January 15, 2025 International Signing Period

[andyb]

There are also roster limits in the DSL with the stronger limits stateside.

What is the DSL roster limit now? 165 stateside. I think we typically had 70-75 active players in the DSL (plus 60-day IL and various restricted categories).

[Matt_Winkelman]

35 per team (so 70), not sure what offseason limits are and if there is an expansion like the 165 to 175 for domestic. I have them at 64 plus two restricted list prior to signing 29 players and their domestic roster is currently at 168, but the 40 man guys obviously count towards that and not the minors.

[Austinfan]

I can't imagine there are 68 DSL players they consider legitimate prospects, so unless contracts make it impossible to cut someone, that shouldn't be a barrier to signing anyone.

[julio]

I can't imagine there are 68 DSL players they consider legitimate prospects, so unless contracts make it impossible to cut someone, that shouldn't be a barrier to signing anyone.

There will assuredly be releases from among the players currently on the DSL rosters. Additionally, some players currently on a DSL roster will be assigned to a domestic roster this spring. That said, they just signed 29 players who will be assigned to rosters that currently have six vacancies. There's little point in trying to sign a bunch of additional international kids, unless those kids project to be more valuable than the players they will displace on a DSL roster... and the kids currently on the DSL roster are typically just the kids who were signed last year, or the year before.

For sure, a few of those prior-year signees will have been disappointing, and will be released. But even with no additional signings, given that 29 kids have just been signed, something like 15-20 current DSL players will likely be released (assuming 6 vacancies, and the promotion of a handful of kids to the FCL or Low-A). That's a quarter of the current rosters. You reach a point where the 16-year-olds available to sign are just not more attractive than the 17- or 18-year-olds you already have under contract. Even if they have bonus pool space, there's no point to just churning one kid out so you can sign a different kid who is no better, just to "spend to the limit."

[andyb]

I can't imagine there are 68 DSL players they consider legitimate prospects, so unless contracts make it impossible to cut someone, that shouldn't be a barrier to signing anyone.

The issue is that all of these young players need multiple seasons to develop and you just can't really stash healthy midlevel prospects. The domestic roster limits mean the best prospects spend 1 year in the DSL, good prospects spend 2, and the lesser prospects (especially pitchers) often spend 3-4.

Do the math and signing more than 30 players a year is just unproductive. While I agree with you about spreading the bonus around some rather than putting it all on one player that may not be special, I disagree on signing a bunch of $10K players and hope time will produce prospects. You just can't do that. I'd rather have a bunch of $100K-$200K signings and fewer players overall.

[zambonir]

I also have had this nagging feeling about it being $1M traded, because that is the QO penalty and probably one they would have had to pay if Nola had walked last year.

That's astute!

[allentown]

That said, they just signed 29 players who will be assigned to rosters that currently have six vacancies. There's little point in trying to sign a bunch of additional international kids, unless those kids project to be more valuable than the players they will displace on a DSL roster... and the kids currently on the DSL roster are typically just the kids who were signed last year, or the year before.

Posters who argue against spending the rest of our allocation on the best pitching prospects we can find, in view of our pronounced emphasis on position player bonuses and number of signings, thus far, have been logically inconsistent in their posts. They first say that we emphasize bonus and # signed on position players, because it is so difficult to assess the quality of future pitchers at ages 14/15/16. But... logically that argues for signing a larger number of pitchers and sorting them out in the DSL, not signing fewer. It also argues for following the common bend-the-rules approach of the teams that seem to do best in L.A. and offer deals to more 14/15 year-old pitching prospects than we will have $ to sign and just going forward with the ones who still look promising as they are about to turn 16. Now I have your argument that we can't sign more pitchers with our remaining allocation, because of roster limitations in the DSL. But that limit is 70. That means we can sign at least 35 new players a year and still have the average player spend two seasons in the DSL. I will argue that two years is adequate time to sort out most signees and decide who is a real prospect who should be brought state-side after 2 seasons in DSL. The best prospects, or biggest bonuses, seem to come stateside within a year. That means we should sign 35 new prospects every year, but the number is actually larger: the kids who weren't talented enough to warrant the signing/roster spot are likely to wash out within a year. That means we should aim to sign perhaps 40 per year and have our DSL roster be 40 first year guys and 30 second year guys. I don't understand the exact rules, so it may even stretch a bit farther, since the very youngest, unless 'top prospect' don't seem to play in their signing year, but presumably get a full season of conditioning, coaching, and batting/pitching practice.

"You reach a point where the 16-year-olds available to sign are just not more attractive than the 17- or 18-year-olds you already have under contract." I don't think that's true. It's undoubtedly true if you are looking at the DSL teams winning more games, but I think not true for 16-year-old pitchers. Remember, the argument is repeatedly advanced that you can't really evaluate ptiching prospects when they are 16. Thus, a half dozen 16-year-old pitchers signed now are likelier to contain a true prospect than a half dozen 18-year-olds going into their 3rd DSL season.

[zambonir]

Even though it's frustrating to see an allocation (potentially) unspent (and we don't even know if that will be fully true until 360 days from now), I wouldn't underestimate the desire of any team to save $1 million if they don't see something worth spending it on, even a rich one like the Phillies. Like, the organizational limits and the gutting of the minor league system overall was all about that sort of penny-pinching even if the Phillies might not have been among the teams driving those changes.

