The Brewers and Latin America

by Infield Fly Rule on Jul 13, 2011 2:22 PM CDT

There has been some discussion regarding the Brewers and their expenditures for Latin talent.

As Adam McCalvy pointed out in 2010 pointed out in 2010, from late 2003 to early 2009 the Brewers were the only team the Brewers were the only Major League team without a permanent academy in Latin America. However, during this time they did sign several latin players, including some notable signings including:

2002 - Hernan Iribarren
2003 - Alcides Escobar ($30,000 bonus)
2004 - Roque Mercedes
2005 - Wily Peralta ($450,000 bonus)
2005 - Rolando Pascual ($750,000 bonus)
2005 - Hitaniel Arias ($450,000 bonus)
2009 - Santo Aybar (rated as 18th best Dominican prospect, signing fell through when he failed the MLB age verification)
2009 - Jose Pena ($400,000 bonus)
2009 - Jean Capellan (5-figure bonus)
2010 - Raul Mondesi, Jr. (son of former Dodger Raul Mondesi)
2011 - Elvis Rubio ($95,000 bonus)

Click on links in the names above for indivudal signing stories.

Iribarren had a successful minor league career, and did appear in 26 games for the Brewers prior to being claimed by the Rangers in 2010.
Escobar we all know about and was part of the package that landed Greinke.
Mercedes has made it to AA. Was part of the deal that brought Felipe Lopez to the Brewers several years ago and is now back with the Brewers in Brevard County.
Peralta is currenlty pitching in AA and was the #3 rated prospect in the system last season per Baseball America.
Pascual has pitched 179 innings over 6 minor league seasons...and has 176 walks and a career era of 7.88. He's currently at Brevard County.
Arias has a career line of .209/.310/.327 over four seasons.
The Aybar signing fell through.
Jose Pena is currently hitting .184/.283/.301 in his second Dominican Summer League (DSL) season.
Capellan pitched in the DSL in 2010 and had an ERA over 6 and walked more than a batter per inning.
Mondesi is currently hitting .226/.327/.333 in his second DSL season.
Rubio is just starting his first DSL season.

Obviously there are some othere signings over that time as the Brewers now fill out a full Dominican Summer team and there are some latin players who are starting to show up in Arizona and Helena, but these are some of the highlights.

Even with some of the large signing bonuses noted above, the Brewers are no where near the top when it comes to handing out some major bonuses. In 2009, Patrick Clark from Beyone the Box Score had an interesting article listing the top 30 latin signing bonuses of all time. I realize this is somewhat dated, but it is still interesting to see some of the names on the list.

So has the latin spending the Brewers have done paid off? Its obviously to early to tell as many of these guys sign quite young and take awhile to develop, but the players above have been a bit of a mixed bag. I guess I'm ultimately just glad they are now actively scouting and looking at players in that market and hopefully some will pan out.

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This is part of a big problem

the organization has basically ignored the high priced Latin American talent the way they have stayed away from high celing prospects in the draft. Ownership is only concerned about the present day Brewers and isnt giving any thought about the future. While organizations like Texas, Cleveland and Kansas City have been signing many of the top Latin American players the Brewers have barely done a thing.

This situation is a major reason why the organization has very few prospects. Instead of focusing on young talent the organization has tunnel vision and cant see beyond today.

by bklynbrewcrew on Jul 14, 2011 9:05 AM CDT reply actions

"high priced"

There’s your answer.

Pujols is the Barack Obama of baseball.

by sjlee on Jul 14, 2011 9:49 AM CDT up reply actions

I think it is easy to point out that the Brewers did not utilize this market much in the early to mid 2000’s. As noted above, they didn’t even have an academy in the area. I would disagree though that they are still ignoring the market.

Take a look at the Baseball Americal top 25 lists for 2009 and 2010 (the years since they have reopened their academy) and where the Brewers rank for signing players off those lists.

