Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 9:58 am

Jesmaylin Arias, a 17 year old LH hitting OF in his first year of pro ball, was just added to the DSL NL All star team.  Was recently moved from the Brown to the Gold team, which is the strongest of the two Padres DSL teams.  Has some punch for a 17 year old with 32% of his hits going for extra bases, but no HRs.  Good RBI%.  Walk rate at 15.1% while Ks at only 18%.  Only 1 SB, so probably does not have much speed for his 5:11, 175 frame.  Plays RF.

Quote from Stergios on July 20, 2024, 10:20 am

Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 6:23 am

Humberto Cruz sighting!  He is the guy from the 2024 international signing class for which we had to scrape together more money beyond our pool, sending promising RHP Blake Dickerson to Detroit and OF Oliver Carrillo to Houston.

Can you explain this please Randy?  We had to send these two promising young players to other teams in exchange for $ so that we could afford to sign Cruz?  We didn’t have the money to sign Cruz so we sold them straight up to other teams in order to acquire the necessary funds?

Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 10:42 am

Yes, that is exactly what happened in terms of the structure of the deal although what we receive back is not real money, but just the opportunity to spend more money (just like the MLB pool draft caps for the 2024 draft we just finished).  We didnt get much international pool money back for Carrillo since he was old for the Dominican Summer League and played two years there - unlikely he even makes it to AA.  A correction on Dickerson - he is a LHP.  Padres (and other teams) saw some upside from him since they were able to pry him away from his college commitment.  Dickerson is having a decent 1st year in the minors although like many young pitchers his walk rate is way too high.  Dickerson did not pitch in the year he was drafted.

So it came down to which pitcher had the most long-term potential.  Cruz was the best international prospect pitcher in Mexico and actually pitched 1 game for the Diablos of the Mexican League at age 16.  Obviously, the Padres liked the potential and repertoire of 17 year old Cruz over the 19 year old Dickerson ( who pitched for the Florida Complex League this year).  Its always a gamble with pitchers but the Padres have a lot of success identifying arms on the rise lately, despite age or injury.   Other teams have done the same thing as the Padres did to increase their pool size to land a top prospect but I believe it was the first time for the Padres.

Quote from Jeremy Hill on July 20, 2024, 10:43 am

Quote from Stergios on July 20, 2024, 10:20 am

Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 6:23 am

Humberto Cruz sighting!  He is the guy from the 2024 international signing class for which we had to scrape together more money beyond our pool, sending promising RHP Blake Dickerson to Detroit and OF Oliver Carrillo to Houston.

Can you explain this please Randy?  We had to send these two promising young players to other teams in exchange for $ so that we could afford to sign Cruz?  We didn’t have the money to sign Cruz so we sold them straight up to other teams in order to acquire the necessary funds?

Yep. Keep in mind most of these deals get worked out well ahead of time. Teams that are over the luxury tax and sign a free agent who received a qualifying offer lose 1m in international pool money. We likely had deals in place and had all of our spending planned out before we signed Bogaerts. That left us scrambling to come up with the money for Cruz. Teams are allowed to trade unused pool money in 250k increments. Cruz signed for 750k. They got 250k for Carrillo and 500k for Dickerson.

Quote from Jeremy Hill on July 20, 2024, 10:51 am

Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 10:42 am

Yes, that is exactly what happened in terms of the structure of the deal.  We didnt get much international pool money back for Carrillo since he was old for the Dominican Summer League and played two years there - unlikely he even makes it to AA.  A correction on Dickerson - he is a LHP.  Padres (and other teams) saw some upside from him since they were able to pry him away from his college commitment.  Dickerson is having a decent 1st year in the minors although like many young pitchers his walk rate is way too high.  Dickerson did not pitch in the year he was drafted.

So it came down to which pitcher had the most long-term potential.  Cruz was the best pitcher in Mexico and actually pitched 1 game for the Diablos of the Mexican League at age 16.  Obviously, the Padres liked the potential and repertoire of 17 year old Cruz over the 19 year old Dickerson, who pitched for the Florida Complex League this year.  Its always a gamble with pitchers but the Padres have a lot of success identifying arms on the rise lately, despite age or injury.   Other teams have done the same thing as the Padres did to increase their pool size to land a top prospect but I believe it was the first time for the Padres.

I don't know if it's really about seeing Cruz as the better prospect. They likely didn't want to back out of an international deal at the last minute. That could hurt them in future negotiations.

Quote from Randy Manese on July 20, 2024, 11:10 am

What I liked with Dickerson is he had tremendous size at 6-6, 210 and was reportedly throwing in the mid-90s in the Padres minor league camp.  Unfortunately, Dickerson is now on the 7 day IL and hopefully his injury is not serious.  So many pitchers never make it to the bigs, we will see if either of these guys do in about 5-6 years from now.

Quote from fenn68 on July 20, 2024, 12:33 pm

Agree that backing out of a potentially committed deal with Cruz would hurt future negotiations and probably was a factor … don’t discount the potential on Cruz being greater than Dickerson’s.

Remember that Dickerson was a 12th round pick and signed for “only” $500K (equal to a 4th round pick) to bypass college. 29 other teams did not see him a more compelling target. Yes, his size and FB make him a prospect but a lot of development needed.

Meanwhile Cruz (3 years younger) was one of the top pitchers in the 2024 international signing period and was inked for $750K. He also has that upper 90s FB.

No idea who turns out a better pitcher … but think the Padres probably liked Cruz more and to get the allocation money … need to send out someone the other teams wanted.

Quote from Stergios on July 21, 2024, 8:44 am

Our top prospects keep struggling.  Mazur, Salas, Nett, Pauley all with another poor showing last night.

Quote from Randy Manese on July 21, 2024, 5:47 pm

Alcides Hernandez came up with a clutch pinch hit in the 8th inning of the DSL all star game that tied up the score for the National League squad; no further runs were scored so they ended the game with a 2-2 tie.  Hernandez was one of the 45+ international free agents the Padres signed in 2023 after essentially giving up all their pool money allocation to Ethan Salas.  Besides Hernandez, I can see a couple of these very young low cost prospects making it beyond the ACL in a year or so.