A look at 35 international amateurs who debuted from 2013-19

[Roll Tide]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Since you asked:

Upper middle class: 62.7 rWAR

Middle class: 95.6 rWAR

Bargain basement: 101.9 rWAR

Mystery boys: 30.5 rWAR

Again, I wouldn’t make too much of it.   

Thanks ... Its quickly obvious that it doesnt since Jose Ramirez 28.1 WAR makes up nearly a 3rd of the Bargain Bin's number.

I still don't know if there is a clearer answer. Again, I assume that out of the 1022 that were signed in 2019 the vast majority, 95% ?, happily accepted bargain bin money. With the International Slot stuff there are only so many big deals to be handed out.

 

 

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Roll Tide said:

Thanks ... Its quickly obvious that it doesnt since Jose Ramirez 28.1 WAR makes up nearly a 3rd of the Bargain Bin's number.

I still don't know if there is a clearer answer. Again, I assume that out of the 1022 that were signed in 2019 the vast majority, 95% ?, happily accepted bargain bin money. With the International Slot stuff there are only so many big deals to be handed out.

Not quite that high, see the OP.   From the article I was looking at to quote that 1,022 number, I believe 123 players got paid $300 k and up, and about 30 of those were $1mm plus.   I don’t know how many fit in the $100-299 k range.   I’d guess 75%+ were in the bargain basement (under $100 k) range.   But how many total dollars are spent in each of these buckets by teams isn’t something I’ve seen published.   One could probably make a decent estimate if they wanted to put in the time to do it.   

[Roll Tide]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Not quite that high, see the OP.   From the article I was looking at to quote that 1,022 number, I believe 123 players got paid $300 k and up, and about 30 of those were $1mm plus.   I don’t know how many fit in the $100-299 k range.   I’d guess 75%+ were in the bargain basement (under $100 k) range.   But how many total dollars are spent in each of these buckets by teams isn’t something I’ve seen published.   One could probably make a decent estimate if they wanted to put in the time to do it.   

Thanks ... If you where would you spend your money? For me , I still think you pick your spots. But, As I said earlier guys like Vlad Jr and Tatis Jr appear to have been pretty good bets!

[Frobby]

37 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

Thanks ... If you where would you spend your money? For me , I still think you pick your spots. But, As I said earlier guys like Vlad Jr and Tatis Jr appear to have been pretty good bets!

I don’t feel I have enough information to judge which segment of the market has the best yield for the buck.   Overall, I’m inclined to think there’s no “one size fits all” strategy and you have to rely on your scouts to a large degree to tell you when there’s a guy worth paying $1.5 mm for, and when they’re better off signing either five or twenty guys for that same money.    I suspect Elias and Perez have very detailed data on how often each category pays off and where the best cost:benefit ratio tends to be, but you still have to try to judge the individual players.   And as you and others have said, it’s not easy to do when the players are signed at 16 (and you may need to make a verbal commitment at 14).    

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

I’m merely trying to understand if the success was higher in a certain group. Was the achievement of the players in each group comparable...... Purely Hypothetical Alert ... It’s one thing to say that the in the bargain bin there were 500 bargain type signings each year. Of those 5% made it to the majors and 1% were worth mentioning in your list.

 

Rather than having @Sports Guy or @hoosiers trying to put words in my mouth or treat me like I’m a moron. I’m trying to determine the comparable value of the categories, hit rates, WAR values to see if there is any benefit to investing money in a specific category over the others.

If the teams that are spending 3 millions on a guy over signing 30 guys for 100k each. If the answer were as easy as @Sports Guysays then why would they take that approach?

Maybe there isn’t good data to come to a conclusion....and that’s fine. 

NO ONE has said that you NEVER pay up for a player.  The Orioles are giving a 7 figure bonus to a player.  Do you see ANyONE complaining about it?

You keep changing the conversation and what people are saying and you are ignoring things.

