UPDATED: Done deal, according to Jorge Arangure, who works for ESPN.com. $3.1M deal, record breaker for Cards.
Bu-bam! Per Ben Badler
The latest buzz in Latin America is that the Cardinals are expected to sign 16-year-old Dominican outfielder Wagner Mateo for a bonus of approximately $3 million on July 2.
A $3 million bonus would be the second-biggest bonus ever given to an amateur international player from Latin America, and the largest bonus ever for a Latin American hitter.
Wow. Not only is a $3M bonus the largest bonus given to a Latin American hitter, it’s also almost the largest bonus the Cardinals have ever given to an amateur. J.D. Drew received a $3M bonus, Rick Ankiel’s was the 2nd highest bonus at $2.5M. This also obviously shatters the $1.1M record bonus given to Roberto de la Cruz last year by far. Pretty monumental stuff.
My initial reaction is “wow”. That’s a lot of scratch for a 16-year old kid. Is he worth it? Kiley McDaniel ranked him the 3rd best Latin American on the market, besides Miguel Sano and Gary Sanchez. McDaniel says he’s what scouts call a “tool shed” and he’s been drawn some lofty comparisons — Carlos Beltran, Curtis Granderson and Grady Sizemore. Reading other sources, some scouts like his swing and see him as more of a line-drive hitter than a big home run threat. They also see a filled-out body for a youngster (yes, his background checks were fine) at 6-1, 190 and think he’ll eventually be moved to a corner, where his bat wouldn’t profile quite as well.
Here’s a video of Mateo in action, shot by BP’s Kiley McDaniel.
Wagner Mateo from Kiley McDaniel on Vimeo.
This is exciting stuff, but I’m always a little leery about giving 16-year old kids gobs of money like this. If this means no Shelby Miller, which I don’t think it does, or at least I really hope it doesn’t, then groovy. Way to build up the farm system with some high upside talent. But Mateo at the expense of Miller wouldn’t look as hot.
What’s also interesting about this is that Joe Strauss reported earlier that Mozeliak was traveling to the DR to look at Sano. No doubt he was also checking out Mateo, and there was a rumor that Mateo turned down a $3M offer. Sounds like they realized the mistake and took the offer after all.
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I’m not a fan of the way his hand flies off the bat ala Ryan Howard there but my God, how smooth is that swing? The motion in his lower half looks to generate a ton of power.
The next Ken Griffey Jr
Is this going to affect the signing of Miller at all?
At first i didnt think it would affect the signing of Miller and i guess Mo said that Mateo and Miller are two different financial situations which means there would no excuse to sign Miller. But after reading some of Bernies comments, he seems to think this means no Miller and that the cards are hoping that he his eager to go pro and will sign for slot. Ugh.
i saw that. i hope he’s just being his normal, bernie pessimistic self but that’s what is been hinted for a while. miller is not going to sign for slot, that’s absurd.
This is an obvious answer given the money they just shelled out for 1 player, but it has to be asked: does this 100% take them out of the running for Sano?
Is Mateo a CF or corner outfielder. If he is just a LF talent. Then I say buyer beware. How does he run, is he a 5 tool player? I say he better be for 3 million.
good arm, so RF would be more like it if he were moved from CF.
Me not a fan of most of those game swings.
Cardnerds–
What part of “tool shed” is unclear?
Erik–
I have concluded, after reading Bernie closely for several years now, both his columns and his “Press Box,” that he has no inside information on the club at all. He is doing what he always does, reading tea leaves and speculating. He is neither better informed, nor a better speculator than the rest of us hyperventilating prospect geeks (HPG).
RE: CardNerds – Lose the ‘tude, he’s just asking a question
RE: Bernie – He reads the lea teaves and speculates like the rest of us, but he’s long announced signings before anyone else at the P-D forums. He is listening to someone, and even if he doesn’t have someone on the inside, he has Strauss and Goold.
I like this signing as long as they are able to sign Miller too. It seems as though the club is choosing to go after the Miller/Mateo combo, rather than going all in for Sano. If they sign both Miller and Mateo, then I’d say they made the right choice. If they only end up with Mateo, then I don’t like it as much.
Not familiar with these youth signings, so pardon an ignorant question – what’s the trqck like for a 16yo? Do we see him in 4-5 years? Does he start in JC or someplace more informal like the VSL?
Lower $ players like Grabriel Hernandez in 2008 start the next year in the DSL(or VSL if they are from VZ).
Higher $ players like Roberto De La Cruz in 2008 start the next year in the GCL or even Johnson City if they show progress early.
But keep in mind, most of these guys are 17 in their first full season, which is 1-2 years younger than the HS draftees.
In Goold’s Notebook, just posted, Mozeliak indicated that the possible signing of someone like Mateo is “completely independent” of signing Miller and that they expect to sign Miller and acknowledges that they will have to go over slot to do so.
Accordingly I am optimistic that they could sign both someone like Mateo and Miller, which along with already signing most of their other draft picks and any other signing bonuses for July 2nd players should help eliminate all the complaints that they are not willing to spend money.
While I do not agree with some of their moves or non moves at various recent times, they are spending money. They just feel it is better spent to develop players through their system than on free agents, who, due to the age at which they become free agents generally are older players on the downside of their career and are often giant financial and roster space busts.
