Let's look at a comparison of Guardians international signing classes from 2017 to 2023 (Jan. 15, 2024). This analysis is only superficial as I am not sure if I have all the information from all of these years as sometimes lower bonus signings were not reported or players were signed after the signing day all the way up to the end of the signing period.
Highlights of 2023 (Jan 2024) signing period so far:
- 26 players signed
- $6.67 million of $7,114,800 budget spent leaving $444,800 remaining for other signings later in the signing period
- 3 Cuban players signe
- Position breakdown
- 9 MIFers
- 8 Pitchers
- 7 OFers
- 2 Catchers
- Country breakdown
- 14 Venezuela
- 9 Dominican Republic
- 3 Cuba
- Bonus breakdown
- $1.5 - 1.99 million - 1
- $0.4-0.5 million - 2
- $0.3-0.4 million - 2
- $0.2-0.3 million - 4
- $0.1-0.2 million - 3
- <$0.1 million - 14
Let's compare this to previous seasons:
Spending:
- In seasons 2017-2022 the Guardians spent: $3.7, $4.5, $3.5, $4.4, $3.9 and $5.9 million, respectively on their draft classes.
- In 2017-2022 they signed the following # of players (may not be complete): 11,14,23,14,20,24, respectively.
- In those years, they signed 2 players for > $1.5 million (2018,2019)
- From 2017-2022 they signed:
- 2,1,0,3,2,1 players, respectively, for between $1 and $1.49 million
- 1 player in 2021 and 2 in 2022 for between $0.75 and $1 million.
- 1 player in 2018 and 1 in 2020 for between $0.51 and $0.749 million
- 1,1,2,1,1,0 players, respectively, for $0.4-0.5 million
- 1,0,1,0,1,5 players, respectively for $0.3-0.4 million
- 2 players in 2019 and 2 in 2022 for $0.2-0.3 million
- 2 players in 2017, 3 players in 2019 and 3 players in 2022 $0.1-0.2 million
- 5,10,12,9,15,11 players signed for bonuses of <$100,000
- Cuba - 0 players signed
- Venezuela - 6,4,11,6,12, 15
- Dominican Republic - 5,9,9,7,7,8
- Columbia - 1 (2018)
- Panama - 0,0,2,1,1,1
- Mexico - 0
- Aruba - 0
- Curacao - 0
- Australia - 0
- Europe - 0
- Korea - 0
- Japan - 0
Players signed & Positions in 2017-2022, respectively
- Players signed - 11,14,23,14,20,24
- MIF - 5,5,5,7,10,7
- OF - 2,2,9,4,3,5
- C - 3,0,1,1,2,4
- P - 0.7.5.2.4.7
- 1B - 1,0,2,0,0,0
- 3B - 0,0,1,0,1,1
SUMMARY
Comparing 2017-2022 with what happened this year some trends emerge:
- 1st year in a while signing Cuban FAs
- Within normal range in terms of recruits from countries (except Cuba, of course)
- Positional bias - Percentages at each position (relative to total signees) within normal ranges seen in 2017-2022.
- Number of players signed: highest in 2023
- Total bonuses paid: highest in 2023
- Total number of players with bonuses over $100,000 - Much higher in 2022 and 2023 than in previous years.
- Amount of money left unspent in bonus pool: highest in 2023
- More players signed to over $100,000 bonuses than in past years except for 2022
It is really hard to tell what these numbers all mean. Signing classes are generally pre-determined well before the signing day (the Guardians are already linked to 11 players for NEXT year's signing date). There doesn't seem to be a huge trend in positions or countries from where players were signed. Things like homerun potential seem to be on the upswing in 2022 and this year compared to previous years but how much of that will result is very hard to tell in players this age, although I think the trend is there. There is certainly room to sign more players later in the year as we have the highest amount left in our pool since these pools were established.
All-in-all, it is hard to determine what a team is thinking in signing these guys. Sometimes they might pick one player over another if they have if they want to placate a particular academy so they can get star players in the future. Sometimes they might want to sign a player from a particular area or town because that area is trending up in terms of production of quality players and they want good publicity by having those players go home in the winter and show how much the Guardians have improved them and been a positive influence in their lives. So, some of what is done is likely done for future recruiting but we have no way to tell how much.
The three takeaways, then, from this class is that we dipped into the Cuban market, we signed, for the 2nd year in a row, a large number of players who got bonuses of over $100,000 and, finally, we still have almost $500,000 left in the bonus pool to sign other players.
Let's hope our scouts have done as good a job with this class as they did with the 2017 class. Since we are Cleveland, we need that!
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