Sebastian Espino
Last year the Mets made a big splash in the international free agent market on July 2nd signing two of the best prospects in Gregory Guerrero and Andres Gimenez while showing strong interest in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Guerrero was given a $1.5 million signing bonus and Gimenez came in at $1.2, two of the top three in team history.
This year, according to Ben Badler at Baseball America the Mets will stay out of the high priced international market and instead spread out their $2,138,200 bonus pool. Badler also linked the Mets to outfielders Sebastian Espino and Ezequiel Pena who according to our sources have indeed signed with the Mets. Espino (pictured above, will be getting a $300,000 signing bonus from the Mets while Pena will sign for $210,000.
According to Antonio Puesan the Mets have signed Dominican outfielder Joel Reyes. The 16-year old is getting a $600,000 bonus and scouts have compared his body type to Carlos Gomez. Here is some info on Reyes from BA:
Corner outfielder who showed a lot of swing-and-miss early on in the process against fastballs and breaking balls, but a good showing leading up to July 2 against some of the hard-throwing Cuban pitchers at tryouts helped him. Some scouts who saw Reyes more recently liked his righthanded hitting ability and saw more contact than he showed earlier. He’s around 6 feet, 190 pounds with below-average speed and projects as a right fielder.
Here is a video of Reyes hitting.
We have very little information on the Espino/Pena duo right now besides the fact that they are both outfielders from the Dominic Republic and hit right-handed. Source we talked to compared Espino to Johnny Peralta, slow footed meaning he could end up at third but has good power potential.
Photo Credit: JDBbaseballrd.com
Update: Mets have signed Dominican right-handed pitcher Daison Acosta, he will get a $70,000 signing bonus. You can watch a video of him pitching here.
Acosta was born on August 24th, 1998 and is listed at six feet four inches tall and weighs 170 pounds.
According to Baseball America, the Mets have signed 3B Jose Peroza (Venezuela), 2B/CF Luis Santana (Dominican Republic, $200,000), OF Jean Carlos Soto (Dominican Republic, $150,000), and OF Moises Gonzalez (Dominican Republic).
We will update this post as we get more info on these players.
Featured image is Pena.
With all the big spending teams out of this years Intl free agent pool, the Mets just sit on their hands and do nothing. A perfect time to jump all over these guys and they do crap. Sandy what is wrong with you? The braves keep getting better and you do nothing???
did you pay attention to last year’s spending? When they got two of the top prospects.
Yeah but why not once go over the spending limit? Especially when all the big spending guys are out of it? Load up your minors and go over the limit, it’s a resource that others are using why not us?
Michael it’s just like the Cuban market that we never got into, they are letting precious resource go to our opponents.
We didn’t even get 1 of the top 30 guys that were available this year
Maybe the scouts didn’t like any of the prospects
The Wilpons always adhere to the rules and never go over their pool by a significant margin. That’s not Sandy’a fault. It took until Sandy for the Mets to even dole out bigger bonuses, and they have given out four million + in the last four years when plenty have given out much more and higher ones.
Who knows? They may become something and they may become nothing. Check out the Yankees, they didn’t get much out of their 20 million dollar spending spree.
You mean Cubans like Cespedes? Or like Castillo?
As for not going over the limit, with as many teams that will not be shopping on the high end of the market next year, it bodes well for long term planning
With Dominican players, can we expect them at the academy this season?
Yeah, not officially, but at the tricky league
that’s how the process goes. You can’t just spend wildly each year…..and apparently the scouts didn’t think anyone was worth it this year. They signed 2 absolute studds last year, so you can’t really complain in this area.
I’m glad they are saving the $$ to outbid the evil empire west (LAD) for gurriel! We have the pitching; the time is now! Not 6 years from now!
I have no complaint with the money spent internationally or the job done since Alderson got here. I thought this would be an area the ‘Pons would chance out on but we do have quite a number of top international prospects.
Still a bit of a let down and I wish we would spend a few consecutive years building up the OF with top internationals and early round draft picks.
draft best available according to your board. As for international, prefer they continue to sign up the middles. Athletes at 15/16, will find homes as they grow into ball players. A corner player at that age has less margin for error.
Continue to sign SS’s you mean? Then we’ll continue to need a RFer.