Today’s prospect list and subsequent discussion surrounds international players, and like most things you’ve experienced this year, it’s going to be a little bit different than usual. Typically, the international prospect coverage at FanGraphs consists of a preliminary list of players during our February Prospects Week, with a longer, more thorough ranking published closer to July 2, historically the day foreign amateur players are allowed to start signing.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB pushed this year’s signing day back by six months from July 2020 to January 2021. For the purposes of my workflow, previewing the signing festivities now lines up with nicely with the early free agency period when pro players from foreign leagues are being posted by their old clubs and courted by their new ones. And though not exclusively, it has also generally fallen to me to acquire basic scouting notes on these players, though there has never been a central location on the site, like The Board, to house those reports.

This change in timing, combined with the way the Future Value scale enables apples-to-oranges comparisons between very different baseball players, led me to decide to simply fold the foreign pros in with the fresh-faced youngsters whose big league dreams are still half a decade away. And so The Board’s International Players tab will now be a running pref list of players abroad regardless of their origin or experience level, subject to sweeping updates a couple times of year while also changing incrementally throughout as players sign and move to the pro side of The Board or become known through my sources and research.

This likely isn’t just a single-year, COVID-related change to the international amateur calendar (and therefore my work). All of the people in baseball I’ve spoken to for this list think that MLB will also push the next signing period back six months, and that a January start to the signing period will become the new normal, until and unless an international draft is instituted. Like many of the societal shifts we’re all dealing with during this difficult time, the changes to the international calendar and signing rules have had immediate consequences to those who had planned for a world without them. So before I talk more about what’s on The Board, let’s consider the changes to the international amateur market and what they’ve meant for this year’s class. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the Yankees traded utility lefty Nestor Cortes Jr. to the Mariners for international bonus pool money. A source indicated to Eric and me that the deal was for $30,000 of pool space (we’re told it’s all Seattle had left in their pool), while others characterized it as being in that range, if not that number exactly.

This move may seem insignificant, but it hints at the motivations and strategies of both clubs. Back in July, the Yankees were one of a couple teams we spotlighted as having a 40-man crunch on their hands (we had Cortes as the last guy to make the roster), so being able to get something in return for him rather than throwing him on waivers because they needed to clear roster spots makes for an easy decision. The price of claiming a player on waivers is $50,000, while we’ve found the return on investment of an international bonus dollar, including operational expenses, is about 300%. Most teams think of bonus pool money as being worth at least double its nominal value, but the Yankees — who consistently trade for extra pool money, with GM Brian Cashman emboldened by their quick returns on high-variance prospects in the international market — likely see it as much more valuable than that. Factor in that given Seattle’s interest, the odds of Cortes passing through waivers was zero, and this makes a ton of sense for New York.

Meanwhile, Seattle is ramping up to compete in 2021 and has open spots on its 40-man roster, so adding an accomplished depth piece with major league experience and remaining minor league options for just a bit over the waiver price, while shifting a little international money into their 40-man roster, fits their competitive posture. Cortes is a 5-foot-11 lefty who sits 88-91 mph and relies mostly on his fastball and slider, but also mixes in a changeup. He’s likely never going to be a role 5, 50 FV or a reliable bulk innings rotation piece, so the Yankees probably figured that one of the prospects recently added to the roster, or a veteran on a minor league deal who won’t need to be added to the 40-man until next season, can fill the same role. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve spent the past 10 days in Busan covering the WBSC U-18 World Cup. You can check out some of my write-ups here, here and here. I was going to write up on several prospects in this post, but I felt like Japanese right-handed pitcher Yasunobu Okugawa, who struck out 18 Canadian hitters in seven innings in his September 5 start, warranted his own article.

Yasunobu Okugawa (Japan), RHP

If I had to choose the best prospect of the tournament, there’s no doubt it would be Okugawa. The 18-year-old righty made headlines earlier this season by leading his high school to the Koshien finals and hitting 95.7 mph. Along with Roki Sasaki, Okugawa was one of the players most sought after by major league scouts on the Japan team. He pitched against Canada on the first day of the Super Rounds on September 5, and he delivered on the hype, and then some.