YOU made the point that we should just go in and offer 1M more than everyone else.  Your entire opinion of all of this is based on Intl FA prospect rankings.  You have zero other basis for anything you are arguing.  Now, that’s fine.  You are trusting sources.  No issues with that but what you are ignoring is the simple fact that most of these rankings are total bs and that gets proven every year.  They just mean nothing.

So no, the Orioles shouldn’t drastically overpay for a player because that greatly reduces what they can spend overall and they should be adding a lot of these guys.

But again, if you deem a player to be worth a big investment, you do it.  But this process isn’t as simple as offer the most money and you get the player.

[Frobby]

Just a little more info on the J2 2019 class.   By my count, at least $57 mm was spent on players who were paid $1 mm plus.   At least $44.5 mm was spent on players in the $300 k - $999 k range.   That excludes some players whose bonuses were not disclosed on J2.     I believe the total allocation for 2019-20 was $169 mm.   So, it breaks down roughly into thirds, with the million dollar guys getting 1/3 of the overall pool, the $300-999 k guys getting slightly less, and the under $300 k guys getting slightly more than 1/3 the total allocation.   That’s for 2019-20 and may or may not be indicative of how teams spent their money in the period I studied.    

[BobDylanBundy]

Not to detract from this great analysis, but I will also point out that direct Major League production is not the only value created by an amateur signing. Prospects are a MLB team's greatest trade currency. Yoan Moncada actually contributed negative rWAR to the Red Sox, but he generated a great deal of value for the team anyway by being the primary component in the Chris Sale trade. I am not as ambitious as Frobby to research all of the examples, but I'm sure there's several high dollar international signings that never even appeared in the Majors yet produced great value for the signing team by being included in a trade while they were still a prospect.

[LookinUp]

In all seriousness, the answer some are trying to get is worthy of a full blown research study. There are so many confounders and unknowns that it's impossible for some guys on a message board to look at public data and categorically figure out where to target the money. Heck, I'd say it's impossible even for insiders to come up with the simple answers we're looking for. Consider this hypothetical:

Expensive players average $1.5 million. There are 20 signed, so total spending is $30 million. Total WAR over time is 60. ROI is 2 WAR/$million.

Middle players average $500k. There are 60 signed, so total spending is $30 million. Total WAR is 90, so ROI is 3 WAR/$million.

Lower players average is $100k. There are 300 signed, so total spending is $30 million. Total WAR is 75, so ROI is $2.5 WAR/$million.

What do these numbers tell you? I'd argue they tell you absolutely nothing. If you just look at this data, you'd say the best ROI is in the middle range, so go there. But what if that ROI is driven by a single player or two? What if it's driven by a single org or two? What if a few orgs spend a lot but get almost 0 ROI? What if it's skewed by legacy players like Tatis and Vlad Jr.? What if there are certain camps in the DR, or certain buscones, who end up with better players? What if the ML organization has a bottom 10 minor league system over a 5 year period? What if the middle or lower WAR is driven by guys who agreed with teams very young? What if players entered pricing areas because they did or did not have room on whatever rosters those guys were going to be allocated to?

I could go on, but at best you can find correlation; not causation.

The point is only measurable in hindsight. You need people on the ground with good relationships. People who know the kids, their handlers, etc. You need good player development. You need to help a young boy turn into a man. Oh, and you need to find the best players regardless of cost. 

The bottom line for me is we have to trust Koby Perez and Mike Elias to find the right people, make good deals and then develop them. It's just way too early to know that process is actually working. What we do know is they're committed to that process and that they're spending most of their budget annually. The rest is hype. Time is the only judge.

[Frobby]

On 1/5/2021 at 5:11 PM, Frobby said:

I don’t feel I have enough information to judge which segment of the market has the best yield for the buck.   Overall, I’m inclined to think there’s no “one size fits all” strategy and you have to rely on your scouts to a large degree to tell you when there’s a guy worth paying $1.5 mm for, and when they’re better off signing either five or twenty guys for that same money.    I suspect Elias and Perez have very detailed data on how often each category pays off and where the best cost:benefit ratio tends to be, but you still have to try to judge the individual player.

