We all love dreaming on the potential of exciting international arms, especially with the recent success of names like Dinelson Lamet, Luis Patiño, Sixto Sanchez and Luis Castillo to name a few. When you look at a 16 year old throwing 95 already, it’s so tempting to project that out to triple digits velocity at physical maturity and feel like you NEED him in your minors.
A few years back, nobody was really paying attention to foreign minor league arms, so you could sit back and wait to scoop them up when they started to generate mainstream buzz; but that’s not the case today. Everyone wants to get in early on the next Patiño or Sixto. So if you want to own the top J2 arms in each class, you need to invest both heavily and early! However, with youth and limited track record comes risk. How often do these top arms bust? Well...I took a look and the results surprised me.
Since 1998, there have been 41 international signing bonus arms (excluding Japanese Professional players above age 18 at signing) to sign for over $1,000,000, the highest bonus being $16,000,000 and costing a total of $32,000,000 to the club. Of these 41 bonuses, 13 have had a true cost of $2,500,000 or more. The top two of which, Yadier Alvarez and Adrian Morejon, cost a combined $54,000,000. For perspective, the 2020 slot value for the #1 overall pick in the draft was $8,415,000. So those two contracts are worth nearly seven #1 overall picks. 40 of the 41 bonuses were given from 2008-2019, so these are primarily recent deals.
Of the 41 players signed to these contracts, 12 have made MLB debuts thus far. Of those 12 players, four out of the 41 have made an MLB start lasting longer than three innings.
Of those four, only two have made five or more starts lasting longer than three innings.
Only one has made more than 30: Carlos Martinez.
Let that sink in.
Of the 13 players with true costs over $2,500,000 to sign, only two (Ronald Bolaños and Johan Oviedo) has made an MLB start lasting longer than three innings. Of these 13 players, only two are below the age of 24 (Sandy Gaston at 18 and Oviedo at 22). Age has not played a factor in that statistic.
So only four, have started...that’s eight quality relief pitchers right? Of the 41 players, three have career WAR (per Baseball Reference) of over 1.0. These three players are Carlos Martinez at 14.8 BWAR, Robert Osuna at 8.8 BWAR and Julio Urias at 2.6 BWAR. That means out of the 12 players who made the MLB, 75% have career WAR below 1.0. In contrast, five of the 12 (41.67%) have negative career WAR.
“Well yeah...but how age plays a factor in this right”?
Yes, but not as much as you might think. Of the 41 players, 25 are age 23 or older, 23 of the 25 being age 24 plus. 11 of these 25 have made MLB debuts, so a 44% rate of reaching the MLB with an 8% chance of becoming a starter and a 16% chance of having a career WAR over 1.0. That’s not great and as a former Yadier Alvarez bandwagoner, brings back painful memories.
Of the 29 players who have not yet debuted in the MLB, 12 were no longer signed with teams in 2019. Of the 15 non-MLB arms signed with teams, only three players had a minor league ERA below 4.00 in 2019. Of these three, nobody appeared above A ball and only one had a FIP below 4.00. Of the three, no player appeared in over 38 innings in 2019 and only two topped eight innings. These three players were Eric Pardinho, Franklin Perez and Richard Gallardo. Seven of the 15 posted an ERA at 6.00 or higher in 2019. Two players (Andry Lara and Pablo Aldonis have yet to debut in the Minors).
“But the 16 sub-23 year old arms will change these stat lines when they come up right”?
Maybe...but it’s not looking great thus far. Of the 16 players below age 23, seven are age 19 or below. Of those seven, six debuted on their teams MLB Pipeline top 30 (as an unbiased reference) when signed. Of those six, three have been taken off of the list entirely since. Of the 14 sub-23 year olds that have debuted, only two have reached Double-A or higher, Johan Ovideo and Adrian Morejon. Two have been outright released by their teams. Of the 14 sub-23 year old players on this list, only four posted a minor league ERA below 4.73 in 2019. Not one of those four players reached 40 innings pitched in 2019. Of these 14 players, eight missed significant time with injury in 2019 and two did not play due to being released by teams. So of the 14 sub-23 year olds from this list, four had healthy 2019 seasons. Of those four, no player pitcher over 36 ⅓ innings in 2019.
Of the 41 players on this list, 35 are still prospect eligible. Zero of the 35 are currently on MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospect list. There are five former J2 signing pitchers on Pipeline’s current top 100, though I’ll add in Deivi Garcia who was on the list pre-MLB Draft additions. Of these six names (Luis Patino, Sixto Sanchez, Brailyn Marquez, Brusdar Graterol, Edward Cabrera and Garcia) only Brailyn Marquez ($600,000) received a signing bonus of over $200,000.
In the current MLB (using the preseason Pitcherslist top 100 pitchers), 16 of the top 100 MLB starters were J2 bonus arms. Of those 16, only three players (Carlos Martinez, Julio Urias and Patrick Sandoval) received signing bonuses over $300,000. Of the 13 signed for $300,000 or below, nine were signed for $100,000 or less.
“Does this mean international pitchers suck”? No. Not at all. It just means that high end international pitching prospects are significantly more likely to have signed cheaper deals than expensive ones. It also means that the top bonus arms in international classes have been historically much more likely to bust than hit.
“Well then, what does this mean”?
For real life teams, it means you’re likely better served spreading that bonus out between five or more sub $300,000 bonus players than committing the full pot to one tantalizing arm. For fantasy teams, it means avoid J2 arms entirely in your FYPD. But be vigilant monitoring your minors to scoop up the next Sixto Sanchez who signed for $35,000 but blew up in the low minors. Or the next Dinelson Lamet, who signed for $100,000 before the stuff ticked up.