The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed 16-year-old third baseman Alexander Mojica for $350,000 according to Baseball America. He is the 18th player signed during the 2018-19 international signing period.
Mojica is 6’1″, 195 pounds and he bats right-handed. He attended the Carlos Guzman Baseball Academy, which is where the Pirates got another one of their top targets this year, infielder Juan Jerez. They also signed Mario Jerez out of the academy back in March. He’s the older brother of Juan and is playing in the DSL this season. Mojica played in the Quisqueya Academy League recently, where he hit .260/.356/.380 in 14 games and was among the league leaders with 14 RBIs. Pirates fans will love to hear that their new third baseman’s nickname is “El Toro”.
The international signing tracker has been updated. There is one player who was reported to have signed by Baseball America on July 2nd, but that was a mistake on their part. It was actually a player signed during the 2017-18 signing period, who somehow made their current list. The tracker has been updated to reflect that, although it’s still wrong on the BA site.
If you check out the list, you’ll notice that the known bonuses total over $3.5 M, which puts the Pirates under the $2 M mark for remaining bonus pool money. What we don’t know is how much they paid the other ten players signed on July 2nd. Eight of those players are 16 years old and two are 17, plus they were clearly top targets on day one, so it’s safe to assume that none of them signed for a low five figure bonus.
At the absolute minimum, it’s completely safe to say that they cost over $500,000 as a group, and it’s quite possible right now that the remaining international bonus pool is under $1 M. That’s because not every six-figure bonus has been announced this year, with $300,000 bonuses being the minimum reported by some sources. The Pirates can trade for more money, but until that happens, we might not hear much else this international signing period.
Here’s a slightly old and not so great video of Mojica. Take what you can get. This was BY FAR the best of four videos I found, as in I wouldn’t bother looking for the other three if I were you.
