CheeseheadInQC

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). table.tableizer-table { font-size: 12px; border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #CCC; text-align:center; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; text-align:center; border: 1px solid #CCC; padding: 4px; margin: 3px; } WAR Bonus $300,000+ $299,999-100,000 $99,999-$50,000 <$50,000 5+ 0 3 1 2 3-4.9 1 2 1 1 2-2.9 1 1 3 0 1-1.9 2 3 2 2 Here are the results by player. Player WAR Bonus Sandy Alcantara 16.5 $125K Framber Valdez 16.4 $10K Emmanuel Clase 8.9 $125K Cristian Javier 6.7 $10K Cristopher Sanchez 6.6 $65K Dinelson Lamet 5.6 $100K Andres Munoz 4.1 $700K Bryan Abreu 3.9 $40K Jhoan Duran 3.8 $65K Camilo Doval 3.5 $100K Brusdar Graterol 3.2 $150K Diego Castillo 2.8 $64K Luis Gil 2.7 $90K Johan Oviedo 2.6 $1.9M Javier Assad 2.2 $150K Jose Soriano 2.1 $70K Edward Cabrera 1.7 $100K Edwin Uceta 1.7 $10K Ronel Blanco 1.7 $5K Jose Saurez 1.6 $300K Dennis Santana 1.5 $170K Jaime Barria 1.4 $60K Huascar Ynoa 1.2 $800K Gregory Santos 1.2 $275K Pedro Avila 1 $50K 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: Age at time of debut 16-17 18-19 20+ MLB 38 (9.11%) 39 (6.61%) 14 (5.47%) AAA 22 (5.28%) 31 (5.25%) 10 (3.91%) AA 25 (6.00%) 27 (4.58%) 10 (3.91%) A+ 42 (10.07%) 31 (5.25%) 13 (5.08%) A 35 (8.39%) 40 (6.78%) 17 (6.64%) R 255 (61.15%) 422 (71.53%) 192 (75.00%) Total 417 590 256 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.

"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 table td, table th { border: 1px solid black; line-height: 1.4; padding: 5px 5px; } MLB AAA AA A+ A R Total NL East Braves Total 1 2 2 5 1 26 37 2014 0 0 1 1 0 9 11 2015 0 2 0 2 1 12 17 2016 1 0 1 2 0 5 9 Marlins Total 4 2 1 3 6 26 42 2014 1 0 0 0 2 10 13 2015 1 2 0 2 1 9 15 2016 2 0 1 1 3 7 14 Mets Total 1 4 2 2 2 38 49 2014 0 1 0 1 2 13 17 2015 0 1 0 0 0 18 19 2016 1 2 2 1 0 7 13 Phillies Total 5 4 4 3 3 42 61 2014 3 3 2 2 1 11 22 2015 2 1 1 0 1 13 18 2016 0 0 1 1 1 18 21 Nationals Total 1 3 2 5 3 34 48 2014 0 3 0 2 2 15 22 2015 1 0 2 2 1 10 16 2016 0 0 0 1 0 9 10 NL Central Cubs Total 3 2 2 4 5 28 44 2014 0 1 0 2 2 10 15 2015 1 1 0 1 2 11 16 2016 2 0 2 1 1 7 13 Reds Total 1 0 0 4 5 43 53 2014 0 0 0 1 1 13 15 2015 1 0 0 3 4 13 21 2016 0 0 0 0 0 17 17 Brewers Total 1 4 0 2 2 14 23 2014 0 1 0 1 0 2 4 2015 0 1 0 0 0 3 4 2016 1 2 0 1 2 9 15 Pirates Total 3 1 4 1 1 27 37 2014 2 0 1 0 0 13 16 2015 1 1 1 1 0 6 10 2016 0 0 2 0 1 8 11 Cardinals Total 4 0 3 5 3 16 31 2014 2 0 0 1 2 7 12 2015 0 0 0 2 1 6 9 2016 2 0 3 2 0 3 10 NL West Diamondbacks Total 4 3 2 1 5 40 55 2014 1 1 0 1 1 8 12 2015 2 0 1 0 0 11 14 2016 1 2 1 0 4 21 29 Rockies Total 1 1 2 5 4 18 31 2014 0 0 1 3 1 6 11 2015 1 0 1 0 1 5 8 2016 0 1 0 2 2 7 12 Dodgers Total 