International Signing Crops By Year
If you read this site, you probably follow the Mariners' minor league talent acquisition pretty closely. I'm willing to bet that if polled, most MarinerMinors readers could run off at least the list of Mariners' first round draft picks so far this millenium with very little difficulty, and could probably offer a reasonably educated opinion on the Ms' best draft years in recent memory. What most fans pay much less attention to, mostly because of how restricted the information is, is how the team's international talent compares year-to-year. Without further ado, I give you the Mariners' international crops for the past few years - omitting most of the names who are no longer with the organization, as I really don't have any interest in scouring past minor league rosters to find a list of all released players.
For an easy comparison, I've split the recruiting class into four categories: Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Miscellaneous Latin America, and Miscellaneous International.
Where I know them, I've listed the players' signing bonus as well.
2006Venezuela
Mario Martinez, $600,000
Jose Rivero
Eduardo Garcia
Alejandro Garcia
Roberto Velazquez
Dominican Republic
Carlos Triunfel, $1,300,000
Rey Lebron, $200,000
Ramon Morla
Rudy Van Heydoorn
Misc. Latin America
Jose Rios, Mexico
Yidio Batista, Colombia
Javier Rodriguez, ????? (no freakin clue where this guy's from), $280,000
Misc. International
Anthony Phillips, South Africa
Kalian Sams, Netherlands
2005Venezuela (some of these definitely belong to the Misc. Latin America category)
Doug Salinas
Edilia Colina
Jorge Agudelo
Carlos Ramirez
Mario Yepez
Rhonny Acosta
Jesse Nava
Dominican Republic
Bruno Mercedes
Ariel Alcantara, $90,000
Juan Diaz, $50,000
Cristian Rijo
Fray Martinez
Mario Flores
Amelis Carvajal
Misc. Latin America
Rigoberto Rangel, Panama
Juan Carlos Ramirez, Nicaragua
Jonathan Loaisiga, Nicaragua
Misc. International
Kuo-Hui Lo, Taiwan, $155,000
Alex Liddi, Italy, $105,000
Tom Ellis, Australia
2004Venezuela
Miguel Marquez
Kervin Montbrum
Carlos Sanchez
Dominican Republic
Carlos Peguero, $360,000
Welington Dotel, $180,000
Gregorio Rosario, $180,000
Alfredo Mateo, $45,000
Luis Nuñez
Ogui Diaz
Joel Mendez
Misc. Latin America
Yuniesky Betancourt, $2,200,000
Jorge Campillo, $1,600,000
Victor Duarte, Nicaragua
Israel Nuñez, Mexico
Karlin Taylor, Colombia
Misc. International
Chia An Huang, Taiwan, $710,000 (restricted)
Greg Halman, Netherlands, $100,000
Kent Dixon, Australia, $125,000 (released)
Tim Auty, Australia, $10,000 (released)
Dean Zorn, Australia, (released)
Aaron Thorne, Australia
2003Venezuela
Jose Escalona
Deybis Benitez
Humberto Espinoza
Jetsy Extrano
Terry Serrano
Jose Jimenez
Dominican Republic
Eddy Fernandez
Maximo Mendez
Juan Beltran
Jairo Hernandez
Carlos Javier
Natividad Dilone
Juan Zapata
Misc. Latin America
Marwin Vega, Colombia
Jair Fernandez, Colombia
Dwight Britton, $90,000, Nicaragua
Rayon Lampe, Aruba, unknown large amount
Alfredo Venegas, Ecuador
Misc. International
Yung Chi Chen, Taiwan, $210,000
2002Venezuela
Felix Hernandez, $710,000
Asdrubal Cabrera
Luis Valbuena
Gerardo Avila
Dominican Republic
Manelik Pimentel
Leonardo Torres
Jose Suriel
Misc. Latin America
Julio Santiago, Colombia
Misc. International
Chao Kuan Wu, Taiwan
2001Venezuela
Oswaldo Navarro
Cesar Jimenez
Diomny Gaetano
Jose Graterol
Dominican Republic
Eddy Hernandez
Leury Bonilla
Misc. Latin America
Ron Garth, Nicaragua
Misc. International
2000Venezuela
Jose Lopez
Jesus Guzman
Ivan Blanco
Nibaldo Acosta
Edgar Guaramato
Luis Oliveros
Dominican Republic
Roman Martinez
Juan Colon
Misc. Latin America
Wladimir Balentien, Curacao
Emiliano Fruto, Colombia
Misc. International
Shin-Soo Choo, Korea, $1,100,000
Travis Blackley, Australia
Ryan Rowland-Smith, Australia
1999Venezuela
Renee Cortez
Cibney Bello
Dominican Republic
Misc. Latin America
Ismael Castro, Colombia
Carlos Arroyo, Colombia
Misc. International
1998Venezuela
Dominican Republic
Misc. Latin America
Misc. International
Chris Snelling, Australia, $50,000
Cha Seung Baek, Korea
1997Nothing
1996Dominican Republic
Rafael Soriano
1995Dominican Republic
Julio Mateo
1992Dominican Republic
David Ortiz
Some interesting tidbits here.
