Giants lagging in international spending

Baseball America lists what each team spent on international amateur free agents in 2010 (excluding Cuban defectors, including deals still pending approval). The Giants spent 849K last season, the fourth least. I was sort of hoping that their international efforts would go up as their draft position fell.

about 1 year ago Bhaakon 16 comments 0 recs |

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I think it's pretty volatile

You can’t spend money just to spend it. The Giants like to go after what they see as big talent, ala Anvil and RafRod. If they found someone like that last season and got out-bid, they can’t just take that $2mm and throw it to someone else who they haven’t scouted as carefully.

by Nivra on Mar 5, 2011 6:27 PM PST reply actions

Not mad about this

There’s a LOT of international talent that has gone bust. The international FA market is so hit-and-miss that I can’t really blame the Giants for spending their money elsewhere, especially when they have a championship-quality team already on the field. I’d rather keep that and spend on the amateur draft than internationally.

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by quincy0191 on Mar 5, 2011 7:28 PM PST reply actions

I don’t know where to find the in-depth info on this, but I suspect that’s much more true for teams with top-10 (and especially top-5) picks than teams with unprotected first picks in the 20’s. After you get past the top handful of picks, I think the amateur draft loses most or all of its edge.

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by Bhaakon on Mar 5, 2011 8:30 PM PST up reply actions

Yes, the list of top international bonus babies is pretty sad. That’s Miguel Cabrera and a lot of ugly right there.

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by Roger on Mar 5, 2011 8:53 PM PST up reply actions

14 of those 20 were signed in or after 2008, which doesn’t give much time for 16 year-olds to develop. Cabrera, Kim, and Pena seems like a decent return on the remaining six. 50% is a good conversion rate in player development.

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by Bhaakon on Mar 6, 2011 12:49 AM PST up reply actions

Pena (1.3 career WAR) and Kim (12.5 WAR) didn’t do much. I’ll give you Kim, which I think is generous considering he’s 11th all-time on the bonus list and was basically a good reliever for a couple years, but that’s still a 40% hit rate just there, and the second-best guy is Byung-Hyun Kim…I’d bet if you looked at the top 50 or top 100 bonuses, it’s mostly players who made the majors for a cup of coffee at most.

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by quincy0191 on Mar 6, 2011 1:19 AM PST up reply actions

Based on this article, picks 1-5 are worth about 7.3 WAR in their first 6 seasons, 6-10 are worth about 5 WAR, 11-15 are worth 4 WAR, 16-20 about 4.3 WAR, and 21-30 are worth about 1.5 WAR. Here’s another article with a nice chart, but the WAR values are for a decade’s worth of players, so remember to divide by 10.

So that makes Kim a top 5 pick, Pena a late first rounder, and Cabrera off the charts #1.

I have no idea how draft and international ROI compare, because I don’t think anyone has tracked international spending that closely. This BA list is the first I’ve ever seen comparing team spending. What I think gets ignored in this discussion is that the top bonuses paid to international amateur FAs from the BA list are smaller than the bonuses paid to top draftees. The 849K the Giants spent on international FA last season is only equivalent to a supplemental 1st round signing bonus, and 4 players in the 2010 draft got more money than Ynoa (the record international amateur).

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by Bhaakon on Mar 6, 2011 2:16 AM PST up reply actions

I'd imagine their a little gun-shy now

Could anybody have imagined the disaster that AnVil became?
RafRod is moving slowly.
And Pedro Feliz, well, at least he played some solid defense after his rookie season.

Imagine. Lincecum still hitting 99-101 with the gun. Greatest pitcher of modern time??

by Vaccaro on Mar 5, 2011 9:38 PM PST via mobile reply actions

I find this data hard to believe.What was Roibal's signing bonus? What about our third/first baseman charged with murder?

not to mention a host of other players.

by bradleybear on Mar 5, 2011 9:57 PM PST reply actions

I believe it excluded Cuban players and only counted 2010 data

Meaning Villalona, RafRod, Mercedes were excluded

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by Gobroks on Mar 5, 2011 10:01 PM PST via mobile up reply actions

It excluded Cuban signings, but it did say somewhere in there that Roibal signed for $479k but the organization wasn’t thrilled with his stuff when he got to Arizona.

I agree with Vaccaro, I think the Villalona situation, and Rafrod’s slow progress have probably soured them on the Dominican signing frenzy. Although I would like to see them be a little more aggressive internationally.

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by Roger on Mar 6, 2011 7:20 AM PST up reply actions

Yeah, I don't mind that the Giants aren't handing out 7 figure bonuses

But I’d like to see them keep that budget and spread it around to more players

by Gobroks on Mar 6, 2011 3:50 PM PST via mobile up reply actions

I think it’s kind of weird that the Giants have so many former player either on payroll or otherwise associated with the organization who amount to baseball ambassadors to Latin American baseball, and it doesn’t seem like they’ve done much to exploit that pipeline since… hmm. The ’70’s maybe? They certainly haven’t made a concerted, sustained effort in the decade or so that I’ve been paying attention to off-field stuff.

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by Bhaakon on Mar 6, 2011 4:44 PM PST up reply actions