January 15, 2022 International Signing Period

[allentown]

I think it is clear that we have deemed 17 year old pitchers as riskier than 17 year old hitters, something that is true in the high school market too. But we still need a strategy to develop pitching and just giving low dollar Latin American bonuses will probably not develop too much pitching even if that strategy is cost effective.

The fallacy here is how little we have gained from all of the high bonus $ LA position player signings. Whiff after whiff. At $80K, Segura is our highest bonus for a pitcher. I think that is very foolish for a system that does better identifying and developing pitching than it does position players.

[Matt_Winkelman]

As others are pointing out, the pitching for the most part just isn't there in the high bonus space. Most deals are happening at 14, maybe 15 years old. The pitchers you are betting on a lot of things that are not present. That means they are making deals later and closer to the deadline, and thus getting smaller bonuses. Teams are also signing guys late as they pop.

Saying they are good at developing pitchers is what we say when we are talking about taking raw stuff college arms (and some premium high school arms) and getting the most out of their stuff. There is a big difference between taking a 22 year old Griff McGarry with a bevy of information on him and working to maximize it that taking a 16 year old kid who is like 89-91 and shows some feel for a secondary pitch and turning them into a monster.

Essentially you are taking two totally different talent identification and developing apparatuses (domestic scouting and dev, and international scouting and dev) and treating them like a singular strength or singular approach. It also isn't like the Phillies are unique in this space either, MLB had only 15 pitchers sign for >$300,000 among all teams. The top guy Jarlin Susana ($1.7M) does look really good and was one of the big pieces in the Juan Soto deal, but there are 1-2 of those guys a year and the success rate really really sucks.

[julio]

Thanks, Matt. I’ll update the table.

[allentown]

Saying they are good at developing pitchers is what we say when we are talking about taking raw stuff college arms

No, I'm also talking about LA where we have at least gotten some relief pitchers and guys we've traded for value. What I AM comparing is our success with mega-$ LA position players and our success with relatively cheap LA pitching. We have blown a ton of money on huge bonus $ LA position players. You have ignored this.

[julio]

Updated per Matt's data, with bottom line sum amended to exclude bonuses of $10,000 or less:

Player	Position	Signed	Nationality	Birth	Age at Signing	Bonus
Beltran, Nolan	SS	1/15/22	Colombia	1/24/05	16	350,000
Bergolla, William	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	10/20/04	17	2,050,000
Carela, Leny	OF	1/15/22	Dominican	10/9/04	17	400,000
Chirinos, Eduar	LHP	1/15/22	Venezuela	4/20/05	16	40,000
Colmenares, Kilwer	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	4/26/05	16	100,000
Escobar, Aroon	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	1/1/05	17	450,000
German, Jeffrey	RHP	1/15/22	Dominican	10/26/04	17	65,000
Gonzalez, Luis	RHP	1/15/22	Venezuela	7/15/05	16	10,000
Hernandez, Andres	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	3/10/05	16	50,000
Jimenez, Manolfi	OF	1/15/22	Venezuela	11/14/04	17	300,000
Mendez, Romel	OF	1/15/22	Venezuela	1/10/05	17	450,000
Rosario, Neifi	OF	1/15/22	Dominican	9/25/04	17	400,000
Segura, Enrique	RHP	1/15/22	Dominican	12/19/04	17	80,000
Sosa, John	LHP	1/15/22	Dominican	2/14/03	18	10,000
Villavicencio, Juan	SS	1/15/22	Venezuela	11/24/04	17	90,000
Helmig, Lou	OF	1/16/22	Germany	5/1/03	18	69,700
Pouaka-Grego, Nikau	IF	1/17/22	Australia	9/13/04	17	250,000
Amarante, Juan	LHP	1/28/22	Venezuela	4/14/04	17
Mata, Angel	C	4/14/22	Venezuela	1/4/05	17	20,000
Tabares, Andres	CF	4/16/22	Venezuela	8/25/05	16
Gatier, Claudio	LHP	4/27/22	Dominican	5/25/02	19
Andrade, Kleyderve	LHP	5/7/22	Venezuela	12/19/02	19
Henriquez, Jonh	RHP	6/7/22	Dominican	10/30/99	22
Rosario, Guillermo	C	7/25/22	Dominican	4/22/05	17
Heredia, Joel	RHP	7/29/22	Dominican	1/15/04	18
Ferreras, Angel	RHP	10/21/22	Dominican	3/26/03	19
Polanco, Jesus	RHP	12/1/22	Dominican	4/11/02	20
Bonuses Over $10,000, Total:						5,164,700
Pool:						5,179,700
Remaining:						15,000

