OnlyBucs

We rarely ever see the Pirates spend on a prominent prospect internationally. Why is that? They spent a bunch of money in the amateur draft on Taillon/Bell years and now with the cap on drafting, why not put that money towards international players?

They just signed a guy for $550K today.



But to answer the implication of your post, they refused to spend over their bonus pool. It was a soft cap with financial penalties for going over, so that's why the deep pocket teams were dumping cash into the international market in recent years (once a team exceeds the cap, the incentive was to sign as many players in that signing period as possible). Going forward there is a hard cap, so I think the Pirates will be in play for top International prospects starting in July.

536E707D72787351796E7F79781C0 wrote: They just signed a guy for $550K today.



But to answer the implication of your post, they refused to spend over their bonus pool.  It was a soft cap with financial penalties for going over, so that's why the deep pocket teams were dumping cash into the international market in recent years (once a team exceeds the cap, the incentive was to sign as many players in that signing period as possible).  Going forward there is a hard cap, so I think the Pirates will be in play for top International prospects starting in July.


I think part has also been their/Gayo's philosophy. I think they feel that trying to predict how 16 or 17 year-olds who've been playing without all of the structure available to US high schoolers is even more of a crapshoot than drafting HS kids. So, rather than paying big for one (they probably couldn't spend big on more than one), they prefer to spend less on a higher number of kids with some potential as identified by Gayo and his scouts. The hope being they can develop a couple each year onto real prospects. The track record was good for a while but has been a lot more spotty of late. It could be that the CBA change that produced the "soft caps" for int'l signings may have had an impact by driving prices up some. Or maybe Gayo has lost his mojo?  Dunno.



The hard cap should be better for the Bucs. But I don't know if they'll even spend their allotment. Anyone know if there is a spending floor?

Jean Robert Eusebio, don't know much about him other than and outfielder 6-0, 160 lbs



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq0Fjs_Vyno