Okugawa has long legs and a slightly skinny frame that also has an athletic look. He is not maxed out yet, but I don’t see him adding too much to his frame. He has a high, three-quarter arm slot and does an excellent job repeating the same arm action on different pitches. His arm speed is basically identical on his fastballs and offspeed pitches. He has a long stride and keeps his body in line into landing. From leg kick to foot strike, Okugawa does not have much wasted movement – he lines his body well directly to the home plate. Unlike many young pitchers at the tournament, Okugawa was consistent in finding his release point and was not prone to opening his shoulders too early. There’s a bit of effort to his release, but it’s not much of a concern for me. He does not have much of a leg kick when pitching out of the stretch, but the rest of the delivery looked consistent with his usual windup. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended more games here in Busan, South Korea for Days Three and Four of the WBSC U-18 World Cup. These are my thoughts on some of the prospects I saw.

Theo Millas (Canada), RHP

Millas is an LSU commit. Listed at 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, he has a very good pitcher’s frame and he looks every inch of an intriguing projectable high school guy. He also recently participated in the 2019 Under Armour All-America game, along with some of the other top high school prospects who will enter the draft next year. Millas has an easy delivery with a fluid arm action. It’s not necessarily the best tempo I’ve seen, but he isn’t overly slow either. I would be interested to see if he’s willing to increase his stride length to take advantage of his height. There’s a little stiffness in his front leg when he lands, but it’s not a huge concern for me. Against Korea on September 1, however, Millas was not his best self. While his fastball was advertised to be in the low-90s, he sat mostly in the 86-88 mph range. The pitch showed some late life, but Korean hitters were able to square it up for hard line drives all over the field. His curveball also seemed loopy, and Korean IF Jang Jae-Young squared it up pretty well for a hard, 2-RBI single. Based on all the accounts I’ve read of Millas, it felt like an off day for the righty, as he allowed six runs without recording an out before exiting the game. Millas looks like an arm who could benefit a lot from few years more worth of development.

Austin Hendrick (United States), OF

Hendrick is already known as one of the top prep draft prospects for 2020. He is currently rated eighth on THE BOARD. As expected, Hendrick flashed some serious tools during practice before the United States’ night match versus Japan. During batting practice, he displayed a smooth yet powerful swing that produced strong line drives all over the field. He has a short stroke and he times it with a little hitch and bat tip during his load. Such traits might be a concern for many hitting coaches, but Hendrick seemed to time it well enough to make it work. His hands were impressively quick, as he showed a plus ability to turn the barrel into the zone. As an outfielder, Hendrick displayed an easily above-average arm, if not plus.

As Eric and Kiley have noted in their report on Hendrick, “Hendrick is old for the class but evokes Cody Bellinger in frame and swing. As you can imagine, with the ultra-athletic swing comes with some swing-and-miss to go with the power.” That swing-and-miss tendency showed during the game. In his first at-bat against Japanese LHP Yuki Hayashi, Hendrick struck out swinging on three offspeed pitches. He seemed to favor driving the ball hard instead of making square contact. Hendrick ended up going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. Despite a poor game performance, his tools displayed in batting practice and his physical talents seem to justify his high draft stock status. It will be interesting to see how his hit tool progresses coming into next year’s draft and how teams may evaluate his ability to handle pro pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

I am currently in Busan, South Korea for the 2019 WBSC U-18 World Cup, where 12 countries have teams featuring some of their best young talents. Friday, August 30 was Opening Day and, besides an occasional breeze, it was quite sunny and humid. Below are notes on a few of the notable players I saw.

Chen Po-Yu (Taiwan), RHP

The 17-year-old Chen is far from an unknown at this point. According to the international prospect section of THE BOARD, he could be looking at a seven-figure signing bonus in 2020. A major league scout told me that, at this moment, Chen is the most “complete package” among the pitching prospects out of Taiwan. Needless to say, a large group of major league scouts swarmed behind home plate to see Chen pitch against Panama.

Even before his start, Chen’s delivery stood out to me during his bullpen. He has an easy, fast-tempo motion that was direct to home. He finished well towards the home plate, setting himself up for good fielding position in case of a batted ball. He also showed good tempo between his pitches and rarely seemed hesitant to throw any of his pitches.

