5:48pm: The Reds sent $2.75MM in spending room to the Red Sox, tweets Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
10:33am: The Red Sox have acquired international bonus pool space from the Reds in exchange for minor league first baseman Nick Longhi, as per a Sox press release. In a separate deal, Boston also acquired more pool space from the Cardinals in exchange for minor league infielders Imeldo Diaz and Stanley Espinal. Specific financial terms weren’t announced for either trade.
The Sox made a big splash as the 2017-18 international signing period opened this morning, agreeing to deals with highly-touted prospects Daniel Flores, Danny Diaz and Antoni Flores for a combined $6.1MM in bonuses. Since the Red Sox had only $4.75MM available to spend in their draft pool, some trading was necessary to bring in the extra funds for these youngsters, as well as any other less-splashy international signings the Sox may make. Teams are allowed to acquire as much as 75 percent of their original draft pool, which works out to $3,562,500 in Boston’s case.
Longhi was rated as Boston’s 14th-best minor leaguer by the 2017 Baseball America Prospect Handbook, which described Longhi as “one of the best pure hitters in the Red Sox system” despite a lack of power. Longhi has six of his 16 career homers as a professional this season at Double-A, with a .262/.306/.401 overall batting line in 252 PA. The 21-year-old was originally a 30th-round pick for the Sox in the 2013 amateur draft.
Both Espinal and Diaz have appeared in just seven games each this season, all for Boston’s low A-ball affiliate in Lowell. Espinal, a 20-year-old third baseman out of the Dominican Republic, has a .682 OPS over 577 pro plate appearances. The 19-year-old Diaz also hasn’t shown much at the plate in his brief career, hitting .222/.279/.258 over 522 PA.
The Cardinals had $5.75MM and the Reds $5.25MM in available pool money for this July 2 class, though both teams are under the $300K limit since both exceeded their bonus pools in the 2016-17 signing period. It stands to reason that St. Louis and Cincinnati felt comfortable dealing their pool money since they didn’t plan on using all of it given their limited signing capabilities. It wouldn’t be a surprise if other teams facing the $300K penalty (the Astros, A’s, Cubs, Padres, Royals, Braves, Giants, Dodgers and Nationals) also deal some from their bonus pool funds in the coming weeks and months.
Why? I thought they had exceeded their pool already and were facing the penalties.
Ended this signing period. The Anderson Espinoza/Moncada signs from 2y ago put them over.
Ohhh right thanks
Now this article lists a bunch of teams that exceeded their pool in the last period and says they might trade their pool money because they can’t use it to sign anyone to over 300k and therefor won’t need all those millions. The Cubs are listed as one of those teams that can’t sign anyone for over 300k.
But if you go back like five articles to the article on international signings, where like ten signings are listed, it says the Cubs just signed someone to a $1m bonus.
These two things seem to be in conflict, can someone explain?
it’s funky, but essentially since the cubs bought the player from his club, only a percentage goes to the player. The rest, theoretically, goes to the club he previously played for. only the amount sent to the player counts against the cap.
Interesting, thanks. Does the amount that goes to player’s previous team count against the pool amount? Like say the Cubs gave the player 300k and his prior team 700k to account for the $1m reported signing cost, does that count 300k or $1m against the Cubs’ bonus pool? (I assume $1m.)
It does not. I’ve only seen this exception with the Mexican League, so I believe that that’s the only avenue that teams in the penalty box can take to grab some of the more well – regarded prospects.
Obviously though, those teams can sign lesser – regarded players for $300K or less, and somebody will find a big leaguer or two in the pile of non – hyped guys looking for opportunities.
Happens quite often, too. Not a lot of major leagues to use as examples since international signings have grown so rapidly, but a load of new major leaguers and top prospects were signed for under $300,000. Just to mention a few…
Ronald Torreyes ($40,000)
Orlando Arcia ($90,000)
Raul Mondesi Jr. ($80,000)
Carlos Martinez ($160,000)
Maikel Franco ($100,000)
Odubel Herrera ($50,000)
Jorge Mateo ($250,000)
Ronald Acuna ($100,000)
Victor Robles ($225,000)
Francis Martes ($78,000)
Sixto Sanchez ($50,000)
Antonio Senzatela ($250,000)
While this list is mostly right (Mondesi got $800K), it also has nothing at all to do with the question asked.
The Cubs spent $1M to acquire the player in question. $250K went to the player (and counts against the pool they have to spend) and $750K went to the team the acquired him from.
“The rest, theoretically, goes to the club he previously played for.”
Theoretically.
Theoretically that is all of the money that actually passed from the Cubs to other parties in order to acquire that player for their farm system.
It’s a big world out there. Every little island in the Caribbean has banks that specialize in money laundering.
Owners who want to win will find a way.
Can someone explain the new rules for next year?
The biggest change is that there’s a hard cap on what teams can spend.
The Dodgers blew way past their spending limit in 2015, totaling nearly $50 million. More and more teams started doing that – just going on a binge one year, accepting their penalties for the next two years, and so on, But it was a lot harder for small market teams to land top talent when teams like the Dodgers, Cubs, Red Sox, etc. would throw as much money as they could and sign as many top players as they could.
I don’t think I can link it, but if you google “Baseball America, NEW MLB INTERNATIONAL SIGNING RULES”, they have a pretty good article talking about all the changes dealing with exempt ages, trading bonuses, what teams get how much, etc.. Trade rumors also has some good articles on it.