Cardinals continue to make their presence felt in Latin America
Posted on March 3rd, 2009 by erik in July 2 intn'l signing period, tags: Jose PenaPer Ben Badler of Baseball America:
In December, the Cardinals landed one of the toolsiest players available since the end of the 2008 international signing period, inking Dominican center fielder Jose Pena to a $350,000 bonus. Pena, who turns 17 on May 26, has a solid physique at around 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, showing a little more room to fill out an already well-developed frame. Pena is an above-average runner with an average arm and has a line-drive swing with gap power from the right side.
I don’t know abut you, but I like hearing this sort of news.
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Buh-bam!
I bet the player is 23 years old. 17 ? at least 20 years old, all the kids are older. 6’2 190 at 17, i’m not buying that age.
Was he Plan B after missing out on Yorman Rodriguez?
Either way, I like it. While investing in Dominican players can be risky, I’m all for it.
hope is really only 17
I like hearing this type of news. I think it is a solid approach to be conservative in the draft, because they are alway going to be in the bottom half of the draft, and being aggresive in the latin america market.
@cardnerd…while there is a chance that he is older kids do devolop that early…look at Lebron James he was built like a man since he was 13 and by 17 he was as big as any power forward in the NBA. and not all the kids are older either…nowadays that is much harder to get away with and there are much fewer cases of it but it does still happen.
Even if he’s really 20, that’s still plenty young enough to develop into a major leaguer. The question (independent of age) is, HOW is he going to develop? The system’s record with developing tools goofs is mixed. Raz is a 5-tools guy who already looked like a player when he was drafted. Jones is a tools guy who took serious time to develop, but it seems to have happened. Pham is a tools guy who isn’t developing as some people hoped. Are there any resources in the system specifically for growing people like this?
i wouldnt say jones too a long time to develop…the guy is still only 21….might make AAA this year as a 22 year old…seems about right to me
I hope he is his real age. I think we need younger kids in the system. If we draft all 21yr olds in two years the system is old. High school kids are the way to develop.
I would hope, based on some of the reason things that have come to light, that the Cards would have thoroughly investigated the whole age/identity thing. They need to start using the polygraph;)
RE: the age thing — this is why I think it takes years to develop a productive pipeline out of Latin America.
The scouts have to get to know the families, coaches, and communities so they first meet the most promising ballplayers when they’re 13 or 14 — before a relative might start to smell the $$$ and create a false identity for the kid.
The situation with the Nationals was a criminal conspiracy, apparently involving people inside and outside the org who knew exactly what they were doing. If your own people are willing to engage in that sort of crime, that’s a sign of problems that go beyond signing bonuses.
But if your own people are on the up-and-up, it seems to me that, over the course of several years, you can build relationships based on trust that keep you from getting scammed by fake birth certificates. (And if you can’t, there’s something wrong with the way you’re conducting your business.)