Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants did not land a top-10 prospect but did bring in, well, a lot of them.
As the 2020-21 international signing period opened Friday, a class that had been shifted back from last July, San Francisco announced it had signed 34 young players, led by a shortstop from Venezuela.
Diego Velasquez, a 6-foot-1, 150-pound switch-hitter, is the prize of the group and ranked 22nd on MLB’s top-30 list. The 16-year-old reportedly signed for $1 million, which tops the Giants’ prospects. The highest reported deal has gone to shortstop Armando Cruz, who signed for $3.9 million with the Nationals. The Giants appear to be valuing the number of fliers rather than the higher-priced ones.
San Francisco had a bonus pool of $5,348,100 to spread around and it has, rather than its strategy in 2018, when Marco Luciano, Luis Matos and Jairo Pomeras were given a total of $4.3 million.
This season’s class included 19 players from Venezuela, 11 from the Dominican Republic, one from Curacao, one from Colombia, one from Mexico and one from Panama.
The Giants signing class from the Dominican Republic. @SFGiants pic.twitter.com/mnh3Fv6CUx
— GPT (@giantsprospects) January 15, 2021
Velasquez is the only one to crack MLB’s rankings. Among the group, 11 are pitchers, 10 outfielders, eight infielders and five catchers. Remember these names in four or five years.
