The International Signing Thread

[Sleepy Harold]

Luis Reyes is the only player on this list that the White Sox are connected to. Jun-Seok Shim (#10) isn't linked to anyone at the moment FWIW

[Quin]

1 hour ago, Sleepy Harold said:

Luis Reyes is the only player on this list that the White Sox are connected to. Jun-Seok Shim (#10) isn't linked to anyone at the moment FWIW

@Eminor3rd what you got on Shim?

[bmags]

underwhelming again.

[Johno]

Thoughts on why we can’t land someone higher up on the list?   

[HOFHurt35]

3 minutes ago, Johno said:

Thoughts on why we can’t land someone higher up on the list?   

Dick Hahn

[Eminor3rd]

6 hours ago, Quin said:

@Eminor3rd what you got on Shim?

Nothin. Haven’t been able to keep up with  Korea the past couple years.

[Jack Parkman]

4 hours ago, Johno said:

Thoughts on why we can’t land someone higher up on the list?   

Jerry 

[Boopa1219]

This is a welcome change, another young headliner from the Dominican Republic. 

[Timmy U]

6 hours ago, Johno said:

Thoughts on why we can’t land someone higher up on the list?   

Traditionally, the Sox have not been willing to pay top dollar for 16 year olds nor have they been willing to engage in the sort of dirty tricks/exploitation for which the DR in particular has become famous.

[southsider2k5]

Slightly different spin.  

 

[southsider2k5]

So far that makes this period Reyes, Uribe Jr, and Alvarez the 17 YO OF from Cuba.

[bmags]

I don't really care if we are in the top ten signings here, I just want bigger classes. This holding back 1/3rd of your budget to sign during the season is too conservative. We need more out of Paddy who has brought in some nice talent. Because he was successful...he needs to scale it up and deliver more. We have too shallow a base in draft picks and inept scouting to source enough talent to be top tier. Need Paddy to deliver more than the rest.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 hours ago, bmags said:

I don't really care if we are in the top ten signings here, I just want bigger classes. This holding back 1/3rd of your budget to sign during the season is too conservative. We need more out of Paddy who has brought in some nice talent. Because he was successful...he needs to scale it up and deliver more. We have too shallow a base in draft picks and inept scouting to source enough talent to be top tier. Need Paddy to deliver more than the rest.

Are there 2 different periods to sign Int'l players during the year ? The main time in starting January 15 and July 28th ?

I think it would be best to focus on  January and go after the best then, which is what most clubs do right ? If older players become available later a lot of teams are out of money which may give a team who saved some to be in a better position. But the player may just decide to wait til the following January and prepare himself for a showcase .

Is this an accurate assessments of how Int'l signings work now ? A lot has changed in a short period of time.

We saw reports in the summer that Cuban prospects RHP Ubert Mejias (21) and C/UTIL José Ferrer (22) were declared free agents by the MLB Commissioner's Office. SO their signing period according to tweets would be next July 28, 2023. These could be guys the Sox go after. They are more their style.

Edited October 3, 2022 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[bmags]

38 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Are there 2 different periods to sign Int'l players during the year ? The main time in starting January 15 and July 28th ?

I think it would be best to focus on  January and go after the best then, which is what most clubs do right ? If older players become available later a lot of teams are out of money which may give a team who saved some to be in a better position. But the player may just decide to wait til the following January and prepare himself for a showcase .

Is this an accurate assessments of how Int'l signings work now ? A lot has changed in a short period of time.

We saw reports in the summer that Cuban prospects RHP Ubert Mejias (21) and C/UTIL José Ferrer (22) were declared free agents by the MLB Commissioner's Office. SO their signing period according to tweets would be next July 28, 2023. These could be guys the Sox go after. They are more their style.

Basically this, by the time the official period "begins" the reality is most teams have already signed 95% of their classes. But recently it has felt like when january goes around we'll see the sox with about 2 guys signed around 60% of their budget and 1-2 other small signings. Some get announced later, but throughout the year maybe some guy expatriates and we are the only team with budget, but other years we just see a bunch of guys show up in DSL that were signed throughout the year that snuck under the cracks.

Now Jose Rodriguez was one of those guys. 

I think Paddy's moves would be fine if Shirley wasn't at the same time having drafts like 20 and 21 that blew their budgets on the first two picks and then grabbed a bunch of 10k college seniors. Our depth is too thin for both to operate similarly.

