The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed two pitchers from the Dominican Republic, adding 18-year-old right-hander Clevary Tejada and 21-year-old lefty Jose Regalado to their 2022-23 international signing class.
Tejada was originally a shortstop, who only moved to the mound in 2021. He has advanced quickly as a pitcher. He was a marginal shortstop prospect due to his arm and athleticism, which has translated well to the mound.
His fastball sits 89-91 MPH, to go along with a mid-70s curve and an advanced changeup that sits 83-84 MPH. He controls his pitches well, using his changeup as his out pitch. He has a good frame that still offers projection.
Regalado is an older signing, who has a bit of a different story than you would expect. He nearly signed a few years ago, until some undisclosed issues with the signing caused the deal to fall through. He was already throwing 93-94 MPH by age 17, which is obviously rare to find in a young lefty. He’s short for a pitcher, but he has strong 5’10”, 205 pound frame that is packed with muscle now.
He now throws 94-96 MPH, with a slider that looks like a plus pitch at times. His changeup is a distant third pitch that he is working on now. He attacks hitters with his fastball now. The slider just lacks some consistency to become a true plus pitch, which would give him a strong two-pitch mix until the changeup progresses enough.
There is a chance that both of these pitchers could move right to the U.S. in June. They are going through Spring Training now in the Dominican.
These are the first signings since the opening group of the 2022-23 signing period back in January. The Pirates inked 22 players at the start. All of those players except Korean pitcher Jun-Seok Shim are currently at the Dominican academy, where they will spend the 2023 season playing in the Dominican Summer League. Shim has been at Pirate City in Bradenton since the start of Spring Training.
Our international signing tracker has been updated with Regalado and Tejada (his first name is sometimes spelled as Clevari, so there is a spelling difference on the chart, which was updated eight days ago). As a side note, the Pirates not long ago had a right-handed pitcher named Jose Regalado in their minor league system.
While we don’t have bonus figures for everyone on that chart, I do know through a source that the Pirates had $250,500 remaining in their bonus pool before these signings. I don’t know if any of that was spent on these signings. Any signing of $10,000 or less, would not count against the pool.
Teams are allowed to trade for bonus pool space again on the international side, so any big signings over the next eight months (period closes on December 15th) would require a trade first.
The Pirates 2023-24 signing class is already looking like they will make their mark in Panama.