[andyb]

$10,000 bonuses and below do not count against the pool. That is why we have $15,000 in bonuses unaccounted for at the moment.

International Amateur Free Agency & Bonus Pool Money | Glossary | MLB.com

[julio]

$10,000 bonuses and below do not count against the pool. That is why we have $15,000 in bonuses unaccounted for at the moment.

International Amateur Free Agency & Bonus Pool Money | Glossary | MLB.com

Now you want me to figure out the logic to tell my spreadsheet (where this table and the relevant coding lives) to conditionally sum up the bonuses (i.e., only those cells that have values > $10,000)?

As my youngest son is fond of saying, "Challenge accepted!"

UPDATE: Google it. Excel has a "SUMIF" function. So much for "figuring out the logic" - it's in there. The most recent table has been updated.

[andyb]

I use SUMIF all the time...

Thanks.

[julio]

I use SUMIF all the time...

Thanks.

I didn't know it existed. Not surprising, notwithstanding all those years of living in Excel (NJ Office of Management and Budget). There are tons of Excel functions; some obscure ones got used a lot, others remain obscure! I learned one today.

[Austinfan]

I think the problem with LA pitchers is you're projecting a 15 year old's body and arm, and there is going to be very high variance, the guys who made it often had MPH jumps of 5+ between 16 and 21 or so. And a number of successful pitchers were converted catchers and infielders (identify a no hit kid with a great arm).

Even a HS pitcher at 18 is a much easier projection, and late bloomers in the states tend to go to JC or three years of college instead of being signed as FAs (with the draft at 20 rounds, the 30+ rd kid will just go to school now).

[andyb]

There is no question that projection of 14 and 15 year olds on everything is harder. Both pitchers and hitters though possibly more with pitchers.

That still does not mean that not spending money is a viable strategy. If the kids are not getting huge bonuses then they probably don't get locked up when they are 14. And there will be bidding wars for the best of them that are probably more in the $300K range than the million dollar range. Not getting any of these arms is a problem.

There is simply not room to sign and play 50 Latin American kids every year. We are going to sign 10 to 15 pitchers a year. Remember that DSL teams have like 3 classes of signees there. So our 10-15 pitchers with a few older free agents becomes the 40 players on the two DSL pitching staffs. That is kind of it.

Good organizations find a way to spend money to sign Latin American pitching. Not spending money is just not a strategy.

[allentown]

I think the problem with LA pitchers is you're projecting a 15 year old's body and arm, and there is going to be very high variance

I am not saying that isn't true. It's also true of positions players, as our seemingly infinite # of big-$ misses proves. I am saying we have a way higher $/MLB-player or $/WAR for pitchers than for position players, so we maximize our return on investment by going to a more balanced allocation of bonuses between pitchers and position players. The way we allocate our bonus $, we keep doubling down on our scouting failures.

[julio]

Not spending money is just not a strategy.

But of course the Phils are spending money signing LA kids. They spent their bonus pool, again. If they spend more on 16-year-old pitchers, they’ll have to spend less on position prospects. If they spend $2 million on two prospects, instead of one, they’re basically done for the year.

If they’re over the luxury tax threshold, and they sign a QO’ed free agent, they’ve just “spent” $1 million from their international bonus pool. Which is what they just did with Trea Turner.

I don’t know what AustinFan is actually advocating here - does he want the Phils to not spend up to their international bonus pool? If so, that’s silly; it’s not as if they can really spend that money elsewhere productively (given draft slotting rules, luxury tax limits on ML salary, etc.). I mean, Middleton could just spend less, overall, but how does that benefit the Phillies, as opposed to John Middleton and his heirs?

