| By Jason A. Churchill |  | By 03-08-2010 |
If you've been following all the news the past several weeks you have heard the Seattle Mariners, along with at least two other clubs -- believed to be the big guns called the Yankees and Red Sox -- are in on right-hander Rafael DePuala of the Dominican Republic, and if a club wants to get him a visa for 2010, time is running out.
But despite word that Seattle has made him the highest offer in the $1.5 million range -- and that is the word I am hearing as well -- I'm also hearing that the M's offer won't likely get it done.
One source tells me it may get into the mid-2s if the Yankees and Red Sox like him as much as they are letting on, and that if Seattle wants him the price will almost certainly exceed $2 million.
They did spend $2 million on outfielder Guillermo Pimentel, but at what point do the Mariners bow out? That I don't know, but if Engle likes him enough, the club is likely to stay in this to the end.
I have feelers out for anything new, so stay tuned.
Now, onto DePaula the pitcher, rather than DePaula the potential Mariners pitching prospect and his ultimate recruitment.
DePaula is believed to be 17 years of age -- the age discrepancy is the reason he's yet to be signed, but could be unblocked in time to get signed this spring, hence the bidding -- and stands 6-foot-3 and weighs in at just under 190 pounds, according to a scout that saw him over the winter and had conversations with his agent at the time. Note: DePaula has since changed agents in another in a long line of sleazy events in the DR. In other words, DePaula is built very similarly to former M's Rafael Soriano and the recently-traded Juan Carlos Ramirez, who was not particularly skinny, as has been otherwise reported due to the weight in the media guide listing of 175 pounds.
DePaula offers a fastball with late life and big velocity, touching the mid-90s, or if you believe his agents -- both of them -- he's touched 97, and also throws a slider and what was described to me as a "decent" changeup.
There have been reports that he also throws a curveball, but one NL scout assured me it's more like he throws two sliders -- one a hard, legit slide piece, and another a slower, slurvy type pitch in the 78-81 mph range -- down 3-5 mph from the true slider.
His mechanics are smooth and fluid and he has above-average arm speed, as you'd expect for a kid throwing as hard as he does. He does have a somewhat erratic arm path that leads to a mild inverted W, but no pitching scout I have ever talked to puts any weight into such a flaw unless it's so glaring that it almost certainly results in additional and unnecessary stress on the elbow or shoulder, and to a lesser extent the mid-section and back, or appears to hinder the ability to repeat the delivery.
Pro coaches will likely simplify, if not shorten the path, and target the removal of the last few frames, where the elbow is raised above his shoulder. But the delivery is athletic and compact otherwise, which is more than you can say for the vast majority of pitching prospects that come through the draft, with the few exceptions being those that ultimately are selected in round 1.
Speaking of round 1, DePaula is a first-round type of talent, and the M's would be blowing their FA budget to get him, whether it costs them $1.5 million or the highest number I have heard -- $3 million -- which would basically make up for the loss of their first-round pick they handed to the Angels when they signed Type-A free agent Chone Figgins.
While I'm not sure how high they will go, and believe deeply in my previous thoughts that a lot of money is wasted on international free agents in this league, DePaula is not one of those wastes, as long as he's within a year or so of the 17 he now claims to be.
