A scouting director from a mid-market club asked two of his scouts to assign a dollar value to the most coveted international free agent, a 16-year-old Dominican shortstop named Edward Salcedo.“I’d give him $750,000,” one of the scouts said. “I’d go to $1 million,” the other added. The scouting director all but laughed, knowing those numbers were absurdly low.
“If we want him, we had better prepared to spend $3.5 million,” the scouting director said.
The scouting director knew Salcedo was represented by Scott Boras. He also knew that the Yankees wanted him badly. (Source)
Not really an update, he still hasn’t signed with a club and he is still good. Hows that?
There are many different ways to build a baseball organization. The smartest way is to stockpile good, young talent in your farm system. There are different ways to obtain this good, young talent: the Amateur Draft, the Rule V Draft, Trades and Free Agency. Another way is through International Free Agency. See, instead of having a draft with all of the players from overseas, it’s just widespread Free Agency in which any team can just sign all of the best players if they wanted to. If I were a MLB GM, I’d be all over this thing.
But, many organizations are misguided in their use of money. The Kansas City Royals would rather sign Gil Meche to a 5-year, $55M deal than spend $8M on the draft and spend $3M on IFAs for the next five years. This is insanely stupid. If a small market team that can’t contend in free agency, like the Royals, spends $8M on the draft and $3-5M on IFAs every year for 5 years, they are spending their money a lot smarter than everyone else and will have a leg up on all of the competition.
Look at the Tigers, for instance, GM Dave Dombrowski knows he doesn’t want to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox in Free Agency (For the Tigers, it doesn’t make sense financially). He uses the Amateur Draft instead. The Tigers spent $2M for Cameron Maybin in ’05, $5M to get Andrew Miller in ’06 and $7.7M to get Rick Porcello in ’07. Dombrowski beat the market. Those Royals passed on Miller, the best talent in the draft, because they “didn’t have the money” and later filled their hole with Meche, who was way more money.
For a team that isn’t making the playoffs anytime soon, like the Royals, doesn’t it make more sense to spend your money on good, young, cost-efficient players in the draft and overseas than on older, budget-killing players?
Yes.
Now, I’m going to propose a move than any team in Major League baseball can make right now:
Sign Edward Salcedo
Salcedo is a IFA SS with a 6′3”, 190 lb from La Vega, Dominican Republic. He’s got a Big League body, strong and athletic. Smooth, easy defensive actions, easy plus arm and can really play SS. Aggressive swing, power projection, deep load from wide base, good bat speed, geared to drive fastballs, timing will be an issue. He has all the tools to be a top player. He’d be a potential 1st round type if in draft.
The site also mentions that he throws 93 MPH from short to first, and has a 60 time of 6.81. I don’t know how fast a 6.81 60 makes him, but hitting 93 from shortstop indicates impressive arm strength. According to the Perfect Game site, Justin Upton hit 91 from the infield as a high school senior, which might mean that Salcedo at 16 has a better arm than Upton, whose tools have always been raved about.
While it’s reported that Scott Boras reps him and demands for the kid is a $4.5M signing bonus which would be the most for an IFA, it would be a great signing for the any team. Boras went on to state that Salcedo has A-Rod talent. (Source)
Here is the best part: he only costs $5M. So what if that is the biggest bonus an IFA has ever received? In the grand scheme of things that’s small potatoes for a lot of teams. Any team in the game can get a kid with Alex Rodriguez, Hanley Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Justin Upton as comps for $5M. Any team can get a guy who will be the number one prospect in most organizations for $5M. The team that signs this guy will get an absolute steal if he pans out (I hope it’s my Yanks).
Fans that whine about the Yankees and Red Sox payrolls should be pissed at their team’s GMs instead. Yes, their teams don’t have the money to battle the Yanks and Sox in Free Agency, but that’s not even the best way to obtain good, young players, the Amateur Draft and the IFA signing period are and every team can compete in those aspects, the ones who don’t aren’t victims of non-competitive balance, they are just lazy and/or stupid.
