International Free Agent Pitching, Part One: A League Of Failure

"We feel great about our processes and evaluating hitters, and certainly something to identify here is how do we identify pitchers?"

- James Armstrong, Brewers director of international scouting

After a long history of struggling to produce hitting prospects out of their international free agent signings, it appears as if the Brewers have finally turned the corner in that regard. It is only natural, then, that they would turn their attention to something perhaps even more elusive: getting contributions from their international free agent pitchers.

That raises the question, though. What level of success can we reasonably expect the Brewers to have?

I’m going to attempt to answer that in this series. This first segment will focus on the basic metrics of success, what the average is, and what constitutes above average. The next part will dive deeper into the data, looking at potential strategies to see what effect they had (or didn’t) on success. The last will look at where the Brewers stand currently.

First, the Caveat

Don’t take the stats within this article as 100% complete. They come from me scanning the player pages of players on the bottom two rungs of each organization’s ladder (usually the DSL and what are now known as the Complex Leagues), looking for international free agent signings who debuted during the listed seasons. There is a chance I missed someone, or some of the players debuted at an even higher level. I scanned the top signings for each year to avoid an obvious prospect miss, but the guys who come over basically major-league ready aren’t my focus. It doesn’t take a genius to say, “Hey, we should sign Roki Sasaki.”

Also, I used the years 2014-2016 because I felt they were the most recent years for which most players who would reach the big leagues from those signing classes would already have done so. It doesn’t map perfectly onto the current situation. The bonus restrictions weren’t quite as onerous. Remember the teams blowing past the spending limits by one year in exchange for capping their top bonus for the next two years? You don’t see that anymore. Also, the restructuring of the minor league systems means that some of the pitchers are a bit more likely to see A-Ball now, and there is also a chance that some of the pitchers could have reached a level higher if they had not been among the COVID purge.

Also, these are the debut seasons, not the signing years. Some players might not even be listed with their signing class if they were injured in their first season.

The data set that follows isn’t perfect, but it is the best I have.

Pitchers By Team and Highest Level Reached

Key Takeaways

Expect Failure, Lots of Failure

More than two-thirds of all international free agent pitching signees never made it out of rookie ball.

Just let that soak in.

This isn't just a few outliers throwing off the stats, either. Every team saw more than 50% of its IFA pitchers debuting in those three seasons never make full-season ball. Only the Cardinals came close.

The contraction of one level of rookie ball might throw off the stats a bit, but in general, most of the IFA pitchers you sign will never move beyond the Complex Leagues or the DSL. That isn't a mark of failure. It is just unfortunate baseball math.

That's not to say that a high ratio here is ideal. You can't expect success when your percentage of pitchers who get released in rookie ball is 90%, like the Orioles in these seasons. But generally, if you are around 40-50% reaching A ball, you are doing a decidedly above-average job.

The Law of Large Numbers

The total number of Astros pitchers who never made it past rookie ball is more than all but eight of the other teams' total signed. Their 89 total signings were 11 more than the second-place Yankees.

In this case, quantity begat quality. The Astros' 13 big leaguers were five more than second place. We'll see in the next chart that they also rank high in success metrics among their big leaguers.

Those second-place Yankees? They were tied for second in the big leagues with eight. Eight of the nine teams that signed at least 50 total pitchers got at least three to the majors, with only the Reds falling short.

There were teams that succeeded despite smaller numbers. The Cardinals, Angels, and Twins had numbers between 26 and 31 and still did well. In general, though, more signings equaled a greater chance of success.

Now let's look closer at some of those big leaguers' successes.

A Closer Look at the MLB Players

Pitchers with at Least one fWAR

• Marlins: Edward Cabrera
• Phillies: Sixto Sanchez
• Nationals: Pedro Avila
• Cubs: Javier Assad
• Cardinals: Sandy Alcantara, Johan Oviedo
• Diamondbacks: Jhoan Duran
• Dodgers: Edwin Uceta, Dennis Santana
• Padres: Emmanuel Clase, Dinelson Lamet, Andres Munoz
• Giants: Camilo Doval
• Red Sox: Gregory Santos
• Rays: Cristopher Sanchez, Diego Castillo
• Twins: Brusdar Graterol, Luis Gil, Huascar Ynoa
• Astros: Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Bryan Abreu, Ronel Blanco
• Angels: Jose Soriano, Jose Suarez, Jaime Barria

Takeaways

What is Average?

Two classic ways to look at average are the mean and the median. In this case, they vary greatly, especially considering innings pitched thus far. Part of that is because the Astros have more total innings than the bottom 21 teams put together.

The mean would be roughly three pitchers reaching the big leagues, totalling about 375 innings, with one pitcher having more than (or at least close to) one fWAR.

The three would still be the median for pitchers, but only eight of the teams hit the 375 figure. The median would be closer to 210, roughly halfway between the Pirates and the Phillies. And of those Phillies and Pirates pitchers, the last time I looked, none were in the big leagues, and only two were still in affiliated ball (although the Phillies did get significant trade value from Sixto Sanchez before the injuries doomed his career).

The median for the highest fWAR for a team's best pitcher so far, I believe, would be 0.75.

The Bottom is, Well, Not Good

It says something about the level of disparity between the Astros and the teams at the bottom when the 39 ⅓ innings the Brewers got from Miguel Sanchez, someone vaults them completely out of the bottom quarter of the league in innings pitched.

As you can see, four teams had no pitchers reach the big leagues, with none averaging even ten new IFA debuts per season.

Another five had only one pitcher make it and got less than 50 innings from him. Not exactly a significant success for much of the league.

I think that some of this gap might be closing a bit. The Brewers had only just started to really try in the international market after getting their DSL teams back up and running. The Orioles still seemed to fill their DSL roster by rolling the dice every time someone got released from a different organization's DSL squad and signing them to a contract if it came up 6.

Still, the outliers in a negative direction outnumbered those in a positive one.

Getting Lots of Big Leaguers is Good, But …

Getting a lot of pitchers to the big leagues doesn't mean you will get a truly impact arm. Just ask the Yankees.

New York was tied for second behind Houston with eight pitchers from the three classes getting a big league shot, including five who debuted in 2016 alone. They, however, have zero pitchers who have thus far accumulated even one fWAR. Their list is headed thus far by Jhony Brito, currently on the Padres' 60-day IL. After him? Well, you've got current Nashville teammates Deivi Garcia and Elvis Peguero.

Their rival Red Sox, who tied with the Yankees with eight big leaguers, are in almost as bad of shape. There is only one with at least one fWAR coming into the season. Gregory Santos slid below that mark with seven poor innings before getting optioned this year.

Coming Up

In part two, we'll examine several potential strategies, including the effects of bonus money and the signing age.

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!