The Phillies and Orioles have announced a swap in which the Philadelphia organization acquires international bonus pool spending availability. Young catcher Lenin Rodriguez is heading to Baltimore in return.
This is the latest in a strong of transactions in which the O’s have spun off international spending capacity. The club missed on some top targets and obviously felt unable to put its remaining funds to productive uses.
Rodriguez, who’ll soon turn 21, has not seen much game action in the lower minors since signing for a $300K bonus. Over the past four seasons, he’s a .263/.369/.367 hitter in 444 plate appearances — more than half of which came in Venezuelan Summer League ball way back in 2015.
hmm okay then
Biggest move the Phillies made all offseason…
Stupid Money!
Clown post.
Nic to see that Baltimore has finally figured out this International market thing.
Imagine if Crush and Trumbo both hit 50 dingers. Even then, people will still only talk about what boon this trade was.
Strong = String
I’m jealous, you have Harper, and yet still making moves.
Remember that 3 week period when the O’s were gonna be big players in the international market?
That was huge.
It is frustrating to hear them talk about international draft work and then spend January to now trading international money for prospect players.
That said, I think some of this had to do with Elias looking over the international scouting portfolio that the O’s have for this upcoming draft and realizing he has little to no information to use because of the busted international scouting system for the O’s. So why not trade off essentially worthless slot value when he has better info on prospects in the US system already? Then fire the international scouts and shoot for a 2020 draft.
That’s what I’m telling myself is happening…maybe, maybe not.
This current allotment of international money expires on July 2. The Orioles, even after the past few trades, have a higher allotment than every other team. Almost all of the promising international free agents have signed; only one, Yolbert Sanchez, is still available. Sanchez is an elite defender but limited offensively so there is no rush to sign him for any significant bonus money.
Also, a little research shows that there is a possibility that in the next few months Cuban players may be able to sign as free agents without defecting, meaning more players will become available that currently are not.
Rodriguez has an outstandingly low K-rate, about 10%, through his 3 year minor league career (including a 5 % K-rate over 200+ AB’s in the VSL a couple of years ago). That, and a pretty good defensive rep, make him worth it for the O’s.
They likely don’t have their International infrastructure built up yet, so they might as well spend their leftover “slots” taking those kinds of chances.
Phillies laundering international bonus pool money into stupid money. For shame.
Aside from what bobtillman wrote, I had never heard of this catcher….the Phillies we’re low in international spending cash…this helps..
This helps lessen the sting of losing Mike Trout.
The Orioles are out of touch. Some jumped in before others but just about every other team is on the same page with their international scouting and player development except the Orioles. Good fan base but terrible front office/ownership. They’ve been trying to build a team like it’s 1990 for years. Signing power hitters destined for decline to enormous deals. Everyone but them knew it was time to rebuild years ago but they kept trotting out a few good players and being subpar. If they would have spent money even halfway decent and unloaded what little valuable talented they’ve had when they had controllable years left and could bring a nice return they’d be on the uptick right now. Instead they are god awful and aren’t close to coming out of it. They had no starting pitching and no prospects to obtain it. They could’ve attempted to buy it through free agency which would have been a mistake but they chose an even more head scratching path by standing put. They picked up Gallardo off the scrap heap like he was going to make some sort of impact. Just about every other team has had some sort of window of opportunity. Some more than others because of revenue but by knowing when to hold em and when to fold em they’ve made it work but not the O’s. Be smart if you see other teams doing things and it’s working do it too.
this was def a great move for phi to open up some cash and let a catcher have a shot since he is well logjammed in our system..check out more at the phanaddicts they are always doing well…
heres that links guys help him get started he is an amazing voice for phi and his opinions are well analytics and stat based mixed with his lifelong passion for philly …worth a listen guys amd more to come as long as people support it and he wants no money just listeners youtube.com/channel/UCGnd1nTa7Q2CcPrnLD3U_LQ