The A’s unfortunate International Free Agency history
Oakland has faced many woes in their recent international classes
International free agency is a vital tool for any organization to build stability, and that is for obvious reasons. While it is generally seen as a wild west in regards to signing and talent evaluation, it is a necessary evil to participate in order to accumulate talented prospects. In 2023 international players accounted for 28.11% of the WAR production league-wide, despite the relatively low barrier of entry towards signing many prospects. Oakland is no stranger to that market, sinking in millions of dollars towards signing international players over the past few seasons, but their overall production from the international pool has been limited in recent years.
Going back to the number stated earlier, all players in Major League Baseball accounted for 1008.8 Baseball-reference wins above replacement in 2023. Note: for these and following numbers I am using cumulative totals from stathead, which comes up with a slightly different total than BR’s league-wide page which says the cumulative total is 1000.4. Of that production, 283.6 bWAR came from international players. This is a significant chunk, and it is even more significant when looking at just the subset of position players, where 203.1 out of 592 total bWAR was produced by international players. Despite this the A’s received abysmal production from their international players, generating negative bWAR both from their pitchers and position players. When taking a look at their minor league system it seems even more bleak, as only two of Oakland’s top 30 prospects by Baseball America were signed as international free agents.
Ultimately, there is a level of luck in signing international free agents. Most of these signees are 16 and 17 years old, significantly younger than even the youngest draftees, and the added unpredictability of those few years throws a smokescreen on all projection for even the most elite of prospects. This is especially true of pitchers, and of the top five international pitchers who weren’t subject to the posting system the highest bonus was Pablo Lopez at a mere $280,000. If you scroll through Baseball America’s top 50 signing bonuses from this past signing class you would get all the way down to 46 before finding the first pitcher. Position players are largely seen as more predictable assets, but even looking at the top five there only Wander Franco, who received $3,825,000 in 2017, was the top of his class. Julio Rodriguez and Juan Soto also received seven figure bonuses, but Ronald Acuna Jr. received just $100,000 from the Braves in 2014. Teams have to simply throw money into their systems and hope that one of these tickets hit, and the best value is often found in those lower bonuses as can be demonstrated in an article on the value of international free agents by Daniel Hutchinson-Kausch at Battery Power. The A’s have become all too familiar with this concept under David Forst.
Not all can be said to be bad under Forst in this regard, as arguably the system’s top prospect in Luis Morales is their biggest bonus signing since 2019. Morales is of course not your typical international pitcher as he defected from Cuba and didn’t sign with Oakland until 2023. Still, that $3,000,000 investment has paid massive dividends, as his value alone is already worth their investment across the last three signing classes. Regarding international free agency it is far too early to evaluate Forst and co.’s ability to find impact in that market. His first signings back in 2016 are just now turning 23 years old, and while that and the immediately subsequent classes don’t seem rife with talent ready to make a splash, many of these players still have years of development left before they can be written off. That 2016 class was a disaster, however, with significant investment coming to nearly no payoff. So far their greatest contribution has been Ismael Aquino being involved in the trade for two and a half season of Jake Diekman. Jordan Diaz has reached the major leagues with Oakland, but he was atrocious last season combining a high ground ball rate with high chase and whiff rates to go along with poor defensive metrics. Still this could be the gem of the early years, as Diaz is just 23 years old, has a history of high contact rates at the minor league level, and has enough power to dream on a big league hitter even if his ultimate defensive home is a question. The seven figure signing bonuses have been nothing short of disastrous. Marcos Brito ($1.1m) was released in 2022 after posting strikeout rates north of 29% in every season since 2019. Brito was MLB.com’s 30th best prospect from the class, but the 60 hit tool never played and he never developed any level of power production putting up a sub-.100 iso at every level. Yerdel Vargas ($1.5m) was MLB.com’s 28th ranked prospect, but lasted even less time finally being released after posting a 57 wRC+ at High-A in 2021. The $2,000,000 spent on 4th-ranked prospect, Cuban pitcher Norge Ruiz did at least produce a major league player, but his 7.11 ERA in 19 innings last season as a 29 year old don’t exactly bode well for his future production. However, the biggest failure of the bunch goes to Lazaro Armenteros, who came over from Cuba for a $3,000,000 bonus. Lazarito carried with him huge expectations, and is one of those who is still premature to write off entirely. Armenteros (along with top prospect from this class Kevin Maitan) fall into a certain category of prospect who receive immense hype at a young age but somewhat start to lose that luster even before signing. Armenteros’s relatively developed frame and underdeveloped swing made him a target for criticsm for many front offices, and unfortunately that has been all to true thus far. Armenteros has never made enough contact and has just now reached Double-A, with the holes in his swing never resolving themselves. The athleticism and raw power have never been a question, but as he enters his mid-20s that $3 million seems ever more a waste. Still, he will be on the 40-man roster going into 2024 so A’s fans could get some chance to see what he can do at the major league level at some point.
