January 15, 2025 International Signing Period

andyb · Jan 12

Well this does seem an overpay and even a PR-related move for Pittsburgh (as in why aren't we spending more money on the major league roster in free agency?). Pirates are under $80 million still for the major league payroll and all we hear about are how the A's need to spend to get to like $105 million.

I am not a fan of overpays. I have been pretty consistent in disliking many of the big contracts the Phillies give out (for the amount and not necessarily the player). Ortiz is clearly the classic case but I would have been fine bringing him in for somewhere in the $1.$2 million range knowing what we knew back when he was 15 or 16. Bergolla always seemed like an $800K-$1M player to me. Even Caba should have been $2 million instead of $3 million.

That being said, I hope there are a bunch of $500K players out there and we sign 6-10 of them. That would be my ideal class in this situation since we pretty much are out on anyone else in the top 50 and our top guy now (Izaguerra) is below $1 million reportedly. Let's sign 5 more kids in the 50-100 range and be aggressive on pitching since seemingly good arms can be had for modest sums ($100K-$200K) given the analytical risk that discriminates against all young pitching.

andyb · Jan 12

BTW here is the substack page for Francys Romero previously mentioned. His top 35 is all that is free (Izaquirre and Marrero did not make that). Assume he has other notes on social media.

Pat_Burrell · Jan 12

I recall previously reading that the buscones (sp?) were most against a draft since they would lose all leverage and threatened trouble if a draft was ever on the table

zambonir · Jan 12

If the MLBPA agreed to it, the league would just crush the entire system. Not saying it's right (at all!) or that the draft is the best thing for the players necessarily but imagine Rob Manfred and Scott Boras as Exxon or United Fruit in this scenario. There's not much doubt who wins.

Austinfan · Jan 12

If you don't think you're signing a "sure thing" you're probably better off spreading your money around on kids who are less physical mature than their peers at 15-16 instead of getting into bidding wars for early bloomers.

Almost all the players the Phillies gave big money to have flopped over the years.
And most of their LA major leaguers and top prospects haven't been million dollar bonus babies.

andyb · Jan 13

That is actually not true. Big money guys have become good players (even going back to Carlos Silva and Carlos Carrasco). The real issue is giving players $2 to $4 million when they should get only $1 million..

All these 16 year old kids have risk. You still need to spend at the top of the market though to get the better tools. We just need to negotiate a better price on the top kids than the Phillies have done historically.. A "never spend big money on anybody" strategy like you seem to advocate probably does not work either. I want more players with medium money. I do not think signing 50 players for low money works.

zambonir · Jan 13

The answer is not for the Phillies stop signing big money guys, the answer is to get better at it. No different than the high end of the domestic draft. If they can also find an Altuve for $15,000 or an Acuña for $100,000 that's good too. They don't have much history doing that either.

Austinfan · Jan 13

Unless you have a "sure thing," and history shows most multi-million dollar LA signings are a waste of money, you're better off spreading it around to a portfolio of small and medium signings, Tait was $70K for example. You can sign a lot of lanky pitchers who might fill out and add 5 MPH. You can look for kids with good tools who aren't physically mature at 16 and bet on them filling out. You'll miss on most, but the Phillies missed on most of their high priced signings. Silva did what? Carrasco is the only name, Ortiz, Encarnacion, the overage OF, etc.?

Matt_Winkelman · Jan 13

The Phillies just flipped Starlyn Caba at probably top 100 prospect value as possibly the best defender in the minors and best players in his class. I would say that signing was both good and worth the value they paid.

allentown · Jan 13

Which is why I think the Phillies spend more on pitcher bonuses in their international signings. We've spent the vast majority of bonus $ on positionn players and the results aren't good. We do better on pitchers. We do horrendously on OF, where we spend a ton of $. Better on IFs and catchers, but not as good a return as with pirtchers.

allentown · Jan 13

i think the time has come to crush this whole corrupt system and begin anew, preferably with an international draft, but definitely with an honest system which certain teams cannot take advantage of, pretty much with impunity.

Squire · Jan 13

BA Updated their list to a Top 100

Phillies are linked to:

59 - Nieves Izaguirre, SS, Venezuela (Phillies)
67 - Elias Marrero, SS, Dominican Republic (Phillies)
72 - Deivis Velasquez, C, Venezuela (Phillies)

phillychuck · Jan 13

Are they BA's #1,2,and 3 prospects overall? If not, where do they sit? The original post shows 1, 2, and 3 before their names.

Squire · Jan 13

The formatting on this page always does that to me when i drop in information. I need to figure out a way to defeat it. In any event

Nieves is 59
Marrero is 67
Velasquez is 72

phillychuck · Jan 13

Not bad if we get them all. It's hard to rank LA guys at such a young age, maybe they are all better than the scouts think!

owaistabish · Jan 13

Phillies, by my count are also linked to two other catchers: Anderson Araujo and Gabriel Azocar (from GT baseball academy).

julio · Jan 13

Squire - Take a look at what I did in your earlier post. It's a cludge, but it worked.

andyb · Jan 13

$3 million was a very large bonus though. $2 million might have been more appropriate for someone without much power. The Phillies tend to overpay based on where the prospects rank. There is no question Caba is a good prospect. Bottom of the top 100 now (or just outside the top 100). Some of that is due to performance since he was signed though. And I suspect most of the $3 million bonus guys in his class are top 100 too since they have so little high level performance to change their rankings.

A player can be a really good prospect and the bonus at the time could still have been a bit high. Both things can be true. This organization just has a long history of overpaying. The errors on players are mostly scouting and development issues. The negotiations on bonus however are about us overpaying to get the player and these overpays can hurt if we start at a smaller bonus pool level than other organizations.

Austinfan · Jan 13

Or other teams overvalue LA prospects early in their careers?
Caba seems like a solid but risky (to succeed, he has to fill out and develop gap power) prospect, far more risky than say Crawford.

The difference between the draft and LA is in both cases you can shift money between players (and the cap on LA money operates similar to the draft in that you only get one or two "top" picks) is information. You're drafting 18 year old HS players or 22 year old college players v what is essentially 15 year olds for the top guys and 16 for everyone else. Which is why more LA "late picks" surprise than MLB later draft picks.

Because there's far more risk in LA signings, you should probably avoid overpaying at the top unless there's a "Sure" thing, and how many LA prospects can be considered high probability to succeed, compared to the 1st rd of the ML draft? This variability in results may make it more efficient to spread money around.

I hope the Phillies have sat down and figured out the odds and the optimal strategy, instead of relying on scouts' gut feelings.

Matt_Winkelman · Jan 13

I didn’t do a deep dive, but looking at pipeline’s top international list from 2023, the notable prospects are Sebastian Walcott, Ethan Salas, Felnin Celesten, Alfredo Duno, and Luis Morales all of who ranked above Caba. Of those, using Pipeline’s top 100 only Salas ($5.6M), Walcott ($3.2M), and Celesten ($4.6M) ranked above Caba.

It seems pretty clear Caba got paid at the caliber player he is. He is also near universally viewed as a better prospect than Crawford. Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus had him ranked higher, and he would have been ahead of Crawford on my own list. I don’t want to say the Phillies are good at this or there aren’t flaws, but you are tilting at windmills with a lot of your analysis on this, imaging that things exist (lower bonuses for top ranked players or good 16 year old pitching prospects) that just have no evidence that they exist.

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