Here’s the latest on some international transactions news from around baseball…
- The Blue Jays signed Cuban right-hander Yosver Zulueta and Dutch right-handers Jiorgeny Casimiri and Sem Robberse in some late additions before the end of the 2018-19 international signing period, Sportsnet.ca’s Shi Davidi writes. Toronto acquired an extra $1.5MM of bonus pool funds in spring trades of Kendrys Morales to the A’s and Dwight Smith Jr. to the Orioles, which accounted for these three Jays signing (Zulueta received “the majority of their spending room,” as per Davidi).
- The Orioles signed Dominican center fielder Stiven Acevedo to a contract with a $275K bonus in April, Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun writes. Acevedo’s birthday (August 2, 2002) made him a bit of an odd man out for the first batch of signings last July 2, as other teams committed most of their pools to players who were already 16 years old. This left him available for Baltimore, who felt like Acevedo would have received a bonus of $1MM+ had he waited for the next international signing period this coming July 2. Acevedo is already 6’4″ and 185 pounds despite his young age, “with feel for the barrel, not much swing-and-miss and the chance to grow into some power,” according to Meoli. The piece is well worth a read for a full overview of the Orioles’ 2018-19 international signing endeavors, as the team has finally started to focus on the int’l market under new GM Mike Elias (and in the final weeks of former front office boss Dan Duquette’s tenure) and the O’s now seem positioned to be major players in the 2019-20 signing period. In total, the O’s spent $2.167MM since last July 2, despite a signing pool that both rose and shrunk rapidly after multiple trades and pursuits of such high-profile prospects as the Mesa brothers.
- Austin Bibens-Dirkx is no longer a member of the Uni-President Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, the team announced (hat tip to Rob of CPBLStats.com) Bibens-Dirkx wished to return to the United States to be with his wife as the couple expects a baby within the coming days. Bibens-Dirkx posted a 5.27 ERA over 114 1/3 innings for the Rangers in 2017-18 before signing with the Uni-Lions in the offseason. His time in the CPBL carries its share of struggles, as Bibens-Dirkx posted a 5.28 ERA and 1.26 WHIP 46 innings.
I feel like the Orioles always get a lot of heat over their international spending (a lot of it very funny), but it wasn’t that long ago they were division champs. Yes they are bad now, but so is Toronto and they always spend a lot internationally. Is there actually a study that correlates international spending to actual big league success? And I am not talking success in terms of things like like “best farm system” that have no real meaning whatsoever. I’m talking actual big league success.
Looks like AAA depth for Baltimore.
Good to see the Jays putting that extra money to use, especially on pitching (I’m assuming they’re all pitchers since it doesn’t say a position).
The Orioles stop spending International money back in the late 80s I think it was maybe early 90’s. Central and South America was in turmoil a lot of people we’re being killed so they pulled all the Orioles Scouts out.And wasa good way to save money so they never started back in it again.
If you need to ask a question of the success of international signings, you haven’t been paying attention to baseball enough to be commenting on it..
One of the best players in baseball history came from Japan, and off the top of my head I would say 40% of the MLB is made up of Latin American ball players.