Loading ...From Baseball America:
The international signing period is still four months away, but the Reds have already made a big splash in the Dominican Republic, giving a $2 million signing bonus to 16-year-old outfielder Juan Duran, a player who many thought would not be eligible to sign until July 2.
“We’ve scouted him extensively,” Reds scouting director Chris Buckley said. “We had not thought he was eligible until this coming July 2. But we found out he was eligible, and when we did we were able to react. (Assistant general manager) Bob Miller and (director of Latin American scouting) Tony Arias deserve the credit on this one, because Bob was going over guys we were preparing for this year’s signing period, and he said, ‘You can sign this guy right now.’
There’s a lot of legalese in the article about the rules for signing players this young.
Click below for lots more (very interesting) information about Duran:
Duran, who bats and throws right handed and checks in at roughly 6-foot-6, 190 pounds, likely will not play a game this year in the PL, however, where at 16 years old he would be by far the youngest player in the league. The Reds cannot assign him to the Gulf Coast League, since the GCL season ends on Aug. 27, so sending him to the GCL would void his contract.
Buckley and Arias were both with the Blue Jays when the team drafted outfielder Alex Rios as an 18-year-old with the 19th overall pick in the 1999 draft.
“He compares favorably, only he’s bigger and stronger at this age than Rios was,” Buckley said. “He’s more physical, and he has shown some of the same feel for hitting that Alex displayed.
“We don’t have a second-round pick this year so we wanted to be creative and get more talent any way we can.”
Arias said that Duran was one of the Reds’ top targets for July 2 before they realized within the last week that they could sign him.
“His body and offensive ability stick out like a sore thumb,” Arias said. “In batting practice, he was just hitting them over the trees in our complex, hitting them out to center and right-center field. You can tell just tell from the way the ball jumps off his bat.
“I’ve never seen a 16-year-old with this type of ability. I talked to some people in the Dominican Republic who crossed paths with Vladimir Guerrero at that age, guys who have been scouting in the Dominican for more than 20 years, and they said they’ve never come into contact with a bat like this. He’s got 80 power potential (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and just gets tremendous loft. In my opinion, in terms of his bat and his body, he’s a better overall package than Angel Villalona. We wanted to change the perception in the baseball industry that Cincinnati is a cheap organization. We want to get back to being the Big Red Machine.”
Another AL international scouting director said his team was also interested in Duran.
“We liked him,” another AL international scouting director said. “We saw him as a corner outfielder, big, long-limbed, real bat potential. He’s definitely a guy a lot of people liked.”One National League international scouting director compared Duran’s body to that of a young Juan Gonzalez.
“He might end up being in center field because he’s a plus runner. It’s all going to come down to how big he gets and if he slows down,” the scout said. “He’s going to put on some weight, so whether he retains that speed will tell if he ends up at a corner.
“He’s got some bat speed, and the power will come from the bat speed, but it all comes down to how thick he grows.”
The same NL international scouting director also noted that Duran has been bothered by an elbow problem—which Arias said might have something to do with Duran having grown six inches in the past year—and that Duran only started throwing as far as 40 feet last month.
“He went to a tournament in Puerto Rico in the winter, and he didn’t throw there. I saw him in February, and all he did was hit. I don’t know what the up-to-date situation with his elbow is, but maybe they already checked him. Was he worth that kind of money? I guess he was to the Reds because they think he’s an impact guy, but to me, I don’t think so.”
One AL international scouting director called him “one of those guys who don’t come around very often.”
“He’s got all the tools,” he said. “He’s a pretty good player, very advanced for his age. I think it was a good investment. He’s a good athlete, he has above-average power right now and he has a chance for 80 power (on the 20-80 scouting scale). He demonstrated every ability that you like to see in a kid. He’s a very outgoing kid, good swing. There’s no doubt about his approach, bat speed and power . . . he has all the common denominators you like to see, good balance, rhythm and a pretty good idea of what to do at the plate.
“If he has to go to a corner (outfield position), he certainly has the power to go there. But right now I’d give him every opportunity to play center field because he’s light on his feet and has a good idea how to play out there. He’s probably 6-foot-6, 195 pounds, somewhere in that area, so he could gain a whole 40 pounds with no problem. You look at this guy, and you hate to compare guys to major league players, especially at his age, but he could be a young Dave Winfield in the making.”
Sounds like a very exciting signing to me. But the kid is 16 years old…that’s a long way from the major leagues.
Update from John Fay:
Edinson Volquez has seen Juan Duran play. He watched the 16-year-old outfielder the Reds signed in a tournament the Dominican.
“I saw him hit two two home runs in two at-bats,” Volquez said. “I saw him throw from the outfield. Unbelievable. I’ve never seen someone like that. He’s a little skinny right now. But he’s going to be really good.”
Duran is 6-foot-6, 190 pounds.