Even then they have spent “free agency” money to keep Wainwright and Molina (good moves) and Piniero and Lohse (ok moves).
All in all I think they are doing a good job to position the orginization going forward. Now if they can make a couple of trades for this season and sign Albert to an extension in the next year, I think we all should be very satisfied with the financial and player retention and development effort of the current ownership/mangagement team.
P-D “Mozeliak said what the Cardinals spend in bonuses for international players is “completely independent” of how much they can spend to sign first-round pick Shelby Miller. The Cardinals selected the Texas high school righthander with the 19th pick, and though negotiations have been slow to develop, the Cardinals expect to pay over slot to sign the fireballer.”
mateo + miller = jiggity jig. good to hear.
IndyCard-
I agree. I am not 100% satisfied with the MLB team as constructed, but a lot of its flaws are because there was little planning for Glaus being out. Thats the breaks.
If Wallace can come up and rake like expected–the team will have developed another young core with Pujols, Rasmus, Wallace, Molina…we badly need to develop a hitting middle infielder as the really good ones almost never hit free agency. After that corner outfielders and glove men can be found on the market pretty easily.
Pitching is a whole different issue though.
Oh…this kids game swings sucked.
Eh the one he poked to left and got thrown out on looked good. He stayed back on something offspeed and did what he had to do with the pitch.
I’m no scout, but I do like the kid’s swing–if it reminds me of anyone, it’d be Carl Crawford. Also, I love the way his arms flail to the sides a la Clemente as he flies around the bases.
Now sign Shelby Miller, trade Wallace + Jones + Perez or Motte + Boggs + Mort or Lynn + Samuel or Sanchez for Hanley Ramirez, and the future is secured. ;)
I can’t remember where I read this — if it was from Badler or McDaniel or someone else — but IIRC Wagner has a lot of competitive experience. Playing on junior national teams, maybe? One of those guys said that he’s a major local celebrity because of that.
I find that really encouraging, and I think that’s one of the reasons the Cards are going after him with such a huge and risky commitment.
I’ve always wondered if the Latin American players, particularly the DR guys, get short-changed in their development by being kept out of competition by their trainers and agents and buscones. American kids may have less raw talent, but they’re competing from an early age. One friend of mine in Texas told me his 7- or 8-year-old son’s baseball team is already competing in playoffs for the league championship.
So, for kids like that, it’s all about winning right from the start — Little League, travel teams, high school, American Legion, college or minors.
Meanwhile, with some of the top kids in the DR and elsewhere, as soon as they show talent they get pulled into training programs where it’s all about showcasing skills, vs. playing games with something at stake. It makes me wonder what the NFL would be like if all they had to judge players on was the Combine and private workouts.
I’ve never played, so I don’t know if this is meaningful or not. But it seems to me that an overemphasis on developing skills at the expense of competition would be detrimental.
I would tend to agree Lou. Pitching is more of a balance though. I have seen many kids with talent burned out because the emphasis on competition leads them to throw breaking pitches before their arms are capable to withstand the force. The cream rises to the top though, the kids with the livest arms often don’t need much more than their fastballs and the ability to locate the thing anywhere near the K-zone.
Quick question regarding the site… how come sometimes we can reply to posts and sometimes we can’t? Am i missing something? Or do i not have the special priviledges?
Also, with the signing of mateo and miller, how does that effect our farm system ranking league-wide? I know it doesn’t really matter THAT much, it’s more just my curiosity than anything.
To me the system seems a bit stagnant at the moment. The signing of these two would breathe new life into it, imo.
On Mateo…is it me or is his stance a little to wide?
Nothing wrong with his in-game swings. He just got fooled on a couple, but the swings look great.
His swing/approach look very advanced and polished for his age (assuming he is in fact only 16 years old). That’s exciting because it seems like he is a safe bet to hit and there will be very little chance that he will completely flop. However, if it already looks like he is going to be limited to a corner outfield spot, I don’t like the odds of him becoming more than an average player relative to others at those positions. Good to see the effort in signing players like this, though.
I think i’ve seen this somewhere before…but it’s not bad at all
@gobirds … mods can reply to any posts. you can reply to your own posts as long as you don’t refresh the page after submitting it.
question…why is he being limited to a corner outfield spot already…can he not handle center?
to me, it looks like he has some power in his swings…i could see 15-20 homers once he figures out a command of the strike zone…anyone know what his speed score is?
his game swings did not look anything like his BP swings to me…but i guess that is too be expected…hopefully he figures how to translate that over into a game setting
sounds like to me that the cardinals have a draft budget and an international budget…which to me is a good thing
This kids swing and build remind me of Fred McGriff, but Griffey Jr. works too. If he turns out to be either one we’ll all be pretty dang happy in Cardinaland.
@ eccard—especially that second one
Jorge Arangure on twitter natch is reporting the Cards will sign Mateo for $3.1 million and that Mo went to Mateo’s house to close the deal.
That’s how you CLOSE! Way to go Mo!
I realize that fans are placing pressure on management to shell out big bucks. However, I look at this guy’s swing and see weaknesses. It lacks weight transfer and he doesn’t generate enough lower body strength. Of course, this can be corrected with good coaching, but I’m unclear that is present in the Cardinals minor leagues.
[...] That will include some guy you have probably heard of…Wagner Mateo. [...]