*Wow! Look at that Venezuelan class from 2002. Felix, Asdrubal Cabrera, Valbuena, and Avila are all legit prospects. A truly incredible haul for Fuenmayor, Carrasquel, Engle and crew. Not much happened in the rest of the world that year, but Felix alone makes this the team's best haul in recent history.
*The Ms' Dominican Republic scouting the past 5 years has really, really sucked.
*But, it shows signs of turning around, with several interesting signings in 2004, and of course the big Triunfel signing this year. The 2005 Dominican crop, which I've had the opportunity to witness extensively down at the Epy Guerrero complex in Yamasa, is pretty uninspiring. I like Crisitan Rijo (a wiry, 6'7" lefthanded firstbaseman), Bruno Mercedes (a young kid who throws high 80s with a decent curve), and Juan Diaz (a thin, projectable SS), but there are no high dollar acquisitions in that group and all of them are huge longshots.
*In releasing all of their recent Australian signings, including one they invested a considerable amount of money in (Dixon), the Mariners run the risk of messing up their ability to sign future Australian players. This is not a good thing.
*Check out that 2000 class. Lopez, Choo, Fruto, and Blackley have all spent time in the majors, and Rowland-Smith and Balentien are very good shots to at least get cups of coffee. 6 major leaguers from one international recruiting class is just nuts. I still wouldn't trade that entire package for Felix, though, so 2002 gets the nod for best recruiting class in recent history.
*Worst year: 1999. Second-worst: 2001.
*Again, the Ms' DR scouting has been totally lame for the past decade. Seriously. The Ms signed Rafael Soriano as an outfielder 10 years ago and lucked out in getting a very solid pitcher. They haven't produced a major leaguer out of their Dominican scouting program ever since. This isn't a knock on Patrick Guerrero, who has had to put in years and spend some serious dough rebuilding the Ms' credibility, but the returns from the most baseball rich country in the world are a little bit disappointing. Dominican scouting is a total crapshoot, it's true, but that's a truly awful success rate. Unless I'm mistaken, the team hasn't even had a top Dominican prospect outside of Soriano in that entire time.
*On the flip side, the Ms' Venezuelan scouting team is just money.
*Biggest bust in the system? In my mind it's a toss-up between Huang (jury still out, but early returns not promising), and Lampe. I don't know the exact dollar figure Lampe signed for, but if they promised him a spot at major league training camp 3 years after signing, you can bet he was a high dollar target. His tools are through the roof, but the kid can't seem to figure out how to actually play baseball for the life of him. He might get one more shot to try and turn it around with the amount they invested in him, but there's also a good chance they'll release him and move on.
*Biggest bargain? Snelling. By a landslide.
Looking at this makes me feel like it's not quite as ridiculous for prospect junkies like J. and myself to do such deep prospecting. Even the team's two worst recruiting years have yielded two guys who are pretty likely to spend at least some time in the majors in Cortez and Navarro. Of the classes it's too early to grade yet, 2003 looks pretty weak, though Chen will be a major leaguer in some role or other, while early indications are that 2004 will be a pretty strong class despite the huge sunken costs of Huang (I guess there's still hope there) and Dixon.
Readers looking for something to do in the blogosphere can use this thread as a catchall to discuss Ms international prospects. I'll gladly answer any questions anyone may have about the team's international recruiting efforts here as well.
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Up and At Them
I'm not dead.
I was without power for five days, spending much of those running around town in a search for firewood and batteries, and the internet didn't come back until tonight.
No major damage to this or that. Actually, that's not true, I busted my [pitching] elbow, and that's indirectly attributable to the storm as I was downtown when it was hitting the shore, but it’s nothing more than a bone bruise and I don’t care to go into the details of the hows and whys here. I’ll be in shape for spring training anyway. I don’t think they can dock my pay for acts of nature.
I’d go into some editorial spiel about discovering my own dependence on technology and how I’m turning over a new leaf, but that’s an outright lie and I hate pieces like that. I should hope that people don't require some sort of crisis to actually take time to think about their lives, but that's a weak hope at best. I managed presumably better than the people who were boxing me in at the pump thinking that it would somehow ensure that they got gas.
Things will resume some normalcy in a few days. I can promise that much on my end, at least. As for the Ms, they still got rid of Soriano and still managed to get fleeced by Jim Bowden.
Happy Holidays everyone, and enjoy Gookie Dawkins and Sean Burroughs in Tacoma.
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