[Boopa1219]

4 hours ago, bmags said:

We have too shallow a base in draft picks and inept scouting to source enough talent to be top tier. Need Paddy to deliver more than the rest.

The drafting and scouting under Shirley has been pretty good. These aren't the Doug Lauman Sox

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 hours ago, bmags said:

Basically this, by the time the official period "begins" the reality is most teams have already signed 95% of their classes. But recently it has felt like when january goes around we'll see the sox with about 2 guys signed around 60% of their budget and 1-2 other small signings. Some get announced later, but throughout the year maybe some guy expatriates and we are the only team with budget, but other years we just see a bunch of guys show up in DSL that were signed throughout the year that snuck under the cracks.

Now Jose Rodriguez was one of those guys. 

I think Paddy's moves would be fine if Shirley wasn't at the same time having drafts like 20 and 21 that blew their budgets on the first two picks and then grabbed a bunch of 10k college seniors. Our depth is too thin for both to operate similarly.

So for the college draft you suggest the Sox stick to slot and stop going over slot since the draft is a crap shot anyway and going over slot does not necessarily guarantee that guy will make it while it will cost you better choices in later rounds when the farm needs talent not a bunch of long shots 10K Seniors.

[bmags]

42 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

The drafting and scouting under Shirley has been pretty good. These aren't the Doug Lauman Sox

There is more to scouting than just the draft, but also, Laumann drafted a handful of stars behind questionable depth. That's kinda what Shirley aimed for in 2020/1.

[GreenSox]

2 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

The drafting and scouting under Shirley has been pretty good. These aren't the Doug Lauman Sox

Pretty low bar for comparison.  And Hostetler was worse than Lauman.

[bmags]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

So for the college draft you suggest the Sox stick to slot and stop going over slot since the draft is a crap shot anyway and going over slot does not necessarily guarantee that guy will make it while it will cost you better choices in later rounds when the farm needs talent not a bunch of long shots 10K Seniors.

I don't want to make anything a hard and fast rule, I just want them to take a balanced view of things. We had a top heavy system thanks to Hostetler drafting 0 high schoolers. Then Shirley takes over and gets 35 less draft picks in his first year. They go Crochet and Kelly and basically punt the last 3 picks. 

Crochet is obviously a good pick, he made the bigs. But you basically added 1 guy all year. 

The next year they go big on Kath and Macdougal with big bonuses that brings them only 4 BA300 guys (Montgomery, Kath, Burke, Macdougal)

During the same time, our INTL group brings in classes headlined by Vera and Cespedes (2020) and Colas and Hernandez. Some really nice talent there that also is more developed and contributes. But they were also pretty small.

2020-21 badler writeup for the sox has 7 names. That compared to the other teams in the signing tracker put them 27th out of 30th in total signings reported.

2021-22 badler writeup for sox has 6 names. Compared to the signing tracker that put them (in quantity) at 28th out of 30th.

They do sign more than that amount, but they are so low profile they are tough to know what to make of it as they sign throughout the year.

Now, either of these would be fine if sox should an ability to turn B-/C+ free agents and get more out of them to build out their roster. But they don't do that. 

Given the constraints, either we keep telling Paddy to keep big game hunting, or we tell Shirley to spread his resources more evenly.

[southsider2k5]

For the record, according to FS, the Sox signed 20 guys in this Latin American class.

[bmags]

13 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

For the record, according to FS, the Sox signed 20 guys in this Latin American class.

Do you think the most talented players tend to be committed to teams prior to January or in the showcases throughout the rest of the year? Because that's where that 20 is coming from. Paddy's classes can be defined as Cubans and Leftovers.

[southsider2k5]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

Do you think the most talented players tend to be committed to teams prior to January or in the showcases throughout the rest of the year? Because that's where that 20 is coming from. Paddy's classes can be defined as Cubans and Leftovers.

I get the impression that a decent amount of kids are falling through the cracks with the new rules. The older kids, late bloomers, and Cubans are all fighting for disappearing cap space.  No idea what it will look like down the road, but the ramifications of the changes are still TBD.

[Sleepy Harold]

 

[bmags]

So I think...I think what I'm reading is ...there is one category of superior good results who have emigrated. They are juveniles. They have done it lately.

[Sleepy Harold]

6 hours ago, bmags said:

So I think...I think what I'm reading is ...there is one category of superior good results who have emigrated. They are juveniles. They have done it lately.

The translate option on the tweet says, "one of the best hitters of the last youth championship leaves Cuba", I wish that would carry over when posting here