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My takeaway here is that the Sox have a coaching problem in the lower minors. Obviously most international signings are lottery tickets, but the consistent and overwhelming failure to translate strong DSL/AZL/Rookie Ball performances to A-ball and above has to suggest they’re doing something wrong.
Jim, it’s difficult to judge if the Sox are doing a good job with their international signings without the context of how other teams have been doing. Given the difficulty you described about pulling this information together, I understand that providing any context may be impossible. Having said that, do you have any general impressions how the Sox may compare?
I’m not Jim, but the Sox are unique, for better or worse. Reinsdorf’s allergies to handing big money to teenagers means the team’s big splashes are for older talent. That means focusing on Cubans. I don’t know if the Sox beat out the Cardinals for Robert if Abreu and Moncada aren’t already on the team. Paddy establishing an advantage in signing Cuban players is the single biggest accomplishment of Sox scouting and development this century.
As Jim’s wonderful resource in this post reveals, Paddy has occasionally been able to sign a teenager from the Dominican Republic to a high-six or (Guerrero, Adolfo) low-seven-figure bonus. It’s a guess, but I suspect forwarding the “good bloodlines” argument (his uncle’s a Hall of Famer! His dad’s a longtime infielder!) allows Jerry to make some exceptions. Still, the international scouts are constrained by the same policies that recently lead to drafting every University of Louisville player who is ambulatory (and further constrained by the baffling decision to trade slot money).
One of my dashed hopes after 2005 was that the Sox would establish the kind of Venezuelan talent pipeline that the Astros had in the 1990s. Ozzie was the first Venezuelan-born manager to win a World Series, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see a way that the team could have established a sales pitch on that (and competitive bonus offers) that might have us talking about the team’s ability to sign and develop players in the 21st century that builds on the successes of the 20th century. Instead, we had the David Wilder scandal destroy the international scouting program for years.
I see a couple prospects I’m going to double check, but the one I know is off is Lenyn Sosa’s age when he signed. He was born Jan 2000 and signed in 2016 at age 16.
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Fwiw, I saw Norge Vera’s age listed as 19, 20, and 21 in different mainstream news outlets as recently as like two weeks ago. So I can barely imagine how hard it was to put all this data together.
My takeaway here is that the Sox have a coaching problem in the lower minors. Obviously most international signings are lottery tickets, but the consistent and overwhelming failure to translate strong DSL/AZL/Rookie Ball performances to A-ball and above has to suggest they’re doing something wrong.
Kind of like how every interesting prospect turned to crap when they were introduced to Omar Vizquel.
Jim, it’s difficult to judge if the Sox are doing a good job with their international signings without the context of how other teams have been doing. Given the difficulty you described about pulling this information together, I understand that providing any context may be impossible. Having said that, do you have any general impressions how the Sox may compare?
I’m not Jim, but the Sox are unique, for better or worse. Reinsdorf’s allergies to handing big money to teenagers means the team’s big splashes are for older talent. That means focusing on Cubans. I don’t know if the Sox beat out the Cardinals for Robert if Abreu and Moncada aren’t already on the team. Paddy establishing an advantage in signing Cuban players is the single biggest accomplishment of Sox scouting and development this century.
As Jim’s wonderful resource in this post reveals, Paddy has occasionally been able to sign a teenager from the Dominican Republic to a high-six or (Guerrero, Adolfo) low-seven-figure bonus. It’s a guess, but I suspect forwarding the “good bloodlines” argument (his uncle’s a Hall of Famer! His dad’s a longtime infielder!) allows Jerry to make some exceptions. Still, the international scouts are constrained by the same policies that recently lead to drafting every University of Louisville player who is ambulatory (and further constrained by the baffling decision to trade slot money).
One of my dashed hopes after 2005 was that the Sox would establish the kind of Venezuelan talent pipeline that the Astros had in the 1990s. Ozzie was the first Venezuelan-born manager to win a World Series, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see a way that the team could have established a sales pitch on that (and competitive bonus offers) that might have us talking about the team’s ability to sign and develop players in the 21st century that builds on the successes of the 20th century. Instead, we had the David Wilder scandal destroy the international scouting program for years.
This is AMAZING!
What an exciting new resource!
I see a couple prospects I’m going to double check, but the one I know is off is Lenyn Sosa’s age when he signed. He was born Jan 2000 and signed in 2016 at age 16.
—
Fwiw, I saw Norge Vera’s age listed as 19, 20, and 21 in different mainstream news outlets as recently as like two weeks ago. So I can barely imagine how hard it was to put all this data together.