Earlier this month the Toronto Blue Jays struck out with Tyler Beede, but on Tuesday the club managed to get another highly-touted, hard-throwing teenager's name on the dotted line.
A little over two weeks after failing to sign their 2011 first round draft pick, Toronto announced the acquisition of 16-year-old Mexican pitcher Roberto Osuna as one of seven international free agent signings.
The 6'3", 230-pound right-hander -- the nephew of former Major League pitcher Antonio Osuna -- has pitched for the Mexican national team as well as the Mexico City Diablos Rojos of the Mexican League.
His fastball has reportedly been clocked as high as 94 m.p.h.
During a conference call Tuesday afternoon, Blue Jays director of Latin American operations Marco Paddy said Osuna has been a highly-coveted player for some time despite his young age.
"When you see him at 16 years of age and his ability to pitch, obviously he had to be a great attraction to other clubs," he said. "I would say that he was the one guy that the minute we saw him, we knew that he was a guy we had to go after."
Tuesday's signings included four other pitchers and two outfielders:
- RHP Manuel Cordova, 16, Margarita, Venezuela
- RHP Alberto Tirado, 16, Nagua, Dominican Republic
- LHP Jairo Labourt, 17, Azua, Dominican Republic
- RHP Yeyfry Del Rosario, 17, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
- OF Wuilmer Becerra, 16, Los Mochis, Mexico
- OF Jesus Gonzalez, Cumana, Venezuela
Osuna, Becerra, Gonzalez and Cordova were all ranked by Baseball America in the top 40 in projected signing bonus, ranking fourth, fifth, 21st and 33rd respectively.
With speculation that international free agents may be forced to go through the MLB draft perhaps as early as next year as a part of a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players' association, Paddy was asked if there was an added sense of urgency to sign the players.
"Not really," he explained. "Our commitment to Latin America has existed now for quite some time. Our sense of urgency was to get the best available players on the market."
As for the five pitchers signed Tuesday, Paddy said it's possible each of them could enter the Blue Jays system as early as next year.
"You don't want to put a timetable on when they might be able to join the major league club, but we think that in the scheme of things, the group of guys that we've signed are very advanced and will move through the system just as quick as anyone else."
Three of Tuesday's signings hail from Venezuela, an increasingly fertile baseball ground where shortly after assuming his role with the Blue Jays back in 2006 Paddy signed two of Toronto's top pitching prospects, 21-year-old Henderson Alvarez and 22-year-old Nestor Molina.
"There's more baseball in Venezuela," Paddy explained, adding that the club employs three full-time scouts in the country. "These are guys that we had to compete very hard to get, but we're happy we got them and once again, we're trying to comb that country as best we can, go to every town, every program and see as many kids as we can."
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