Did the Angels just sign some international talent???

[Hufflepuff]

Fake news? If true, anyone know anything about these guys?

[Ordos]

Where's Pio Deportes when you need him?

[Angel Dog and Beer]

Hmmm, no mention of this on the Central Maine Sports Blog. Color me suspicious. 

[Second Base]

Generally speaking, signing 18 and 19 year olds in February isn't generally where the talent is.   16 year olds on July 2nd, that's where you get the premier international prospects.  The last noteworthy international prospect the title lefty, Ricardo Sanchez, who Dipoto dealt for Kyle Kubitza, who was DFA'd a year and a half later.  Sanchez, for his part, has shown increasingly quality stuff as he matures, but the results haven't been there at all for him. 

[WeatherWonk]

Boy, predicting how good a 16 year old kid is going to become, takes some real vision. I wonder what percentage actually make it to the bigs? Lots of money that never materializes, I would imagine.

[Blarg]

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/5139338/

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

They must have been Venezuelan....I'm sure it was a way to find cheaper yacht fuel....

[ten ocho recon scout]

16 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

Generally speaking, signing 18 and 19 year olds in February isn't generally where the talent is.  

Disagree. Thats talent any month...

[ScottT]

18 and 19?   Over the hill. 

[Docwaukee]

16 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

Generally speaking, signing 18 and 19 year olds in February isn't generally where the talent is.   16 year olds on July 2nd, that's where you get the premier international prospects.  The last noteworthy international prospect the title lefty, Ricardo Sanchez, who Dipoto dealt for Kyle Kubitza, who was DFA'd a year and a half later.  Sanchez, for his part, has shown increasingly quality stuff as he matures, but the results haven't been there at all for him. 

we spend the better part of 5-7 yrs ignoring 1/3rd of the talent pool available.  My guess is that these two guys are equivalent to players we'd draft in the 15th to 20th rounds.  But here's the nit and an interesting reason why that talent pool we have been missing out on is so important.  The players in the international market are typically ages 16-18 yo.  Where do you get those players in the draft?  Maybe in the first 7 rounds.  After that, any player worth having isn't likely to sign and will hit college.  

On the international market, you can get 7-20th round high ceiling talent because they are so young.  So you are going to have a lot of guys burn out, but you also have a group of guys with a chance of being much more.  Much more than the high floor guys from the middle of the domestic draft.  

[John Smith]

What i don't understand is, where have they been that they didn't get signed until 18-19. Even crap players in the DR get signed at 16-17.

[Second Base]

5 hours ago, John Smith said:

What i don't understand is, where have they been that they didn't get signed until 18-19. Even crap players in the DR get signed at 16-17.

From what I understand, most promising prospects are identified around 14 or 15, and spend the next year or two away from their families either at academies for baseball, or working with individual trainers.  The more obscure ones that aren't there at 14 and 15 typically will go to showcases once they're 16 in hopes to latch on with an organization, like many high school seniors in the U.S.  Attend enough of these (like a couple years worth), and eventually your name is out there.

If I had to guess, that's what we're seeing with these two kids.  At 16, they just weren't mature enough to get signed, but they kept attending the showcases for a couple years, and eventually they grow, and the one team that's desperate for everyone else's table scraps (the Angels), signed them. 

I think a similar circumstance occurred with Amarista.   He went unsigned through age 16 and 17.  When he was 18, he started playing softball, which is apparently super competitive out there.  He was discovered by a scout playing softball.  Landed a personal workout with the Angels, who signed him for hardly anything, and no one really noticed. 

[eligrba]

Eppler is clearly acting with a sense of urgency to sign as many international players as possible before the wall gets built.

[arch stanton]

Does anyone know anything about how the political climate is affecting recruitment in Venezuela?

[Angel Oracle]

Only 4.5 months until the Baldoquin fueled purgatory ends. 

[Ohtaniland]

18 and 19 year old Dominicans, which basically means their both pushing 30 and each of them have 6-8 kids from at least five different women. 

[Rico]

2 hours ago, CALZONE said:

18 and 19 year old Dominicans, which basically means their both pushing 30 and each of them have 6-8 kids from at least five different women. 

Are we sure one is not Vladimir Guerrero trying to get back into the league?