Mario Soto has not seen Duran play but he heard all about him.
“In my country, they said he was asking for $5 million,” Soto said.
Wow that’s a lot of hype.
i like to see the reds going after some international talent. it seems like they don’t do enough of that, or haven’t in many years.
I makes sense, don’t sit back and let everyone else find this talent and then try to give up something for them later.
This is great. Seriously.
The Reds somehow outsmarted every team in baseball to get this kid. How often can we say that one?
Its a lot of money (Top 10 draft pick type money). There are varying reports on his actual size though, which I find interesting. I have seen him listed at 6′4 up to 6′6. Not a huge difference, but enough that its worth noting.
His tools seem to put him in some elite company. Last year, Angel Villalona signed for 2.1 million and played this year as a 17 year old and was ranked the #33 overall prospect in baseball by baseball america. Hopefully this kid can follow a similar path, albeit more along the lines of next year rather than this year because I doubt he see’s much playing time as a 16 year old.
There is some confusion right now about how his assignment to Billings works exactly, so hopefully we can get that resolved soon enough and know definitively how it has to work to keep the contract valid.
Anyone know what’s going on with Sergio Valenzeula? AKA the 23 year old Rule 5 pitcher who has a career 5.61 era in rookie and A ball…
Yes, I had the question about Billings when I read this the other day: Is he or isn’t he eligible to play this year?
If not, where will the Reds park him for a season?
This signing has been grossly underplayed by the the Enquirer and DDN.
I wonder if he’ll play in the DSL or VSL? Doug can probably give a better guesss.
Bill, I was about to actually email you about it all, but will just post it here. I talked to the guys at BA about the situation because I was getting different views on how it would play out.
Apparently he can be on the Billings roster without actually being in Billings. What that likely means is that he will be listed with the team, but could spend time at the Reds Dominican academy or in Sarasota working out at the facilities there.
One more thing on the DSL/VSL, there are rumors, not sure how truthful, that they are going to just merge into 1 team in the Dominican. Time will tell I guess, but it is something I have heard from a few sources.
But he probably won’t see any game action this year?
I thought this was just a joke.
So Wily Mo the II.
That is what is sounds like Bill.
I like this signing as well… getting international talent has been quite fruitful for every team, except the Reds thus far it seems.
In unrelated news… Dusty was talking about what you want again:
“He had strike one. He kept the ball down,” Baker said. “He had good mound presence, even when he got in trouble. He had a good breaking ball today. He’s looking better every time he goes out there, which is what you want.”
Can we start taking tally as to how many times we find him using that phrase?
That was of course, Dusty referring to yesterday’s performance by Homer Bailey.
That quote comes from http://www.cincinnatireds.com and is referring to yesterday’s performance by Homer Bailey.
From Fay:
The Reds reportedly got him for $2 million. For their sake, hopefully it will work out better than their last splurge on a Latin American player. They paid Alejandro Diaz $1.6 million in 1999. He never made it above Double-A. What’s worse spending all that money on Diaz busted the budget and kept the Reds from signing a guy named Miguel Cabrera.
Zing.
Way to be 4 days behind the times Fay! You just keep on trucking!
Look at this article by the AP………..GOOD thing we didn’t trade for this guy!!!!!!!!
Giants could be without top winner Lowry until April
Associated Press
Updated: March 6, 2008, 8:37 PM ET
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — San Francisco Giants pitcher Noah Lowry will have surgery on his left forearm Friday after a recent bout of wildness and is probably out until the end of April.
Lowry was the Giants’ top winner with a 14-8 record last season. The lefty had trouble throwing strikes this spring and the team sent him back to the Bay Area to be examined by a hand specialist.
The Giants said Thursday that Lowry was diagnosed with exertional compartment syndrome. According to MayoClinic.com, it is “an exercise-induced neuromuscular condition that causes pain, swelling and sometimes even disability in affected muscles of the legs or arms” and seems to affect primarily athletes in their 20s.
“The thing we wanted to do was identify the problem and it looks like we’ve done that,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “Despite it’s not great news, it is good news to have found out what’s going on, what the problem is.”
Lowry could resume throwing in two or three weeks, but Bochy acknowledged the lefty probably won’t be available to pitch until the end of April.
“This is something that I don’t know enough about it to know how rare it is, but you don’t hear about it a lot,” Bochy said. “It’s not like this is a common occurrence in baseball players.” The 27-year-old Lowry struggled with his control during his first game at spring training, then walked nine of 12 batters against Texas on Monday.
Lowry was later diagnosed with tendinitis in his wrist, and went for a series of tests in San Francisco.
Lowry was projected to be third or fourth in the Giants rotation. Without him, San Francisco will look at right-hander Kevin Correia and lefties Jonathan Sanchez and Patrick Misch.
“We’re going to sit down and talk about what our options are,” Bochy said.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press