Koby Perez weighs in:

The top international players in this class are expected to get $4 million. Had the O’s signed someone for that amount this year, that one player would eat up 68 percent of their money. There are some teams that believe you have a better chance to hit it big in spending huge amounts on one player, or possibly a few, rather than signing 20, 30 or more.

Perez told me he could see the O’s facing such a decision in the coming years.

“We’re going to take it year by year,” he said. “We’re looking for a fit for us. If there is a player that is a fit for us and he costs us our whole budget, we’ll look at that situation when it arises. We’re always going to go year by year, and there might be a year where we get the highest-rated publicized player there is, and there will be other years when we spread it out. It’s going to all depend on what is the best fit for us.”

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2021/01/international-amateurs-can-get-there-sooner-and-with-great-impact.html

[Sports Guy]

Yep.  That’s exactly what I said.  It will always just depend.  It depends on the overall talent in the class.  It depends on the talent of one of those upper echelon guys.  It depends on your relationship with the players.  It’s just several different reasons.

[Sanfran327]

On 1/4/2021 at 7:01 PM, Frobby said:

In response to an issue Sports Guy brought up in another thread today, I decided to have a look at all the international amateur free agent players who debuted in the majors in the 2013-19 period who rank in the top 20 in their overall debut class in rWAR.     Of the 140 overall debut players (7 years x 20 players/year), 35 of them, or 25%, were signed as international amateur free agents.   This does not include older players signed from the Asian professional leagues, but it does include the older Cuban “amateurs.”

Looking at the 35, I break them down into several categories:

The Sky-High Priced Cubans (4).     These include Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Yuli Gurriel and Yoan Moncada.    Each was signed for at least $30 mm, either via a major league contract (Puig, Abreu, Gurriel) or a signing bonus (Moncada).   All of these players were older than the typical Dominican or Venezuelan amateur.  

The Million Dollar Club (8).   This includes Vlad Guerrero Jr. ($3.9 mm), Gary Sanchez ($3 mm), Eloy Jimenez ($2.8 mm), Yordan Alvarez ($2 mm), Gleyber Torres ($1.7 mm), Rafael Devers ($1.5 mm), Juan Soto ($1.5 mm), and Carlos Martinez ($1.5 mm).  

The Upper Middle Class ($400 k - $999 k) (5).    Here you will find Willson Contreras ($850 k), Max Kepler ($800 k), Fernando Tatis Jr. ($700 k), Willy Adames ($420 k) and Xander Bogaerts ($410 k). 

The Middle Class ($100 k - $399 k) (8).  These players include Ozzie Albies ($350 k), Antonio Senzatela ($250 k), Luis Severino ($225 k), German Marquez ($225 k), Eduardo Rodriguez ($175 k), Odebel Herrera ($160 k), Ketel Marte ($100 k) and Ronald Acuna ($100 k).

The Bargain Basement Guys ($10 k – $ 99 k) (7).   Found here are Jonathan Schoop ($90 k), Jose Ramirez ($50 k), Marcell Ozuna ($49 k), Luis Arraez ($40 k), David Peralta ($35 k), Eugenio Suarez ($10 k) and Yonny Chirinos ($10 k).  

The Mystery Boys (3).   I couldn’t find any signing bonus information on Ender Inciarte, Luis Castillo or Jaime Barria.   I’d probably infer they were all in the bargain basement category.

I’m sure if you waited ten years, you’d find that these 35 players were not necessarily the best 35 international amateurs who debuted in the 2013-19 window.   But, it’s a pretty good sampling and shows that teams can find good players at any bonus level.    Keep in mind that for every player signed for $1 mm and up, there are a couple of dozen guys who are signed for less than that.   1,022 players were signed in the 2019-20 signing period.    Only about 12% of them got bonuses over $300 k, and 3% over $1 mm.

Would be nice if we could afford to spend in the Million Dollar Club or the Upper Middle Class. That's a lot of money on lotter tickets, but I think the risk starts to go down as the price goes up, to a certain extent. Happy to know that we were responsible for a few guys on this list though.