Chen’s fastball sat at around 89-91 mph throughout the game. He maintained the velocity late in the game when he broke 80-pitch mark. In general, he showed a good feel for commanding the pitch in different parts of the zone. In the second inning, he left some pitches up, which led to some hard contact. When he located his heater well, however, he was able to get called strikes or set up his secondary pitches. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the second half of a two-part interview with four foreign-born players in the Korea Baseball Organization. Part 1 can be found here.

Any Korean food that grew on you?

Josh Lindblom: All of it. I love Korean food. The best soups I’ve had in my life are here in Korea. Maybe my favorite Korean cuisine is Chinese-Korean food: Jjajangmyeon [noodles in black bean sauce], jjajangbap [rice in black bean sauce], tangsuyuk [sweet and sour fried pork] – all that stuff. That was one of the things that new guys worry about but I’m really lucky to be here in Seoul. When I go to my apartment basement, I’ve got McDonald’s, California Pizza Kitchen, On The Border, Cinnabon, etc. There’s also a Taco Bell in a train stop away. If I start missing home, I just go down and get some Mexican food. I’m really lucky to be where I’m at.

Jamie Romak: I’m a huge barbecue guy. Sogogi [the Korean term for beef] for sure. Every now and then, I’ll order jjamppong [spicy mixed-up noodle soup] to the clubhouse. I like the seafood one. The guys make fun of me for how much kimchi [spicy fermented cabbage side dish] I have during our team dinners. I eat plates of kimchi. The food transition has been seamless. When I’m back home in Canada during the offseason, I seek Korean food. I wish I could have more of it there.

Tyler Wilson: I actually really like all the food. I would say that the LA Galbi [Korean BBQ beef short ribs] is my favorite. I like galbitang [short ribs soup] a lot. I like kimchijjigae [hot kimchi soup]. I don’t know if there’s one food I didn’t like and now that I like. Just in general I think I’m more comfortable knowing what to order and how to go into a Korean restaurant and know what to expect. I’ve always enjoyed it all. When we were in the States, Hyun-Soo and I would always go out do dinner. On road trips, we would go to Korean restaurants and he introduced them to me before I got here.

Chad Bell: Just your normal Korean barbecue stuff, I love it. Pork kimchi soup – pretty good. Most of the soups here, I’ve enjoyed them. Most of them are spicy and I like spicy stuff. Sometimes the coaching staff or players will walk by, see me eating something, they get surprised and ask me, ‘You like that?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s good!’ There’s nothing that I really hate. I’m not really big on naengmyeon [Korean cold noodles in chilled broth]. I’ve only tried it once. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing with it, but I gotta get the thought of it being weird out of my head. That’s something I haven’t gotten into yet. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I sat down with four of the foreign-born players in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) to discuss their experiences playing in Korea.

Right-handed pitcher Josh Lindblom of the Doosan Bears is the true veteran among all the foreign-born players in the KBO. He started his KBO career with the Lotte Giants in 2015, where he played until 2016, before taking a detour to the States to play for the Pirates in 2017; he returned to Lotte in the second half of that year. In 2018, he signed with the Bears and has been the ace of their staff. This season, Lindblom is the league’s top pitcher: he’s 13-1 with a 1.89 ERA and a 3.09 FIP in 119.0 IP with 112 strikeouts and 18 walks. His 5.38 WAR leads the KBO.

Infielder and designated hitter Jamie Romak of the SK Wyverns was acquired during the 2017 season as a replacement for Danny Worth. Since coming over to Korea, Romak has been one of the most prolific home run hitters in the league, belting 94 out of the park while boasting a career .562 slugging percentage. He’s currently tied for first in home runs (20) while hitting a healthy .276/.366/.517, good for a 136.6 wRC+ on the season.

Right-handed pitcher Tyler Wilson is a former Baltimore Oriole who signed with the LG Twins for the 2018 season and settled in nicely as their staff ace. His strong campaign that year (9-4, 3.07 ERA in 170.0 IP with a 6.33 WAR) earned him another contract with the Twins. This season, Wilson is currently fourth in ERA (2.62) and seventh in WAR (2.85) among all pitchers while headlining the LG Twins rotation that has led the team to fourth place in the 10-team league.

