Zack Weiss returned to the mound on Wednesday night in Daytona. It was the first time he pitched since in a game since November 3rd, 2015 when he was in the Arizona Fall League. He missed the entire 2016 season as he tried to recover from an elbow issue. After trying several things to try and correct the problem during the year he eventually underwent ulnar nerve transportation surgery in his pitching elbow back in December.
The outing for the Tortugas had some good moments for Zack Weiss. He struck out two batters in 0.2 innings and allowed just one hit. But he was charged with two unearned runs in the outing. The right hander threw 24 pitches and had 13 strikes. His fastball was back to the levels it was at before he was injured according to reports, sitting 92-94 on the night.
The Reds and spending internationally
The Cincinnati Reds can still spend whatever their hearts desire on the international market for the next two weeks. They will have to pay a 100% tax to Major League Baseball on whatever they spend, but as long as they are willing to do that, they can spend as little, or as much money as they want.
After the June 15th deadline that ends the 2016-2017 signing period the Reds will be in the penalty phase for going over their allotted pool amount. They won’t be able to spend more than $300,000 on any single player for the next two years.
A penalty phase workaround?
That last part, however, comes with a very interesting caveat. Ben Badler posted an interesting rule yesterday in an article at Baseball America. While teams under penalty are limited to spending $300,000 on a player, they can pay more than that to a team in order to acquire a player. This generally only applies to players that would be signing out of the Mexican League. Almost all Mexican players are signed by teams within the country and the best talents are then signed by Major League teams after that. The Mexican team is allowed to keep 75% of the bonus paid. In a scenario like this, the 75% that goes to the team does not count against the Major League team when it comes to signing players, only the 25% that the player actually gets.
That means the organization could spend up to $1.2M to sign a player out of the Mexican League if the team kept the 75% that they are allowed to (not every deal is structured this way, sometimes the team will keep less). The Reds haven’t been too aggressive in the Mexican market, but they haven’t been quiet there either. They signed Sebastian Elizalde out of the league in 2013. They’ve also picked up pitchers Miguel Aguilar, Carlos Machorro, and Adrian Rodriguez over the next few seasons. Last fall they also made a splash by signing Victor Ruiz out of Mexico.
This could be a way for the Cincinnati Reds to remain active in signing higher end caliber players on the international market while still in the penalty phase if they wanted to still be players.
Could Jose Israel Garcia be the Reds guy?
Jon Heyman seems to be the only national writer on the planet that knows Jose Israel Garcia exists, or at least is getting enough information to write about him. He mentioned the shortstop once again on Thursday, noting that the Reds are the favorites to sign him:
The Reds are the favorite for Cuban shortstop Jose Israel Garcia. They have some fine shortstop prospects in the fold but do like him.
I’ve asked around and was able to talk with two people who have seen the shortstop. One source said he was a good prospect, but not a top 15 caliber guy in this class. I should have asked whether he meant the 2016-2017 class or the upcoming class of players that will be eligible to sign on July 2nd, but I didn’t think about it at the time. The other person said something similar, saying that he was ok, but not a top level guy.
Dick Williams on the draft & minors
Cincinnati Reds General Manager Dick Williams joined Lance McAlister on Thursday evening on 700 WLW. He spent some time talking about Robert Stephenson and moving back to being a starter at the Triple-A level. He also touched on the draft, the international market, Tyler Mahle, Nick Senzel and the entire infield for the Daytona Tortugas. I’ve embedded the interview below and it should start at the 6-minute mark, but if it doesn’t, that’s where you want to start out at for the minor league related stuff.