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.
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If they can sign the latter and he makes the majors, then we can say "Elvis is in the building!"
ReplyDeleteThanks, great info, I was wondering who we might be chasing. Did they give any numbers?
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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