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.
