Article: How Many of the TOP International Signings Make It?

[jorgenswest]

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php/3191-International-Signings-How-many-of-the-top-signings-make-it

[Brock Beauchamp]

Fantastic. I've been waiting to see someone do this and your data backs up my initial thoughts... It's really hard to figure out which 16 year old players will become quality MLB players, which makes the Twins strategy of "throw smaller amounts of money at a lot of guys" seem pretty logical.

[Mike Sixel]

I have been looking for someone to do this.....is this as far back as the data goes? Did you look at more recent data? I might do that if I actually go to RAGBRAI and hang out (since I am not recovered enough from last year's bike accident enough to ride 7 straight days).

 

The real deal here is that it is a lottery pick.

[John Bonnes]

I loved this story. Thanks for writing it. In god we trust - all others must bring data.

[Seth Stohs]

Tremendous article! Thank you for doing this jorgenwest!

 

This is a topic that Jeremy and I have spent a lot of time talking about in the last couple of weeks on the Twins Hangouts show. We're both obviously thrilled to have Miguel Sano on the Twins roster ($3.15 million), but generally, I would rather that the Twins sign 6 guys at $500,000 than one guy at $3 million when it's such an uncertain thing.

[Monkeypaws]

I like that you point out some pretty good Twins prospects that were signed in the same year as the big money kids.

 

Very well-done article.

[bird]

Wow. This is incredibly illuminating. Thanks for digging this up, jorgenswest. The scouting quality and the overall environment in 2014 is probably vastly superior compared to 2006/7, but still, it would be hard to contend that signing the most highly-rated prospects today is that much more predictable. It appears the answer to your first question is that it's probably still pretty much a crap shoot. The second question is impossible to answer: will the Yankees get rewarded? Even if they turn out a Teheran for roughly $14M? A lot of that might depend on if they end up suffering the consequences for cheating, i.e. no signings over $300k the following year, but then again they can still find the Arcias, Santanas, and Pintos, right?

 

Some have criticized the Twins for not signing more of these more highly-ranked prospects, and I'd say this data suggests that the criticism is unfounded, for two reasons. First, they DO sign a number of prospects that others rank highly, such as Sano, Minier, Diaz, Barrie, Silva and Ynoa in the last two years. They sign prospects they like regardless of these dicey outside rankings. Secondly, the many success stories bubbling up support their process: Arcia, Santana, Polanco, Pinto, Sano, Vargas, Thorpe...

 

And the Twins should NOT do the same thing, even if it would clearly work, because it cheats others and it's wrong by every ethical standard one can cite.

[SDFan]

Fantastic research on a very interesting topic. Thanks!

[gunnarthor]

A few questions:

1) Were those signings the top signings of those years or the list made by BA? Maybe BA isn't as good at scouting international signees so their list might not be accurate enough to make a determination.

 

2) How many players, not on that list, made it? You pointed out that the Twins made a few nice signings in that period. How about other teams (yes, that's a lot of work).

 

3) Another way to review international signees may be to review BA top 100 prospect lists and find out, in whatever year, how many became top 100 guys.

[Dman]

I think what gets many of us is the Sano effect. A high profile high priced prospect who looks like he could be a super star. I think the mentality becomes that every high profile high priced prospect will likely succeed. It is good to see facts dismiss conjecture. 16 year olds and even 18 year olds are hard to project. This is a good exercise to help us put international signings in proper perspective.

[twinsfan34]

Here's a link with a few more years to add to the sample size.

 

http://www.mlbprospectguide.com/p/international-signings.html

 

2010 and 2011 was a bit better...a few other years as well. Still hit and miss. Not quite enough data out there to compare vs the MLB Rule IV June Drafts.

 

I ran some comparisons using the Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects list and players who were international signings were more often "Stars" (War over 30, War over 40, War over 50, etc) but College/HS drafted players more often made MLB. BA's lists go back to 1995: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/all-time

[Mike Sixel]

This is all super stuff, thanks everyone!

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Very interesting. These facts seem to verify what we all think we know...the younger the prospect, the more difficult it is to predict whether he will be a major league baseball player.

[Oxtung]

I think there are a couple of factors that aren't being discussed and a few things being conflated in this discussion. First we should separate whether the Yankees should have gone all in from did the Twins do right by signing many smaller signings.

 

The Yankees (and all high income teams), have a real dilemma of where to put there money. Which route will provide the largest return? They are capped in the rule IV draft. With potential FA players being locked into long term contracts early on in their MLB careers the big FA additions are becoming less attainable even as their contracts become obnoxiously bloated and for MANY years beyond their productive seasons. Perhaps from the Yankees point of view the return on potential young controllable players is greater than adding another big FA contract (hello A-Rod). They have money to spend and need to spend it somewhere. The questions really just becomes where should that be?