Left-handed pitcher Chad Bell of the Hanwha Eagles is new to the KBO this season. Bell was signed along with fellow former Detroit Tiger Warwick Saupold to be the Eagles’ new rotation arms. Through 18 starts in the KBO, Bell is 5-9 with a 4.00 ERA and 78 strikeouts to 43 walks in 108.0 IP.

What were your first impressions after arriving in Korea?

Lindblom: When I first signed here, I didn’t know what to expect. I never had any reason to come to Asia at all. My expectation, to be honest, was kind of low. Just having a western mindset, you think that America is the best and when you get here, you realize that things that are different can be good too. It was good, but in a different way. You can’t really compare Asia to America. It’s like comparing an apple to an airplane.

Romak: My exact first impression was coming across the bridge from the Incheon International Airport into the Songdo area, which is where we live. It was nighttime, all the big buildings were lit up and it was very exciting. It was very cool. And of course, I was looking forward to the opportunity.

Wilson: We play in Seoul so it’s a huge city. I grew up in a small town in Virginia. I’ve lived in Virginia my whole life, so to see a big city like Seoul and get used to living here was an adjustment. There’s a lot of people, obviously. Different language. So just getting used to things I hadn’t seen before and routines I hadn’t partaken in before, like taking the subway every day to work, there were just a lot of different adjustments to the lifestyle.

Bell: The first thing that took over for me, on the baseball side of things, was the fans’ passion for the game. You just don’t see that everywhere. In this season’s first series – versus the Doosan Bears – when you look at Jamsil Stadium, and the place is split right down the middle between Doosan and Hanwha fans, and everybody’s going insane for nine innings. It was unreal. Off the field, the main differences were cultural ones. Food, communication, etc., stuff like that. Some places it’s easier and some places it’s harder. You just have to get used to it. On the baseball field, you’re playing baseball. I have to use a translator to communicate with people, but in the end, it’s the same game but the atmosphere is electric. Read the rest of this entry »

July is upon us, and with it comes a new signing period for international amateur players. Over on THE BOARD, we’ve added rankings and reports on the players we consider to be the best in this year’s class, as well as the big league teams to which they’re tied.

We talked about the very top of the class at length back in February, headlined by Dominican CF Jasson Dominguez (expected to sign with the Yankees), who will go right onto our top 120 prospects in baseball. Other than late questions about Dominican LF Bayron Lora (a wrist injury may be the culprit, though it is unlikely to be a long term issue), and Venezuelan CF Yhoswar Garcia (who international personnel told us to remove from the list entirely due to age/identity issues that ultimately led to a year-long suspension), the top tier of players on our list hasn’t changed.

You’ll notice we don’t have projected bonuses on THE BOARD this year. We have some bonus amounts in the players’ scouting summaries, and we’ll add some only as they become official, but for player safety reasons, we decided to exclude all Venezuelan bonuses. Lots of the players from this class have already started playing baseball at their employer’s complex and are likely very safe, but any amount of risk that a teenager may be targeted because they have new money is too much.

Most of these deals were agreed to long before the players are technically eligible to sign, something that MLB seems eager to change by way of an International Draft, which we discussed at length on this podcast. Some players in this class agreed to deals two years ago and they’re so infrequently scouted or even seen once locked up, that the most up-to-date reports are often over a year old unless the signing team is our sole source. As you can surmise, lots of things can happen between ages 15 and 16, so our rankings for middle- and lower-tier players tend to be much more accurate after fall instructional leagues.

Even with early deals, there are still multiple teams with millions in uncommitted money (remember, each team’s bonus pool is now hard capped), some players who have yet to agree to deals, and perhaps even players who we don’t know about (often late-bloomers or late-defecting Cubans) and may become eligible to sign over the next 11 1/2 months. Teams can trade for additional bonus space to pursue these types of players outside of their assigned bonus pools. We anticipate some clubs will make a run at Cuban SS Yiddi Cappe, who is eligible to sign this year but has a $3.5 million deal for 2020, by trying to trade for enough pool money to make things interesting right now.

