When the Cincinnati Reds made major international signings throughout the past decade, they’ve primarily focused on Cuban talent.
The Reds stunned the industry when they signed Aroldis Chapman in 2010. They signed Raisel Iglesias in 2014. When they were willing to take a two-year penalty for vastly spending more than their bonus pool in the 2016-17 class, they paid huge bonuses to sign Jose Garcia, Vladimir Gutierrez and Alfredo Rodriguez.
Following the two-year penalty – and a new hard cap on teams' international signing bonus pools – the Reds have made a bigger commitment to sign top talent in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
Their two biggest international signings Friday, on the first day players could be officially signed in the 2020-21 class, were Dominican outfielders Malvin Valdez ($1.9 million) and Ariel Almonte ($1.85 million). It's believed to be the club's largest bonuses spent on non-Cuban international signees in more than a decade.
“We had a really good, balanced class this year,” said Trey Hendricks, the Reds’ international scouting director. “My staff did a tremendous job with not only the big-money guys in the Dominican, but we’ve got some under-the-radar, mid-range dollar-wise that we’re really excited about.”
The Reds announced they signed 13 international free agents Friday, with eight from Venezuela and five from the Dominican Republic. The Reds are one of the teams with the largest bonus pool ($6.431 million) because they’re a lower-revenue team that picked in the Competitive Balance B round of the 2020 MLB Draft.