As for this year’s crop (i.e., no pitchers signed for bonuses > $100k)… if we look at the past few seasons’ LA signings, is this a pattern? In 2017, they signed Carlos Betancourt, Israel, Pueblo, Victor Vargas to six-figure bonuses. In 2018, they signed Starlyn Castillo to a big bonus ($1.6M), and a couple of guys (Joalbert Angulo, Fernando Ortega) to six-figure bonuses. In 2019, Jean Hernandez and Samuel Alleghenies to six-figure bonuses. None in 2021 or 2022 (2020 got lost, between COVID and the re-scheduling of the signing period). Is this a changed philosophy, or just random variation?

[Austinfan]

I'm not advocating leaving money on the table, I'm advocating avoiding bidding wars for kids who mature early (thus get scouts excited, but as we've seen 90-92 at 16 is often 92-94 at 20) and focus on spreading the money around on kids with less current skill but more potential upside - if you're gonna gamble, gamble on upside.

[andyb]

AF really has not articulated what he would spend money on.

All I will say is we have not developed much Latin American pitching the last few years. He keeps advocating to not spend big dollars on pitching. Fine. But then how do you develop pitching? He has alluded to just signing dozens and dozens of $10K prospects but the reality is we (and no team) has the facilities to handle that. I also suspect that everybody's second DSL team will go away just like their Short Season A Ball team went away.

We actually swung for the fences with Abel and Painter in the draft and seem to be doing well (knock on wood). But the other side of that is that we spent huge draft capital to do so in the face of statistical evidence that also says HS pitchers are risky compared to every other draft category.

I am worried about the last couple of Latin American classes not having any appreciable bonuses on the pitching side. I agree that million dollar bonuses are pretty foolish, but also think there is probably a strong case to spend at least 25%-30% of our bonus pool ($1.5 million total) on pitching.

[andyb]

I'm not advocating leaving money on the table, I'm advocating avoiding bidding wars for kids who mature early (thus get scouts excited, but as we've seen 90-92 at 16 is often 92-94 at 20) and focus on spreading the money around on kids with less current skill but more potential upside - if you're gonna gamble, gamble on upside.

So you are saying spend 90%+ of your Latin American bonuses on hitting (where as Atown points out we have a pretty mediocre development record). And almost nothing on pitching.

Do you really think we are going to get lots of high upside kids with that strategy? Do you really think we will develop an above average amount of pitching with that strategy?

[Austinfan]

No, I'm saying avoid the $1-2M overpriced prospects (unless you're absolutely sold on the player, but don't "follow the leader" and bid b/c other teams do), and focus on players in the $20-$100 range (higher if you're in love) who are less physically developed for their age but have a frame or other other attributes that projects to potential upside, you can afford to miss on 9 of 10 if you hit big on one - but you can't afford to miss many of your high priced bets.

[andyb]

The whole industry is largely avoiding million dollar pitching bonuses now.

The Phillies seems to be outliers in avoiding ANY pitching bonuses though. We just spent less than 5% of our pool on pitching.

How do you reasonably expect to develop an above average amount of pitching when you are spending near the least in MLB on that pitching and have the same roster spot and playing time concerns as everyone else? Your answer on million dollar bonuses does not address the real question here.

[julio]

In the last two cycles, yes, the Phils have spent little on bonuses for pitching; prior to that, they were doing pretty much what andyb is advocating, paying six-figure bonuses to two or three pitchers a year (and one seven-figure bonus).

I guess my question is whether the past two cycles represent a changed approach, or just a reflection of what they could get done. Given the lags between the time a club reaches agreement with a LA kid (and his buscone) and when these kids are actually signed, if there was a philosophical change, it likely would have happened a year or two before it showed up in six-figure signings. Did relevant personnel change in that time period?

[zambonir]

Of course you can never have enough pitching but it does seem like one reason for this might be that the Phillies feel much better about the current (and domestic) depth on that side but still see a very empty cupboard of hitters?

Though julio's question also suggests that perhaps Klentak and Minnitti just really botched it for a couple of years (Minitti having only been gone now for one year). Or the pandemic affected things somehow.