The Yankees did exactly this with Cuban SS Alexander Vargas last year. Vargas was set to sign with Cincinnati for $3 million next week, but the Yankees traded for enough pool space to lure him away with a $2.5 million deal last summer. If a team is unsuccessful in doing this (as a couple of clubs were when chasing Shohei Ohtani), they may end up spreading that money around to players in Asia (three Taiwanese players are referenced on our rankings), Mexico (a newly-opened market), or other less-scouted markets (for example, the Phillies signed Australian RHP Jake Gessner two weeks ago, before the last signing period closed).

Heo Koo-Yeon in his office

Heo Koo-Yeon is one of the biggest names in Korean baseball history. At this moment, you could say that he is the most influential figure in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). Heo was originally an athlete. As a star high school player, he partook in international competitions in the pre-KBO era of Korean baseball. Starting 1982, the inaugural KBO season, he has been a commentator (with a brief detour to a managing job for the Chungbo Pintos in 1986). Outside of the broadcasting job, Heo’s contributed in speaking for the better overall infrastructure and facilities around KBO. He influenced the building of many of the newer KBO venues, which were built closer to the modern style rather than the old high-school style that classic venues adhered to. Most recently, he advised on the construction of the new NC Dinos venue, Changwon NC Park, which is said to be “major league quality” by many. Outside of KBO, he’s also donated close to $100,000 to build Cambodia’s first baseball stadium and helped build a ballpark in Vietman as well. As a baseball lifer who saw the growth of the sport in Korea, he has his vision set on continuing to build baseball in unfamiliar areas.

At 68 years old, Heo is still going strong as a commentator for the MBC while serving as an adviser to the commissioner for the KBO. I sat down in his office to talk about his relationship with MLB, the road to the advent of first Korean major leaguer, and the status of Korean amateur players wanting to sign with a major league club.

Beginning of the MLB – KBO relationship:

As a baseball lifer, Heo, like many others in Korea, was influenced by the Japanese idea of baseball from the time he was an athlete.

“Starting in 1968, as a high school player representing Korea, I’ve been back and forth to Japan a lot,” he recalled. “We knew that our baseball system, at the time, was quite Japan-based. Our leaders and managers were educated during the Japanese occupation era (1910-45).” In 1984, Heo had a chance to go to the United States, thanks to Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley.

“O’Malley emphasized the globalization of baseball and invited me.” Heo got to go to Vero Beach and Dodgertown for their spring training camp. It was the first time Heo got to see the major league players with his own eyes.

“That, in the big picture, changed and influenced my life,” Heo says. “It also influenced Korean baseball a lot. I would say it was the turning point of our nation’s baseball.” Read the rest of this entry »

The journey that made Takaaki Yokoyama the first Japanase player with Diablos Rojos del Mexico in 79 years of franchise history was not a planned one.

Back in 2014, when he made his debut in Japan with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, his main goal was to make a living in Japanese baseball. In order to do it, he had a what might be called a typical repertoire for a Japanese pitcher — fastball, sinker, curveball, slider, and changeup. But he struggled with home run issues and below-average velocity on his heater (138.9 kmh or 86.3 mph). He tried to improve his offspeed stuff after a rough couple of years, moving from a classic changeup to a splitter. That bumped up his velocity on offspeed pitchs almost 4 mph but did nothing to correct his main problem in NPB: his fastball was getting destroyed. According to Deltagraphs, his four-seam fastball had a -10.6 run value in less than 20 innings pitched in 2016. Two years later, he was released.

Luckily for Yokoyama, that wasn’t the end of the road. The 28-year-old right-hander teamed up with a group of international players to showcase themselves in several spring games organized by Yokoyama’s agent and translator, Toma Irokawa, in an effort to offer their services to American teams.

The plan worked for him. He signed with the New Jersey Jackals in the CanAm league and was about to get his first shot at independent baseball until things hit a snag.

“He had everything set up but problems with the immigration process delayed us. In the middle of that process, we got the call from Diablos Rojos,” remembers Toma.

Word of Yokoyama and the showcase had spread, and a team in need of bullpen help was about to get it in the form of its first Japanese pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »