Pirates Prospects has learned that the Pittsburgh Pirates signed nine players who weren’t announced yesterday. That gives them a total of at least 18 players signed on the first day. Eight of the players are 16 years old, and three of them are switch-hitters.
It’s purely speculation until we get more information on these players, but they were probably lower bonus signings than the seven players who all signed for $350,000 or more yesterday.
I mentioned this morning that there might not be much excitement left over the final 348 days of the 2018-19 international signing period because the Pirates spent well over half of their bonus pool already. With the addition of these nine names, you can bet that remaining pool we talked about this morning (somewhere under $2,319,500 when you add in the two unknown bonuses) is much smaller now. The simple reason is that you don’t target 16-year-old players on day one and sign them cheap. There are likely more low six-figure signings in this group than five-figure bonuses.
Here’s the list of players, along with age, position and more information if it was available. If a batting side isn’t listed, they bat right-handed.
Jose Berroa, 16-year-old switch-hitting outfielder
Joel Blanco, 16-year-old right-handed pitcher
Eudys Carrasco, 16-year-old infielder from the Dominican Republic.
Eliazer Montero, 17-year-old infielder from the Dominican Republic.
Deivis Nadal, 16-year-old switch-hitting infielder
Rodolfo Nolasco, 16-year-old, outfielder from the Dominican Republic. He played in the MLB Amateur Prospect League and trained at the Ozuna & Rodriguez Baseball Academy.
Rayber Romero, 16-year-old, switch-hitting infielder from Venezuela, who played in the Caracas Prospect League and trained at the Geno Baseball Academy. I mentioned this morning that the Pirates would be active in Venezuela because they hired respected scout Emilio Carrasquel and this is one of the examples of top players they would target.
Listher Sosa, 16-year-old, right-handed pitcher from the Dominican.
Miguel Toribio, 16-year-old, right-handed pitcher
We will update the international signing tracker soon.
Only Nolasco had a video available. It’s short and from 2016, but here it is anyway.
