Pirates Prospects has learned that right-handed pitcher Jun-Seok Shim received a $750,000 signing bonus. He was ranked tenth on the top 50 list of international prospects by MLB Pipeline.
Jesse Sanchez from MLB Pipeline released four bonus numbers for Pirates signings as well. That group includes #26 ranked Raymond Mola, who the Pirates landed for $600,000.
The biggest bonus handed out was to Venezuelan catcher Jonathan Rivero (pictured above at his signing), who received $840,000 according to Sanchez. Dominican pitchers Carlos Mateo and Bladimir Pichardo received $800,000 and $750,000 respectively.
All of the information can be found in our 2022-23 international signing tracker, which will be updated throughout the year.
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.
hopefully it’ll be back to back years where the pirates get a good catcher prospect from venezuela
Wow, unranked players, those not in the top 20/30 ratings are getting large bonuses from the pirates. We need a more detailed report on these players ability. Most will flame out but I like to follow their respective progress, especially those skinny guys who need to add weight to see if they can throw harder or hit with more power.
I covered Rivero in the first day. The other reports will be up either tonight or tomorrow. I have all but one player, so I’m waiting on him before posting
Thanks John, great updates. There seems to be a lot of talent driving the price up for Mateo and Pichardo. Looks like an excellent class – pitching is the Gold Standard!
The Padres signed the top rated Venezuelan Catcher – wonder what the comparison would be between that kid and Jonathan Rivero? Bonus amounts for Ven players being publicized?
Would it be possible to identify the Pirate representatives in the picture with Rivero and his family?
Difference: around 5 million dollars.
From what I was told, teams don’t release the Venezuelan bonus numbers and Jesse Sanchez gets them through trainers who want to show how much they can get players. I have other Venezuelan bonus numbers but won’t be posting them unless he puts it out there on the MLB chart, which probably won’t happen due to the amounts. He has a 300k cutoff
Damn, Jesse, wtf?
Looks like catcher Jonathan Rivero is well thought of. Surprised a couple of them did better than a top 10 guy in Shim.
As a side note, people are going to really like the scouting report on Mateo I just received. I’ll have reports on all of the Dominican players up tomorrow or Wednesday.
Wow. From what I’d heard and seen of Shim I expected at least double that bonus. Seems like a steal.
If the remaining 17 players average $100,000, that will only leave around $500,000. I’m guessing a number of these signees will pull in well less than $100k.
Some will get over $100K, some are definitely under. There is trading for bonus pool space allowed once again, though I’m not sure how many teams will have pool space to trade. Early yesterday with plenty of top 50 prospect missing bonus info, nearly half of the money was spent just on reported 300k+ bonuses
How much did the talented Cuban outfielder get?
I don’t have a number for him, but my guess is it is under $300K, otherwise Sanchez would have reported it. I was also told that he had to come down to their number because of their limited remaining bonus pool, so I can say he got less than his asking price, but that can probably be said about 90% of the players if you know how negotiating works.
It feels like they did an amazing job of maximizing their initial bonus pool and I wouldn’t be surprised if they added more, though I know of no other potential signings this year.
Any idea why it’s suddenly OK to report Venezuelan bonuses?
Jesse Sanchez always does, so I share those because they are public. I have one other I’m not sharing
Once it’s on MLB.com, it obviously doesn’t matter any more, but I’m surprised they’re doing it.
It is irresponsible at the least. Good NIGHT! protect those kids and their families.
Great stuff John
Looks like they followed a similar structure in 2019
Lots on bonuses in the mid-six figures
Feels like we are getting shim for a relative bargain compared to the guys ranked around him, no? Felt like we were taking big swings on theses names and now looks like we got several guys for moderately large bonuses
My original thought was $2M before I saw the bonus info for those other four players first. Once I saw they got more than half of the pool, I knew he got less than $2M. There just wasn’t enough room for that number and 17 other players. I still thought it was at least $1M though. So this is a potential steal at that price. I was even surprised at Mola getting $600K as a top 30 prospect
Yeah, I was guessing $2M+ for Shim, but the whole int’l scene is such a jungle that there’s no telling what drives some of the bonuses. As long as they got it done.
I do like seeing them spread some fairly big money across 5-6 guys. We’ll see whether they’re the right guys. I hope Rivero lives up to his deal. Moar catchurzz is good.
Moar carchuzz is good. But you want them to be better than I ever was.