Friday, July 2, 2010

July 2: International Signing Day

International Signing Day has become almost as big an annual event as the Free Agent Draft. Its the first day that international prospects who turn 16 after January 1 can sign a professional contract. Players who turn 16 after July 2 have to wait until their birthday to sign. Needless to say, there can be a lot of intrigue and fraud with birthdates here to say nothing of outright identity theft. Remember Manuel Mateo morphing into Merkin Valdez? Hey, if my first name was Merkin, I might want to steal someone else's identity too!

BA has a list of the top 33 international prospects for this year as well as a breakdown of who all 30 MLB organizations may be looking at. The Giants are listed as one of the potential big spending teams and are rumored to be in on a couple of power hitters, OF Eskarlin Vazquez and 3B Elvis Sanchez both from the DR. BA has Vazquez ranked #5 and Sanchez ranked #15. The Giants may feel like they have some extra $$$ to spend in that they weren't drafting in the top 5 this year and they recently did not sign Wagner Mateo and Duanel Jones. If they were to come away with the #5 and #15 ranked international prospects that would be quite a haul and be a major boost to the overall strength of the farm system.

2 comments:

  1. If they can sign the latter and he makes the majors, then we can say "Elvis is in the building!"

    Thanks, great info, I was wondering who we might be chasing. Did they give any numbers?

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  2. Thanks for mentioning this, DrB. I fully support the Giants drafting/signing all the potential 3B they can, since that position is pitifully weak in the ML. And "Elvis Sanchez" has a nice ring to it.

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