Between Bryan Ramos, José Rodríguez, Lenyn Sosa and Cristian Mena, the White Sox’s current top prospect list is full of international players signed as teenagers — though they were mostly recognized by you true prospect sickos out there.
Most of the time, the White Sox have made international signing day easily appreciated by the casual fan with a big, multi-million signing at the top of the class. There was Oscar Colás, Norge Vera, Yoelqui Céspedes — usually a Cuban player already known to the public, with enough international or professional experience (spiking their market value) that you can project their arrival in a matter of years. With the penalties brought on by his $26 million signing bonus, adding Luis Robert in 2017 was literally a choice that one star player was worth taking a backseat on the next two years’ signing classes.
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This year’s White Sox IFA class, even though it’s yet to be completed, is a lot different.
The #WhiteSox have agreed to terms with seven international free agents:
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) January 16, 2023
A small $10,000 deal for 18-year-old Dominican right-hander Denny Lima represents the oldest player added via Monday’s team announcement. Luis Reyes is the highest-rated Dominican pitching prospect in this year’s class per MLB.com, and has enough stateside experience that White Sox special assistant to the general manager Marco Paddy compared his addition to drafting a U.S. pitcher out of high school. But the $700,000 figure received by both Reyes and 16-year-old Dominican corner outfielder Abraham Núñez leaves them well short of the top-40 largest bonuses issued across the league as the new MLB international signing period began on Sunday.
“When you get an opportunity to sign an experienced guy that we feel has the chance to be an impact player in the major leagues, we’re going to take it,” said Paddy. “Even though we didn’t get the older guy right now that’s close to the big leagues — there’s no one available at this point — but once we get an opportunity to get one of those guys and feel they have a chance to be contributors, we can do that. But in the meantime, we have to concentrate on the younger kids that have a chance to advance and get better and progress in our system. I think that we’re set up to not only accommodate those older guys, but we can do the same to the younger guys.”
Not having an advanced prospect eating up the bulk of the Sox’s $5.284 million in bonus pool room is not an issue in and of itself. Anyone who covers the Latin American amateur market — Baseball America even has an explainer about it at the top of their tracker for top signings — will tell you that which players receive the largest bonuses is far from a meritocracy. While experienced Cuban stars are what the Sox are known for landing in the IFA market, it’s a major point of pride for the international operations team that their smaller signings are now constituting so much of the team’s prospect depth. And none of the first four names listed at the top of this story received bonuses larger than $350,000 when they signed.
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A high volume of smaller deals can provide a lot of value, since small unheralded signings maxing out their potential account for so many of the Latin American stars in the majors today. But a day after the IFA period opened, even when obviously most deals are agreed to far in advance, the White Sox’s approach cannot be tidily summed up. While the White Sox announced seven signings, it came with a qualifier that they intend to add more, and Paddy confirmed that much of the team’s work in Venezuela has still yet to be finalized as they arrange physicals coming out of the holidays. Both Baseball America and reporter Francys Romero reported the Sox are expected to sign Venezuelan catcher Angelo Hernández, for example, with Romero reporting the bonus figure at $500,000.
Even subtracting that amount would leave more than $2.4 million remaining in the White Sox bonus pool that’s yet to be accounted for in their announced signings. Paddy both indicated there would be multiple Venezuelan signings, and on multiple occasions alluded to the idea that the Sox would “have money available for anybody that may come around” later in the signing period. For a sort of possible example, Colás memorably was declared a free agent by MLB in the middle of 2021, but had to wait until January 2022 for a new signing period (and full bonus pools) to open up so he could receive an offer in line with his market value ($2.7 million). But this Sox leadership group has been around long enough that there are previous examples of the Sox having bonus pool room left over and using it as trade capital to add prospect depth, or even packaging it to dump salary obligations in trades, as they did multiple times in 2019. In defending the practice at the time, general manager Rick Hahn explained the club’s process.
“We don’t move any international money without first having multiple conversations with Marco and by extension, his staff about: what are the signing opportunities for you?” Hahn said in 2019. “What would you do with this money? Are you comfortable without this money? And only after there is a comfort level in the organization that there just isn’t a cost-effective way to deploy it internationally does it turn to look at other ways to use that money.”
These are just possible directions for a White Sox international class that hasn’t opened with a singular headliner, nor an exhaustive full slate that shows the fruit of all their work. But it’s not flattering to look back on 2019 and remember how many questions we asked about Yolbert Sánchez and Elijah Tatis, compared to how many we asked about Mena and power-hitting prospect Wilfred Veras. Not to mention Paddy just won an International Scout of the Year award, so perhaps we’ll just see how this all plays out.
Luis Reyes
Paddy said he and the White Sox have been scouting Reyes for close to three years, which includes a lot of time pitching in the United States for a traveling team called the Miami Miracles. During this period, Paddy has witnessed Reyes sprout up into the 6-foot-3, 6-foot-3 range, and develop a slider and changeup to accompany what he repeatedly called a “power fastball.” Sharing the same trainer in the Dominican Republic as the late Yordano Ventura, Paddy praised Reyes’ arm action and mechanics. But as he enters professional baseball and the Sox are tasked with mapping out Reyes’ workload and progression, his experience against American high schoolers seems relevant.
“Even though he was a younger kid, he was able to adjust to older competition extremely well,” Paddy said. “I saw him three times in different tournaments. I saw him in Melbourne, in Fort Lauderdale, different locations in the (United) States, and I saw him compete at different levels. I think pitching in professional baseball, he’s not going to be intimidated. This is not the first time he’s faced that kind of competition, so I think it will be good for him. It helps his development, no doubt.”
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Abraham Núñez
If you’re thinking of Núñez as the son of longtime Pirates utilityman Abraham Núñez, well, that’s actually the wrong Abraham Núñez. Sorry.
But, if you remember the 6-3 former Marlins corner outfielder who was traded to the Royals when they flipped Rudy Seanez to Florida at the 2004 trade deadline, then congratulations, because you already have a decent physical comparable to his son in your head. The 16-year-old Núñez hits left-handed rather than switch-hitting like his father, but is also expected to mature into a tall and lanky corner bat.
“He’s got speed, he’s got power,” said Paddy. “But the one unique thing about Abraham is he has a feel for the strike zone. He knows how to adjust to pitches. He can recognize the breaking ball and he’s a guy who sprays the ball all over the field. He’s very aggressive. He played in various tournaments here in the Dominican where he did extremely well. Once again, he’s a kid that knows the game, knows how to play the game and his dad was his trainer. Obviously that helped him out a lot.”
Juan Uribe Jr.
Uribe Jr.’s father made spectacular defensive plays to wrap up the final two outs of the only White Sox World Series championship in the last 100 years, so he’s going to get a little extra boost of attention for as long as he is part of this organization. Fellow signee Albert Alberto even trained at Uribe’s academy and signed his contract with the Sox while shoulder-to-shoulder with Uribe Jr. But while he’s manning both middle infield positions at the moment (again, like his dad), Paddy left it open where on the infield Uribe Jr. ultimately ends up. He’s a bat-first prospect, by Paddy’s description. Uribe Jr.’s trajectory will ultimately ride on the capability of his compact swing to carry him through the upper levels.
“He’s got an extremely quick bat and he’s got power,” Paddy said. “I’ve seen Jean Segura when he was that age and very similar, an offensive infielder. Jean Segura played short, now he’s playing second. He’s that kind of player. He’s got enough power to drive some balls over of the ballpark but the hitting ability is there.”
(Photo of the Uribe family and videos Courtesy Chicago White Sox)
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