[andyb]

The issue unfortunately is risk. Analytics have dictated that 80%-90% of signing bonus money in the 16 year old international market should go to position players rather than pitchers because of risk.

Two things can be true. One will get more cumulative WAR per dollar from signing young hitters versus young pitchers. Conversely, one can't maximize young pitching talent without investing more. The Phillies actually went against the grain drafting 2 very risky pitchers in a row in Painter and Abel (though admittedly each dropped some in the draft because of analytics against young pitchers).

The path we have chosen is really spending draft and international money more on young hitters than young pitchers. Simultaneously we end up paying more for Wheeler and Nola and other members of the pitching staff than we would ideally want to. The strategy has been pretty good so far though. I hope they spend a little more on young Latin American pitching because I think there are undervalued assets there. But all this is probably in the context of knowing our backup plan is just spending big in general if we have to.

[Austinfan]

I think young pitchers have higher variance, but also higher ceilings.
So you should only spend bit on "sure thing" position players, but not overpay second tier hitters unlikely to become ML starters.
Conversely, you shouldn't overpay for any young pitcher, but you should build a portfolio to guard against risk.

[allentown]

The issue unfortunately is risk. Analytics have dictated that 80%-90% of signing bonus money in the 16 year old international market should go to position players rather than pitchers because of risk.

Two things can be true. One will get more cumulative WAR per dollar from signing young hitters versus young pitchers. Conversely, one can't maximize young pitching talent without investing more. The Phillies actually went against the grain drafting 2 very risky pitchers in a row in Painter and Abel (though admittedly each dropped some in the draft because of analytics against young pitchers).

A third thing can also be true: that the Phillies haven't gotten WAR return at the MLB level for their adherence to the 80-90% of bunuses to hitters. We've spent a ton of bonus on hitters, both through the draft and through international signings. What do we have to show for it? Bohm has given us almost 4 career WAR. Before him, Rhys Hoskins gave us 11 WAR. Kingery gave us 0.5 WAR before cratering. From L.A. bonus signings, Johan Rojas has given us 3 WAR and the Phillies have all but given up on him. Nola has given us 36 WAR. Ranger Suarez has given us 13 WAR. Seranthony Dominguez gave us 3.9 WAR. We have gotten far more bang for our buck with pitchers.

[Squire]

Looks like 31 signings to me:

https://x.com/PhilsPlayerDev/status/1881419441638105093

[julio]

Well, there are 31 people in that photo - but as of 2:15 pm today, still 29 signings listed in the transactions. We'll see what develops.

[julio]

This is the more relevant tweet from PhilsPlayerDev:

Adds three names that have not appeared in the transactions as yet:

Maicol Lauriano
Albertt Medina
Juan Parra

I 'm updating have updated the table.

[andyb]

Big question is how much of that $1.7 million that was not accounted for has been used. I imagine most of it. There are rarely bargains that are available late in the cycle so I would prefer they spend most of their pool now.

[allentown]

Adds three names that have not appeared in the transactions as yet:

Maicol Lauriano
Albertt Medina
Juan Parra

Two young VZ pitchers and an older DR pitcher. Still only 13 pitchers out of 32 signings, but the 3 additional signings are certainly welcome.

[Matt_Winkelman]

I was curious based on other conversations so I pulled up the 2024 class. There were 15 players not signed on January 15, all signing in March or later, 14 of 15 were pitchers. Unrelated and interesting but there are a couple of names in that I would keep an eye on. Darling Reyes was on BA's early preview list, he is older (20), but he is 93-97 T98 with poor control, but there is an interesting arm. Naiker Velasquez is 19, but he was a guy who popped in Instructs for me. He is big (6'5") and projectable, and was starting to ramp up to hitting 95 by the end of Instructs with improving command and offspeed. Zuher Yousef will turn 19 in May, but he is a short lefty that is short on raw stuff, but there is 4 pitches and pitchability in there.

[andyb]

I definitely do not remember the Phillies getting close to 30 signings in the first week in past years. The January date probably accelerates things faster than the July date. Maybe they are just filling up to the roster limits now because there was not much left later in the year worth saving pool money for.

I assume there is some latitude on that 70 player roster limit in the offseason though obviously a bunch of releases or promotions to the domestic roster will have to happen before the season starts.

[julio]

though obviously a bunch of releases or promotions to the domestic roster will have to happen before the season starts.

Well, releases will happen - although how many from DSL rosters versus how many from domestic rosters remains to be seen. But as you know, it's an 'up or out" business, with a cap on how many players they can have under contract; if they're going to draft and sign 25 guys domestically (draft plus UDFA), and 30 guys internationally, on an annual basis, that means that 50 or so other guys are going to be departing, one way or another.

[andyb]

If we had 68 guys on the DSL roster and just signed 29 more something will have to give. Assume we need to get to 70 before the season starts. There will be 5-10 promotions stateside. A handful of 60-day IL assignments. But that still only gets us down to 85-90 DSL players. 15-20 releases thus will happen unless there are more promotions than usual or a rash of injuries.

I have no idea if they can avoid the limits until the DSL season starts. GCL players would not have to be promoted to the domestic roster until midseason. I think most of the FCL players were promoted to the domestic roster last year in Spring Training though as everyone except 3 or 4 players played in extended. There were a handful of midseason DSL promotions, though by that time the domestic 60-day IL list had probably grown.