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Pirates Sign Dominican Pitching Prospect

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The Pittsburgh Pirates recently signed right-handed pitcher Lidio Belizaire out of the Dominican Republic. He’s the 24th player that they have signed since the international signing period began on July 2nd.

Belizaire trained at the Ray Sport Academy in the Dominican and participated in the Quisqueya Academy League, which is an organized league for prospects from different academies to compete. He turned 18 years old today and was listed at 6’0″, 150 pounds on league website.

The Pirates have now signed eight pitchers during this current international signing period. One of their top signings was 16-year-old left-handed pitcher Andres Mendez from Venezuela. So far he is the only southpaw to sign.

Our international signing tracker has been updated. As usual on the international side, we don’t have many of the bonus amounts, but we do know that the Pirates had less than $2,000,000 remaining to spend on international players after signing their top eight players. Since then, 11 of the next 16 players were still 16 years old when they signed, so it’s likely that that all of the players in that group received decent bonus amounts (possibly six figures).

UPDATE: The Pirates voided the contract of Belizaire on November 26th with no reason specified. The signing tracker has been updated.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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