 

The Twins on the other hand don't have that kind of money and so their question is is it better to sign one or 2 big players or spread it around? I think in order to accurately answer that question you'd have to also look at how many players signed lower priced contracts and succeeded. You can spend a million dollars on 7 kids and get nothing out of it just as easy as spending a million dollars on 1 kid. What are the success rates? Also a part of this discussion becomes one of numbers. There are only a certain number of players the Twins can field. They can't sign 30 guys to $30,000 contracts because there just isn't room for them all. At what point are the Twins leaving money on the table by spreading it too thin to prospects? Perhaps the biggest return on investment is what the Twins are currently employing. Sign 1 or 2 guys your scouts really like for a "big" price and then sign another bunch of "potential players" to smaller checks. That way you cover both bases.

 

Interesting questions. Thanks for starting the research.

[Winston Smith]

Just looked at the June draft for 07 and 08.

 

In the 07 draft in round 1 and 1s had 64 players picked and 8 of them have a war of over 5.

 

In the 08 draft in round 1 and 1s had 46 players drafted and again 8 have a war over 5.

 

Weather it's with Int. signings or with the draft it appears that baseball talent people have a hard time picking the right guys. Not a very good success rate either way.

[Mike Sixel]

I think there are a couple of factors that aren't being discussed and a few things being conflated in this discussion. First we should separate whether the Yankees should have gone all in from did the Twins do right by signing many smaller signings.

 

The Yankees (and all high income teams), have a real dilemma of where to put there money. Which route will provide the largest return? They are capped in the rule IV draft. With potential FA players being locked into long term contracts early on in their MLB careers the big FA additions are becoming less attainable even as their contracts become obnoxiously bloated and for MANY years beyond their productive seasons. Perhaps from the Yankees point of view the return on potential young controllable players is greater than adding another big FA contract (hello A-Rod). They have money to spend and need to spend it somewhere. The questions really just becomes where should that be?

 

The Twins on the other hand don't have that kind of money and so their question is is it better to sign one or 2 big players or spread it around? I think in order to accurately answer that question you'd have to also look at how many players signed lower priced contracts and succeeded. You can spend a million dollars on 7 kids and get nothing out of it just as easy as spending a million dollars on 1 kid. What are the success rates? Also a part of this discussion becomes one of numbers. There are only a certain number of players the Twins can field. They can't sign 30 guys to $30,000 contracts because there just isn't room for them all. At what point are the Twins leaving money on the table by spreading it too thin to prospects? Perhaps the biggest return on investment is what the Twins are currently employing. Sign 1 or 2 guys your scouts really like for a "big" price and then sign another bunch of "potential players" to smaller checks. That way you cover both bases.

 

Interesting questions. Thanks for starting the research.

 

 

Love this post. Love it.

[jay]

Great stuff. I really love this type of data-driven analysis. Really shows that the rankings, while fun, don't provide that much value. It's the results that we all care about in the end.

 

Along those lines, it would be amazing to do an ROI-like study with $/WAR across multiple years of int'l signings to look at how each team has performed and how tiers of signing bonuses compare to each other -- somewhat like the recent blog I put up on free agent SPs.

[drivlikejehu]

I think teams are reasonably good at signing amateur players. Draft studies show that MLB production is very high at the top of the draft, in aggregrate, and then drops sharply before eventually levelling out. Signing players at 16 certainly increases the variance, but consider the cost of acquiring MLB production - 1 win above replacement costs $6-7 million in free agency.

 

The spending has be considered in totality - yes, most fail, but it doesn't take much justify the expense.

[Major League Ready]

I put this together about a week ago when someone made an off-hand comment about the Twins being cheap. I presumed the more likely case was they were acting in a manner consistent with the data they had collected on international signings. I found this list of the all-time top 20 international free agents. It is hard to measure their relative success without really diving in so I measured mostly how they rated in terms of their teams prospect list or in a couple cases they were already out of pro baseball.

[TABLE=width: 958]

1

Michael Ynoa

2008

RHP

Athletics

16

$4.25

Ranked #22 in 2009 / Now in A+ with an ERA over 7 the last two years

2

Miguel Sano

2009

SS

Twins

16

$3.15

[/TD]

3

Gary Sanchez

2009

C

Yankees

16

$3

Top 100 prospect at AA (age 21)

4

Adonys Cardona

2010

RHP

Blue Jays

16

$2.80

2103 at RK league had 6.75 ERA / 2014 8.44 ERA

5

Luis Heredia

2010

RHP

Pirates

16

$2.60

Not in Pitt top 20 prospects

5

T-5. Ariel Ovando

2010

OF

Astros

16

$2.60

A-Ball with an OPS of 651 / OPS of 469 last year

7

Rafael Rodriguez

2008

OF

Giants

16

$2.55

In A-ball / Not listed in Giants top 20 prospects

8

Yorman Rodriguez

2008

OF

Reds

16

$2.50

AA (Age 21) OPS of 638 / Rated as Red's #8 prospect

9

Wily Mo Pena

1999

OF

Yankees

17

$2.44

4th outfielder / out of baseball before he was 30.

