Big Bucks for signings in Latin America

I was talking to a friend who used to work for the Red Sox now working for the Seattle Mariners as a scout here in the Dominican Republic, things have changed for the worse in terms of signing young players in Latin America, those kids who come from very poor family equipped with baseball skills no longer come in cheap, lots of people are looking for those kids and they make them sign a contract so to take care of their needs both baseball and non-baseball with the condition of keeping 30%-70%, both Dominican and American law firms are looking for the raw material in order to become their agent and secure a contract with them at a very early stage, that is making teams having to spend BIG BUCKS in order to get the best players, it used to be that with 30k for signing bonus teams would get a very skilled player to sign, nowadays it takes a million and several millions for the very best ones.

The funny thing is, that Since the Beltre and Aramboles case in which the Dodgers and the Yankees signed them before they were 17, now teams through a scout, are making the parents of those very young players sign a contract, that way they are not doing anything illegal since its not the kid signing but their parents, and that contract reads that when the kid turns 17 must sign with that team or else the parents are accountable for.

I dont know what type of impact that increase in Dollars is going to have in terms of players being signed but right now nothing is stopping that, cause as is the case with the FA market, if the Dodgers wont commit to the 2 millions certain kid (through his agent) is asking, there is always a team willing to commit.

Luchy Guerra is very well known in the Dominican, she was on every news paper recenlty when Mcourt visited the country. Her job with the Dodgers and with the Dominican comunity has gotten a lot of publicity in the Dominican. Sad to hear she no longer will work with the Dodgers.

I'll respond in english in benefit of other posters. The Dodgers were the first team to setup a baseball academy down in Dominican, they were the pioneers in that field, nowadays every single team has a baseball academy not only in Dominican but in Venezuela also. I've heard of some problems that teams have had with the Venezuelan goverment that probably have stopped them from putting more in Venezuela. Venezuela is a much bigger country than DR and with a lot more resourcer (less poberty) so i believe that in the up coming years you will see more players from Venezuela than the Dominican, right now there are more Venezuelan players in the minors than there is from the Dominican.

Puerto Rico is another story, a few years ago it was approved that since PR is "part" of the USA, players coming up in PR should go through the regular Draft, that stopped teams from investing in PR since you are not going to invest in a player for him to be picked by another team, the amount of players from PR has been decreasing ever since the Draft was approved, players coming from PR have to compete with all players from US Colleges and High Schools.

Cuba is yet another story, we all know the Cuba story and how teams can't just go and invest in there because of the embargo, they do have a very good baseball program and i feel that the day Cuba opens up to the world we are going to see a flock of players coming from there that will probably surpass the amount coming from the DR and Venezuela.