Here’s a breakdown by number of players signed:

Twins – 5 players
A’s, Astros, Mets – 4 players
Indians, Yankees, Mariners, Rangers, BlueJays, Diamondbacks – 3 players
Rays, Rockies, , Padres – 2 players
Red Sox, Royals, Reds, Pirates, Cardinals – 1 player
Angels, Orioles, White Sox, Tigers, Braves, Marlins, Dodgers, Phillies, Giants, Nationals – 0

To be fair, one of the two highly rated prospects the Brewers signed was Santo Aybar who later failed the age requirements, but considering all other teams have stronger, more long lasting roots in the area, I think they have done all right for themselves recently. Is the room for improvement, absolutely, but as morineko pointed out below, most of they guys sign so young it takes years to show up on the prospect lists.

by Infield Fly Rule on Jul 14, 2011 10:17 AM CDT up reply actions

Hmmm

Not sure what happended there, the Brewers were to be in the middle of the 2 player list. Not sure where the bold came from.

by Infield Fly Rule on Jul 14, 2011 10:21 AM CDT up reply actions

Stop using facts

Get a ife broseph

by Supertramp on Jul 14, 2011 12:08 PM CDT up reply actions

The Brewers don't do much international scouting period

Obviously Latin America is a major source of baseball players, but other, let’s say, “traditionally cheap” teams like the Pirates and Twins are getting quite a few players from alternative sources like Australia and Europe. We don’t hear a lot of those names when the big July 2 signings hit, but they’re there and the prospects are legitimate—yeah, it’s due to injury, but Luke Hughes has been starting at 1B quite a bit for the Twins this season.

Aside, the one thing you have to remember about the kids in the DSL is that they’re kids. We haven’t traditionally covered the games here, for one thing the stats never seemed to have been posted when I made the daily post up, but I’ll be honest in that covering that league kind of bothers me. They’re all so young…and that is indeed why it takes them 3-4 years to show up in Helena and Maryvale, they’re not old enough to play in the US yet!

by morineko on Jul 14, 2011 9:42 AM CDT reply actions

Not sure about Australian prospects

And I know there’s a couple of European players kicking around with a chance of making it at some level, but from the little I’ve heard this guy is about the only one who could be actually really good. But considering he’s still very very young that’s not really saying that much…

Less than proud owner of Marmol Says Knock McLouth (BCB League III)
"Now attribute that shit!" mpbMKE

by MrLeam on Jul 15, 2011 5:13 PM CDT up reply actions

Cool

The team that the guy mentioned above played for in Germany translates as the “Army of Bookbinders”…

Less than proud owner of Marmol Says Knock McLouth (BCB League III)
"Now attribute that shit!" mpbMKE

by MrLeam on Jul 15, 2011 5:15 PM CDT up reply actions

I'm willing to give them somewhat of a pass the last couple years

There was presumably a decent amount of money involved in starting a DSL complex, scouting and signing enough players to field a team. Its probably not surprising that they haven’t been involved in big money names. I think the “don’t do much scouting” or “ignore Latin America” stuff is a little unfair.

After the disaster of ending the academy when Melvin first got here, it’s going to take some time to build back the pipeline get back. The DSL team actually has a couple guys that look like prospects, and we’re seeing some movement stateside of late.

If they haven’t made more progress 2-3 years from now I’ll be surprised and disappointed.

Get a ife broseph

by Supertramp on Jul 14, 2011 10:05 AM CDT reply actions

Teams like Cleveland and Tampa

make an effort in Latin America so there is no excuse for us not to do the same. Im not expecting the team to shell out 3-5 mil on one guy but we really must make a better effort there.

by bklynbrewcrew on Jul 14, 2011 11:43 AM CDT reply actions

It appears they have made comparable effort

Considering the Brewers signed the same number of players as the Rays… and only one less than the Indians.

Pujols is the Barack Obama of baseball.

by sjlee on Jul 14, 2011 3:23 PM CDT up reply actions

Your facts get in the way of truthiness

Greinke: "It’s not about the guacamole itself. I just don’t want to let them win."

by GoGregGo on Jul 14, 2011 4:10 PM CDT up reply actions

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