painter in back to back years is huge risk on younger pitchers. We probably wanted a little more balance in our high dollar expenditures.

[Squire]

Phillies sign international prospects from Germany, Australia

Jim Salisbury says we also signed

Lou Helmig, 18, OF, Germany
Nikau Pouaka-Grego, 17, INF, Australia