by
Greek Giant
The Giants announced the signing of 23 international prospects on international signing day.
The #SFGiants announced the signings of 23 International prospects today, including:
🇻🇪 11 from Venezuela
🇩🇴 8 from the Dominican Republic
🇲🇽 2 from Mexico
🇨🇼 1 from Curaçao
🇹🇼 1 from Taiwan pic.twitter.com/XrEyDSQVnu— SFGProspects (@SFGProspects) January 16, 2023
That’s more than double the number (11) from last year.
Giants Scouting Director Joe Salerno wanted to make a big splash with the first and most expensive signing, They did that in signing Rayner Arias, a 16-year-old right-handed hitter bopper with some smash-crackle-pop in his swing.
Giants signed OF Rayner Arias (16.8Y, 6’1″ 180) to an IFA contract out of the Dominican Republic. $2.8M bonus.
MLBdotcom: Hit:55|Power:55|Run:50|Arm:50|Field:50
Strong frame, above avg hit & power, good plate discipline, good arm, COF, advanced baseball IQ, grew up around game. pic.twitter.com/ijyraifOap— GPT (@giantsprospects) January 15, 2023
Here is Andrew Baggarly explaining the Arias pick:
The success of this class will probably hinge on Arias, whose bonus is the largest the Giants haven given to an international player since they inked Bahamian shortstop Lucius Fox for $6 million in the 2015 signing period. Their current top international prospect, shortstop Marco Luciano, received $2.6 million in 2018; Bahamian infielder Ryan Reckley, their top signee a year ago, received $2.2 million.
“We think Arias is a special guy — a combination of a power bat with hitting ability and a good makeup and good baseball IQ,” said Salermo, reached by phone in the Dominican on Monday. “We felt he had a good background and good family foundation.”
The Giants have had their eyes on Arias for some time. Arias, a Dominican, received a $2.7 million bonus, which is more than half of the $5.284 million in the club’s international bonus pool. That meant the San Francisco Baseball Club LIMITED had to use their remaining bonus money on a variety of picks and that they did!
Here is the complete list of picks:
Here’s the Giants full international signing class. Arias got the biggest bonus ($2.8 million, per @JesseSanchezMLB) pic.twitter.com/k3q8EOt7Nc
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) January 16, 2023
and some of the responses on Twitter:
Pure Gold.
I need to draft some of these guys and gals for the TWG commentariat.
What I learned from all this: The Giants do not have a scout in Mexico. I think they can afford one. The Giants like Venezuela. The Giants value defense in these picks.