For a team with no history of signing Latino amateurs....

[Frobby]

...we sure had a lot of players of Latin descent in our lineup last night.   6 of 9, to be exact.    Around the diamond: Severino, Nunez, Alberto, Velasquez, Ruiz and Santander.   I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before this season with the Orioles.

To be clear, Ruiz and Velasquez are US-born, so it’s not like they were signed as foreign amateurs.   And all these guys were originally signed by other organizations.    

 

[backwardsk]

2005 Orioles

C-Lopez

1B - Palmeiro 

SS -Tejada

3B Mora

CF - Matos

RF - Sosa

Bonus:  The rotation was all non-American from five different countries. (Yes, I know that Bedard is not of Latin decent.  And neither was Chen though he was born in Panama)

[Enjoy Terror]

I noticed this with the Indians the other day. Bradley Zimmer is the only whitebread guy on the starting 9.

C Leon

1B C. Santana 

2B Hernandez

3B Ramirez

SS Lindor

CF Mercado

RF D. Santana

DH Reyes

[ThomasTomasz]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

...we sure had a lot of players of Latin descent in our lineup last night.   6 of 9, to be exact.    Around the diamond: Severino, Nunez, Alberto, Velasquez, Ruiz and Santander.   I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before this season with the Orioles.

To be clear, Ruiz and Velasquez are US-born, so it’s not like they were signed as foreign amateurs.   And all these guys were originally signed by other organizations.    

 

If I recall correctly, Angelos did not agree with the labor aspect of signing what is essentially young kids, which is why we steered clear of Latin American amateur signings for the most part.  It was also why he never had an issue with signing free agents from Japan or Korea. 

Honestly, the system, while it is capped now, is hopeless broken and some sort of draft should be established.  This is like high school recruiting, but instead of recruiting 16-18 year olds, it's recruiting 11-12 year olds.  Even our best international signing, Jonathan Schoop, happened a bit differently than what you normally see happen. 

[25 Nuggets]

3 hours ago, ThomasTomasz said:

If I recall correctly, Angelos did not agree with the labor aspect of signing what is essentially young kids, which is why we steered clear of Latin American amateur signings for the most part.  It was also why he never had an issue with signing free agents from Japan or Korea. 

Honestly, the system, while it is capped now, is hopeless broken and some sort of draft should be established.  This is like high school recruiting, but instead of recruiting 16-18 year olds, it's recruiting 11-12 year olds.  Even our best international signing, Jonathan Schoop, happened a bit differently than what you normally see happen. 

Very much agree there needs to be reform and better financial or even legal protection for those kids.

Also MLB started the World Cup recently which is a good step towards recognizing 30-some% of their performers but if they want to really get ahead of the curve they should endear themselves as much as possible to Mexican-American and other families of Latin descent.