With the old international rules this huge investment in 2016 locked the A’s out of the high-profile international market for the next two years, and that shows in their investment strategy. Oakland spread out their money of the next couple of seasons, and were able to get a surprising amount of value out of that crop. Dairon Blanco of their 2017 class was the main piece to the aforementioned Diekman trade, and from that class Teodoro Ortega and Wilkin Ramos were also used in minor (and unfruitful) trades for bullpen reinforcements. Blanco has managed a 105 wRC+ and 1.2 fWAR in 74 games for the Royals, making him the most successful player from these early trades. 21 year old outfielder Brayan Buelvas, signed in 2018, is also somewhat of a prospect for the team though his performance above Single-A this past season left much to be desired.
In 2019 the Athletics were back in the high signing bonus game, and they had a gem at the top of the class. Robert Puason was projected initially to sign with Atlanta, but after their general manager was banned from baseball Puason had to switch destinations, and he ended up settling with Oakland. From the time he was 14 years old scouts were drooling on Puason’s potential, considering him at the time to be a potential generational third baseman. The hype was absurd, and he got a $5,000,000 signing bonus to become immediately one of the system’s best prospects. What does $5 million buy you? Well if you’re the Yankees it can buy you an extraterrestrial talent who would go on to be one of the top young outfielders in the game. If you’re the Athletics....well... Look I don’t want to rub salt in the wound here but it’s genuinely astonishing how bad Puason has been. Not all of this is necessarily his fault, as all of those 2019 signees faced the hurdle of their first professional season being dusted by Covid-19. Puason was supposed to be a system-altering talent, but he has never hit at any level and the A’s insistence on rushing him to debut in Single-A in 2021 is head-scratching at best. It’s unimaginable to write off a 21 year old who got that sort of signing bonus, but yet Puason has simply never proven worth that money. Oakland sacrificed basically an entire signing class just to get him, and by putting all of their eggs in a single basket set themselves up for a massive face plant.
Past this point there is really no way to truly judge these players. Puason himself turned just 21 last season, and with the 2020 class all but empty there is nothing left but a bunch of teenagers to evaluate. The Athletics signed Pedro Pineda for $1,200,000 as the 12th best prospect on MLB pipeline’s list, and two seasons in they can’t possibly be writing him off already, right? Right??? The Athletics signed another hitter that can’t hit, apparently, and these issues have been exacerbated by Pineda being unable to stay consistently healthy. It’s a massive disappointment but fortunately they learned from 2019 and spread their money around a bit more? Nope that’s the only significant signing they made? Okay well 2022 has to be better and thankfully we have a top 30 Oakland Athletics prospect in this mix. Hello Cesar Gonzalez. Again, it’s worth emphasizing that most of these players have never played full season ball yet and in judging them this early it’s really hard to know what the true value of the signing class is. Pitchers especially tend to take a few years to develop, typically breaking out around age 19 or 20 like Royber Salinas. Thus, some of these smaller signings may just be looking for that chance to shine as there is very little done in the way of tracking these smaller signings unless the team is willing to leak information when they know someone is about to go nuclear. The top signing from the class, Carlos Pacheco, hasn’t even come stateside yet, and while that’s not a great sign it’s just the nature of international prospects. Oakland has spread money around more in the past couple of seasons, giving six bonuses of 200k or more in 2022, five such bonuses in 2023, and five so far in 2024. This is a pattern that will hopefully continue, as it’s clear their high-end targets have been falling flat for many years. This is not a uniquely Oakland problem here, as it’s well know these teams are agreeing to deals when the players are 14 and calling a 14 year old bust a scouting failure is just inaccurate. Oakland has had a combination of awful luck with seemingly fantastic prospects to go along with a few curious development decisions and a lack of commitment to depth and signing quantity in what is ultimately the sport’s greatest roll of the dice. They finally seem to have struck gold in Luis Morales, and in 2023 and 2024 have given themselves a longer list of opportunities to succeed. Unfortunately for the fans of the team, it will be many years before this strategy has a chance to pay dividends, and we can only hope that Jesus Superlano is a diamond-in-the-rough because that is a fantastic name.
The finer point of this is that while we look at draft and trade decisions as the most direct reason that the Athletics aren’t in the position they should be as an organization, it’s the six- and seven-year-old decisions that have truly crushed the system. There is of course always an absurd attrition rate for international prospects, but even two more good finds in the last six years would make a significant impact in the system. 34.7% of the 35+ FV prospects on the Fangraphs BOARD are international signees. For the Athletics system only three of 21 are international signees, with Morales and Buelvas being the only ones signed by Oakland. That is shockingly bad production from that demographic, and it is seemingly the biggest reason for the lagging state of the system. It’s also the hardest to fix. There are no guarantees to signing these young players, and it takes three or more years before you typically see significant shifts due to international signings. If the 2022 class actually represent a shift towards a less top-heavy approach it will not be a factor for still a couple of more years, but the point is more on the process than the results. Oakland seems to be giving the top players more time to go through their development at lower levels (see, the treatment of Gonzalez and Pacheco) and the combination of these factors can hopefully influence a much more successful next five years of Athletics minor league baseball.