10

Joel Guzman

2001

SS

Dodgers

16

$2.26

Top 5 prospect in 2005. Never made it past AAA.

11

Byung-Hyun Kim

1999

RHP

Dbacks

20

$2.25

Never made it past AAA

12

Phillips Castillo

2010

OF

Mariners

16

$2.20

Not in Ms top 20 prospects

13

Renato Nunez

2010

3B

Athletics

16

$2.20

A+ / Scouting report gives him a 50 overall / Not likely to stick art 3B

14

Chin-Hui Tsao

1999

RHP

Rockies

18

$2.20

Was rated as high as #15 / Never made it past AAA

15

Angel Villalona

2006

3B

Giants

16

$2.10

Was rated as high as #33 / Now at AA / Not in SF top 20

16

Juan Duran

2008

OF

Reds

16

$2

AA / Not in Cin top 20

17

Guillermo Pimentel

2009

OF

Mariners

16

$2

AA - Seattle's #10 prospect

18

Adys Portillo

2008

RHP

Padres

16

$2

AA - Not in Padres Top 20

19

Jose Vinicio

2009

SS

Red Sox

16

$1.95

Not in Red Sox top 20

20

Miguel Cabrera

1999

SS

Marlins

16

$1.90

[TD]

[/TABLE]

[TCisNotaBear]

I loved this story. Thanks for writing it. In god we trust - all others must bring data.

 

To be Fair... I expect God to bring data too. At least, if he want to talk baseball that is. I'll take good baseball stories over "the good news" any day.

 

Good story!

[diehardtwinsfan]

It was that Cabrera guy that drove the market... Interesting. Also interesting that he was heavily recruited by the Twins before the Marlins came in and got him.

 

And the moral of the story... not quite sure. Star in Cabrera, and stars in the making up near the top (though the book is still out there)... Not much of anything else.

[Steven Buhr]

The second question is impossible to answer: will the Yankees get rewarded? Even if they turn out a Teheran for roughly $14M?

 

Just picking nits, but wouldn't it be turning out that the Yankees got a Teheran for roughly $28 million? They get nailed with a 100% penalty tax, right?

[drock2190]

I'd like to point out that the Twins just came in second in the bidding for Gregory Polanco of the Pirates.

 

Imagine him being paired with Buxton in the outfield. Or the top of the order...

[Badsmerf]

I'd like to see how the Twins compare to other teams in International signings. They have an impressive laundry list of player/prospects right now. I think this is an area the Twins are doing extremely well in right now and I wouldn't criticize them at all.

[jorgenswest]

In response a few questions...

 

I chose 2006-2007 because those players are now 23-24 and teams have had to make 40 man roster decisions as well as option decisions on those players.

 

The players listed are ranked by value of contract signed. I went that direction based on listening to Kiley McDaniel and how he views rankings of international prospects.

 

It might be interesting to go back to 2000-2001 and see if there is any correlation between dollars spent on an international prospect and WAR. It sure doesn't look like the correlation will be significant for 2006-2007. As some have pointed out, scouting may have become more reliable in 2014.

 

At least in 2006-2007, it looks like the talent of the scout trumps the size of the pocketbook. The Yankees must be hoping that trend has reversed for 2014.

[Oxtung]

I'd like to see how the Twins compare to other teams in International signings. They have an impressive laundry list of player/prospects right now. I think this is an area the Twins are doing extremely well in right now and I wouldn't criticize them at all.

 

When did the spending limits go into effect? 3 years ago? It would also be interesting to know how many the Twins signed and what their total outlay was in comparison to the other teams. How much did the Twins put into their scouting in comparison to other teams?

 

A lot of interesting questions that will go unanswered. That's life I suppose; make the best educated guess you can and move forward.

[zenser]

[TABLE=width: 958]

11

Byung-Hyun Kim

[/TABLE]

 

Wasn't he the closer in Arizona for a couple years? I was thinking he had a rough go of it in the 2001 Series with the Yankees.

[jorgenswest]

Just picking nits, but wouldn't it be turning out that the Yankees got a Teheran for roughly $28 million? They get nailed with a 100% penalty tax, right?

 

An important nit to pick. Guaranteeing a Teheran might be worth the expense. The Yankees aren't getting every international signing though.

 

In 2007 they also cornered the market paying out 4 of the top 10 bonuses. They missed on Teheran.