2025 MLB International Signing Period

[zimm_da_kid]

Signing period opens Jan 15

Barring any surprising Sasaki news, it looks like our top guy will be mlb pipeline's #14 prospect Brayan Cortesia

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 40 | Run: 50 | Arm: 55 | Field: 55 | Overall: 50

Venezuela has been a recent hot spot for slick fielding shortstops who have made early impacts in their big league careers, namely Ezequiel Tovar (Rockies) and Brayan Rocchio (Guardians). Cortesia, who has begun to fill out his 6-foot-1 frame, is molded in a similar vein. He comes from a family of athletes -- his brother was a member of the Venezuelan national track and field team. Described as a “baseball rat” whose intensity and work ethic garner plus marks, he offers oodles of projection as he acclimates to the pro game.

Equipped with a level right-handed swing, Cortesia sprays the ball to all fields. While his power has come on as he has aged, he deploys more of a bat-to-ball approach at this stage. There is optimism that as he continues to fill out, he could get to that pop more often with consistency, especially against higher velocity.

The superlatives for Cortesia begin defensively. Viewed as a long-term surefire shortstop as his professional career gets underway, he showcases soft hands, good feet and an above-average arm to boot. His overall athleticism -- which includes 60-yard dash times clocked as low as 6.5 seconds -- portend to him getting an extended look at the six.

Here's MLB's top 50 list:

https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/international/

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Signing period opens Jan 15

Barring any surprising Sasaki news, it looks like our top guy will be mlb pipeline's #14 prospect Brayan Cortesia

Here's MLB's top 50 list:

https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/international/

who links him to the Nats?

[zimm_da_kid]

who links him to the Nats?

I went one by one through their Instagram pages. He had nationals in his bio and a curly w is visible on his hat in the profile pic on mlb pipeline. He was the only prospect I saw connected to the nats, although 15-20 of the guys had no team in their Instagram bio.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Nice work.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/01/13/nationals-international-scouting-director-victor-rodriguez/

Profile of the Nats new director of international scouting. Comes with both scouting experience in latin america with the Red Sox organization (2009-15) and college talent evaluation with Tampa Bay (2015-23). Spent last year as director of latin america scouting for the Nats before he replaced Fausto Severino, who I think was only in the job for a year.

There's some interesting observations on the Nats recent run of international signings and development. The tl;dr summary is

Improving Washington’s scouting operation as a whole and the organization’s use of analytics has been a focus in recent years. In a recent survey of scouts from Baseball America, none of the 24 respondents named the Nationals as one the best teams at identifying talent, while three scouts named Washington as among the worst.

To boot, Washington’s recent major international signings have stumbled in the minor leagues. Outfielder Cristhian Vaquero (low Class A Fredericksburg) signed for a club-record $4.925 million in 2022 and hit .190 with five homers in 2024. Infielder Armando Cruz (high Class A Wilmington) signed for $3.9 million in 2021 and hit .224 with two homers across two levels this past season.

Severino, Rodriguez’s predecessor, signed just one class as director of international operations, headlined by outfielder Victor Hurtado and infielder Angel Feliz. Three players on the 40-man roster are homegrown international signings: second baseman Luis García Jr., left-hander Jose A. Ferrer and righty Andry Lara, who pitched well as a starter with Class AA Harrisburg last season.

As Rodriguez observes, the international scouting should be yielding more than 3 home grown guys on the roster. He hopes for a more consistent process that eventually begins to have some big hits.

[imref]

Via Nationals Source, here's the list of confirmed signings. Brayan Cortesia is ranked #14 by MLB Pipeline and is our top ranked signee. Daniel Hernandez (LHB) is the #23rd ranked player in this year's IFA class.

[zimm_da_kid]

Daniel Hernandez isn’t listed in the top 50 on mlbs list. Was that one based off BA?

[imref]

Daniel Hernandez isn’t listed in the top 50 on mlbs list. Was that one based off BA?

BBA according to Nationals Source

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Daniel Hernandez isn’t listed in the top 50 on mlbs list. Was that one based off BA?

Longenhagen, FWIW, has Hernandez at #16 (40+) and Cortesia at #24 (40). He gets there by kind of disparaging the overall class and viewing the catcher as having a high upside:

This class isn’t awesome. There are some very, very exciting hitters at the very top, and there will undoubtedly be some good smaller-bonus prospects who emerge from this year’s class, but the depth of exciting prospects that we’ve had the last two years is not present in this group. There are roughly half as many “high-upside prospects” (colloquially how I refer to 40+ FV prospects and above) in this year’s class as there were last year. An inordinate number of hitters with utility type ceilings are part of this year’s class, guys who can really play shortstop but who might not hit, or who don’t have power, or who possess some other ceiling-limiting trait.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2025-international-prospect-rankings-and-scouting-reports/

His list went up Monday. His top 50 is based on anticipated bonus as an initial cut, then some phone work and scouting.