3 4 4 5 8 32 56 2014 1 1 0 1 0 10 13 2015 0 1 1 1 2 7 12 2016 2 2 3 3 6 15 31 Padres Total 3 1 6 0 3 29 42 2014 1 1 0 0 2 8 12 2015 1 0 2 0 1 9 13 2016 1 0 4 0 0 12 17 Giants Total 3 4 4 2 1 21 35 2014 0 1 0 0 0 8 9 2015 0 3 2 1 0 6 12 2016 3 0 2 1 1 7 14 AL East Orioles Total 0 1 0 1 0 18 20 2014 0 1 0 1 0 9 11 2015 0 0 0 0 0 6 6 2016 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 Red Sox Total 8 2 2 3 4 34 53 2014 4 0 0 1 1 5 11 2015 3 0 1 2 1 18 25 2016 1 2 1 0 2 11 17 Yankees Total 8 2 1 7 4 56 78 2014 2 1 1 1 1 20 26 2015 1 1 0 2 1 19 24 2016 5 0 0 4 2 17 28 Rays Total 4 1 0 6 3 49 63 2014 3 0 0 2 0 19 24 2015 1 0 0 3 3 14 21 2016 0 1 0 1 0 16 18 Blue Jays Total 3 1 3 4 2 29 42 2014 0 1 2 1 0 8 12 2015 2 0 0 1 1 12 16 2016 1 0 1 2 1 9 14 AL Central White Sox Total 0 0 1 1 0 13 15 2014 0 0 1 0 0 6 7 2015 0 0 0 1 0 4 5 2016 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 Guardians Total 3 3 3 1 6 26 42 2014 1 1 1 1 3 10 17 2015 1 1 2 0 2 8 14 2016 1 1 0 0 1 8 11 Tigers Total 1 1 1 2 2 31 38 2014 0 0 0 0 1 11 12 2015 0 1 1 1 1 12 16 2016 1 0 0 1 0 8 10 Royals Total 0 2 2 1 2 21 28 2014 0 1 1 0 0 6 8 2015 0 0 1 0 0 9 10 2016 0 1 0 1 2 6 10 Twins Total 5 2 0 1 2 16 26 2014 0 1 0 0 1 3 5 2015 4 0 0 1 0 7 12 2016 1 1 0 0 1 6 9 AL West Astros Total 13 5 8 4 8 51 89 2014 3 2 1 2 6 18 32 2015 5 2 4 0 2 13 26 2016 5 1 3 2 0 20 31 Angels Total 6 3 1 2 0 18 30 2014 2 3 0 0 0 8 13 2015 3 0 0 1 0 2 6 2016 1 0 1 1 0 8 11 Athletics Total 0 2 1 3 3 17 26 2014 0 0 1 0 1 7 9 2015 0 1 0 2 2 4 9 2016 0 1 0 1 0 6 8 Mariners Total 2 1 0 1 2 14 20 2014 1 0 0 0 0 6 7 2015 1 1 0 0 2 3 7 2016 0 0 0 1 0 5 6 Rangers Total 3 2 1 2 2 43 53 2014 1 1 0 2 1 19 24 2015 1 0 0 0 0 13 14 2016 1 1 1 0 1 11 15 Totals 94 63 62 86 92 870 1267 % of Total 7.42% 4.97% 4.89% 6.79% 7.26% 68.67% 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 Innings fWAR 0 or less .1-1 1.1-3 3+ NL East Braves 1 19.7 1 0 0 0 Marlins 4 535.7 3 0 1 0 Mets 1 34 0 1 0 0 Phillies 5 237.3 3 1 1 0 Nationals 1 146.3 0 1 0 0 NL Central Brewers 1 39.3 1 0 0 0 Cubs 3 303.7 1 1 1 0 Cardinals 4 1281.7 1 1 1 1 Pirates 3 182.7 1 2 0 0 Reds 1 100 0 1 0 0 NL West Diamondbacks 4 270 3 0 0 1 Rockies 1 17.3 1 0 0 0 Dodgers 3 359.7 1 0 2 0 Padres 3 877.3 0 0 0 3 Giants 3 290.7 1 1 0 1 AL East Orioles 0 0 0 0 0 0 Red Sox 8 338 4 3 1 0 Yankees 8 476.3 5 3 0 0 Rays 4 902.7 0 2 1 1 Blue Jays 3 170 3 0 0 0 AL Central White Sox 0 0 0 0 0 0 Guardians 3 127.7 2 1 0 0 Tigers 1 12.7 1 0 0 0 Royals 0 0 0 0 0 0 Twins 5 502 2 0 2 1 AL West Astros 13 2532.7 6 3 1 3 Angels 6 1090.7 3 0 3 0 Athletics 0 0 0 0 0 0 Mariners 2 251 1 1 0 0 Rangers 3 154.7 2 1 0 0 Totals 94 11253.7 46 23 14 11 Per Team 3.13 375 1.53 0.77 0.47 0.37 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.