International Free Agent Pitching, Part Two: The Waiting Game

In part one of this examination of the international free agent market, we explored what constitutes reasonably average and above-average success. A big question remains, though: how do you achieve that success?

Let's examine two standbys that people often suggest: money and age.

Strategy 1: Throw Money at the Problem

As time has gone on, excluding the occasional phenom from Asia, an increasingly large percentage of the top international bonuses seem to be going to hitters.

So, the argument goes, the way to succeed is to simply spend a larger percentage of the international bonus pool on pitching.

The question is, does it work?

The answer: Maybe … kind of … occasionally a little bit.

All Bonus Levels Have Seen Success

Let's look at the same group as last time, those pitchers who debuted during the 2014-2016 seasons. Here is how those who totaled at least 1 fWAR through the 2024 season broke down by bonus (information mostly from Spotrac).

Here are the results by player.

Oviedo was the least expensive (and among the youngest) of a group of seven Cuban pitchers who got bonuses over $1 million dollars in the 2016-17 signing period. While several of the others reached the big leagues in an up-down reliever role, the other notable name was current San Diego bullpen regular Adrian Morejon, who signed with the Padres for a whopping $11 million (it was a different time).

Most of the others were more conventional — and lower bonus if Spotrac is correct. So what can we glean from this data?

Well, there were a fair number of success stories from the sub-$50K group, but at the same time, a lot more pitchers sign for lower numbers overall. So money definitely did help, but it wasn't some sort of panacea. And if you did a good job scouting/developing, you can find gems for smaller bonuses. Ask the Astros, who signed a number of pitchers who didn't make a significant impact for more than the combined total of Valdez, Javier, Abreu and Blanco.

Where Money Didn't Work

Looking beyond those three seasons, though, you can see where the big bonuses for pitching might not always be the best use of bonus pool space.

Spotrac lists 35 international pitchers (not counting Shohei Ohtani, because saying "we should sign Shohei Ohtani" took even less baseball scouting acumen than I have) signing for $300,000 or more during the 2017-18 period and 31 doing so during the 2018-19 period. Want to know what those 66 players have amounted to thus far?

• 4 Big Leaguers
• 0 MLB games started
• 204 innings (164 by one player)
• 1.9 WAR (2 WAR from one player)

And the player that accounted for most of those totals? Orioles bullpen mainstay Yennier Cano, who the Twins signed at age 25 out of Cuba, so not exactly your typical 16-19 year old signing.

To be fair, the early results from the post-pandemic classes look a little better, although some of that is the Padres. Say what you will about the all-or-nothing strategy they take vs. spreading the bonus pool money around, but unlike some other teams, when they've swung big lately they have rarely completely missed.

Conclusions

Throwing a bunch of money at a couple of pitching prospects doesn't seem like a winning strategy based upon the evidence. That being said, neither does hoping your next group of $10,000 pickups magically becomes the Astros class that produced their pair of starters.

Being willing to occasionally go into the high five and low six figure range seems like the sweet spot of combining quantity with quality while not ignoring the hitting side of things, where the top players are usually more expensive.

Strategy No. 2: Sign Older Pitchers

Much like handing out bigger bonuses, the logic here is pretty straightforward. The older a pitcher is, the more developed both body-wise and stuff-wise he will be. This makes evaluation easier, for obvious reasons.

So, did it work in practice? Let's go to the chart and compare the age when they first appeared in a game to the highest level each player reached in 2014-2016:

Doesn't exactly bear things out, huh? The younger pitchers were by far the least likely to flame out in rookie ball and the most likely to reach the big leagues. So the answer is to sign all 16-17 year olds, right?

Well, the truth is a bit more nuanced. Several very good players were in the 20+ group, including the Astros with Valdez and Blanco. The 18-19 year old group also seemed to be the sweet spot for a lot of the top starters.

Conclusions

Still, though, the wait until they are older strategy doesn't appear to work out the way it should. Why? Well, let's turn to game theory for a second. Remember the old prisoner's dilemma? The crux of the problem is that you have two prisoners being interrogated. If both confess, they get one sentence, let's say 10 years each. If one confesses and testifies against the one who didn't, let's say the one who confesses gets 1 year and the one who doesn't gets 20. If neither confesses, they get them on a lesser charge for 3 years each. Basically, while the lowest combined sentence would happen if neither confessed, no matter what the other one does, it is in each's best interest to confess.

So what does this have to do with baseball? The most efficient market for all teams would involve waiting until the pitchers were in their 20s. Because you can tell enough about a pitcher by 16-18 to pick out some of the top talents, there is an advantage for any team that does that, because so long as one team does, the talent pool for the rest has been diluted.

I will admit the analogy is stretched a bit. The theory doesn't map 100%. Still, though, the point remains, so long as any team is willing to take the risk to sign younger pitchers, they are going to have an advantage over teams that dogmatically wait to sign pitchers. And even if every other team waits, that just creates an opportunity for the one who doesn't.

That's not to say dogmatically only signing younger pitchers is the answer either. Basically, what it seems to be saying is scout all ages, sign all ages. There are inefficiencies to be sure, but they aren't really the kind that you can take advantage of the way that it seems as though you should.

So What's Left?

It might be, other than signing a lot like was mentioned in part one, there is no one perfect method of succeeding in the international market. You just have to out-scout, out-sign and out-develop the other teams.

So how are the Brewers doing? More on that in part 3.

Interested in learning more about the Milwaukee Brewers' top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!