As the bonuses trickle in, I start to collect biographical data like a player’s position, date of birth, handedness, and measurables, with the measurables likely to have some error rate because of how much players this age can physically change in a short period of time. Once I have a fairly complete picture of the players expected to garner meaningful bonuses, I start to make more scouting- and evaluation-centric calls and inquiries to augment the initial bonus-based foundation of the list. Heuristics play a big part in that augmentation. Up-the-middle defenders, players with physical projection, and those who have demonstrated feel to hit tend to bubble to the top of the list, especially if the player exhibits more than one of these traits. Players who agree to deals during the early part of the calendar often stop showcasing for other teams, and it can be multiple years between when a player was last seen by rival clubs and when he signs, which creates huge evaluation accuracy variance in this market. I combine all of that with my in-person notes (rare in this space) and supplementary video analysis (more common than ever thanks to encrypted file sharing and players’ social media), plus one last pass at all the bonuses to try to make those as accurate as possible, and things are fully baked.

He admits the method has many faults, such as not surfacing guys who sign much below the anticipated $1 million threshold.

[imref]

TalkNats wraps up some of the discussions from other sources: https://www.talknats.com/2025/01/14/the-washington-nationals-are-set-to-officially-announce-their-2025-international-class/

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Interesting to compare Nusbaum's Post article on the signee, which reflects the team view, to outside evaluators takes on our signees.

Nusbaum reports the signing bonuses - $1.9 million for Cortesia and $1.1 million for Hernandez. He quotes the head of international scouting, Victor Rodriguez:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/01/15/nationals-international-free-agency-brayan-cortesia-daniel-hernandez/

“The theme of all the guys we acquire, for the most part, is going to be the hit tool,” Rodriguez said. “That’s the hardest thing to find, the hardest thing to do, and those are the guys that we’re going to try to add to the organization. That’s the number one tool that drives value here.”
...
Rodriguez described Cortesia as a five-tool player with an exciting physical upside. He mentioned that all of his tools are above average, with a chance to hit for power. He said the team also believes highly in Hernandez’s bat and said his makeup is what separates him as a prospect. Though he was signed as a catcher, it was only a few years ago that he converted from third base.

Nusbaum observes just how much the Nats have rebuilt the catching depth, with Lomavita, Bazzell, and Sir Jameson Jones getting a big bonus out of the draft, and now Hernandez. He also recaps the big bonus busts of recent years.

On The Board at FG (https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/international-players), there are capsule write ups on both big signees. Longenhagen ranks Hernandez higher (40+ FV), which he likens to a 2nd or 3rd round pick:

Hernandez has a beautiful left-handed swing. He's wiry and athletic and has room for strength without compromising his athleticism. In addition to needing to get stronger in order to withstand the beating of catching, Hernandez needs to find a way to improve his throwing. His raw arm strength is okay, but his exchange is slow. This is a high-ceiling offensive catching prospect with enormous risk, mostly because of his position.

That seems consistent with the spin from the team that Nusbaum quotes. If he can manage passable D, there's a shot at a lefty-hitting big bat catcher.

He seems a lot lower on the potential of Cortesia. While Rodriguez touts Cortesia as a 5-tools with physical upside and potential to develop power, Longenhagen and his sources say:

Cortesia is generally considered more of a skills-over-tools utility type. He has the arm to play shortstop but evaluations of the other aspects of his defense are more variable. He has a large frame and somewhat mature build. Barring his hit tool outperforming projections, he looks like solid extra infielder.

That said, I haven't seen other places higher Hernandez than Cortesia, and there's got to be a reason he commanded the bigger bonus.

If Todd Boss at Nationals Arm Race or other prospect trackers write anything up, please post it. Eventually, we'll have FTP threads on both. Oh, and if RD has thoughts or sources, I'd love to hear from him.

[imref]

Zuck's overview of signees and methodologies: https://www.masnsports.com/blog/venezuelan-shortstop-catcher-highlight-nats-international-class

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Todd Boss / Nationals Arm Race up with his quick observations about the class:
https://www.nationalsarmrace.com/?p=18775

1) low risk, spread the wealth signings of multiple players (7 with at least $300K bonuses) rather than a Vacquero-like one big signing.
2)  that said, the Cartesia signing comes in 5th highest since Soto in 2015. Yea, about Yasel Antuna . . .
3)none of the $300K+ signings are pitchers.
4) class runs a bit older
5) Todd:

They Still have some room in the pool

The known/announced bonus amounts total about $4.9M spread across seven guys. They announced another 7 signees. Usually if a bonus amount is not listed for an IFA, its a standard $10k. If we assume that figure for the remaining seven, then the Nats are leaving about $1.2M on the table right now. Perhaps that’s funds for later IFA signings who might pop up (they have signed IFAs outside of the Jan 15th window in the past), or perhaps the seven remaining all got 6-figure deals that eat into that remainder.

I'll note that, per MLBTR, both the Padres and Dodgers are supposed to be looking to trade for bonus pool dollars to pay Sasaki, so there's a potential for a deal.