m\'s-and-rafael-depaula
Comments
The following 15 comment(s) for this article are shown below:
| 1. By: Slack on 03-08-2010 22:07:08 I hope the M's get this one done because of how it could make up for the M's not having a first round pick. |
| 2. By: CrimsonNW on 03-09-2010 02:31:29 I agree Slack. Jason, do you think that DePaula is worth more than Pimental? |
| 3. By: safecochatter on 03-09-2010 13:23:43 Porcello throws three scoreless innings this am while going against Strasburg. but in comparing the two jayson stark tweets this.....One scout's instant review of Strasburg: "Makes Porcello look like he's playing catch with his sister." man...just three more losses in 08 and Strasburg was headed to m's! i agree too,that Depaula signing would make up for loss of #1 pick in june. |
| 4. By: Jason A. Churchill on 03-09-2010 17:36:58 As good as Strasburg is, here's my thoughts on ackley-stras... Good chance that in six to eight years, Ackley is just as valuable IF HE STICKS at second. At that point, They'll both be 26-28 years of age, but Stras will have 1200-1400 innings under his belt. Yeah. |
| 5. By: ASUBoyd on 03-09-2010 18:45:18 I saw UCLA v. Nebraska last week, Gerrit Cole pitched. He looked pretty filthy, 9ks in 7 innings, no walks. Hard slider, was flashing some big heat too. |
| 6. By: Juan Valdez on 03-09-2010 21:41:56 Interesting story, but it's hard to get too excited over any international prospect - we just don't know enough about them to have any idea how they'll turn out. If they do sign him, let's hope he's the real deal. Maybe you already have plans for this, but it would be nice to get an article on the top M's international signings of the last few years, including what they signed for (if available) and what their progress has been. |
| 7. By: Jason A. Churchill on 03-09-2010 23:07:23 "Interesting story, but it's hard to get too excited over any international prospect - we just don't know enough about them to have any idea how they'll turn out." And you have an idea how, say, Chad James, a first-round pick from last year, will turn out? It's all a crap shoot to an extent. You sign tools, physical strengths, athleticism, and with a pitcher, stuff and then you check the secondary aspects of a talent, i.e. background, work ethic, medical history, etc. The ONLY difference between an IFA and a prep draftee if you have a good idea of the true age and identity -- which isn't a player development issue at all -- is the language barrier/cultural changes that can get in the way. And your idea -- that's in the handbook, which is in its final edit stages. ASUBoyd, Cole is nasty, but he's not draft-eligible until next year. Could be the top pick if things go right for him. He, Sonny Gray, Jack Armstrong, Anthony Rendon, Taylor Jungmann, Matt Purke... Rasmussen, all 5-10 of him, is interesting, however. |
| 8. By: rjfrik on 03-09-2010 23:38:49 Glad you chimed in on that comment Jason because I was about to say the exact same thing. Felix Hernandez had a good laugh at that comment and so did Johan Santana and aroldis chapman and juan marichal and....... I could go on and on and on. |
| 9. By: slamcactus on 03-10-2010 10:53:30 "The ONLY difference between an IFA and a prep draftee if you have a good idea of the true age and identity" The other big difference is that you get to see the high school guys in games on the showcase circuit, while you very rarely get to see Dominican talents in any kind of game action, let alone against any kind of quality competition. DePaula, for instance, works for a Buscon who has 3-4 clients per year. If the Ms have seen him in any real game action, it's been against groups of guys randomly thrown together, many of whom aren't good enough to sign with a summer league squad. |
| 10. By: Juan Valdez on 03-11-2010 02:33:19 Nobody's more fun at a party than a know-it-all. My general understanding is that North American players have more of a track record and are generally better scouted than IFAs, and that this is reflected in generally better outcomes. I'm more certain this is true of college players than high school players. It's possible High School players are more comparable in terms of how they eventually turn out. It would be interesting to do some sort of comparison of High School age IFAs with High School draftees and see how their careers turned out. |
| 11. By: Jason A. Churchill on 03-11-2010 03:05:47 If you need me to show you the door, so be it. Otherwise, end the attitude. Sure, they get seen more -- it doesn't make them riskier. I'm on the side -- and waaaaay on the side -- that believes teams throw too much money at IFAs because of the risk, but when you get a top-tier guy throwing three pitches with promise who is built like that and the age issue goes away -- he's really just your basic senior-year-burst-onto-the-scene prep kid whose team plays 12 games in 10 weeks. He wasn't seen the previous summer, he may have only been seen by the club that ultimately drafts him three or four times, which is less than Seattle has seen DePaula, for example. And many of the IFAs are a a year, sometimes two years, younger than a HS senior, which means there is generally that much more projection left. But the whole "track record/scouted more" thing doesn't fly. It's really about how they handle the cultural differences, language barrier issues, and whether they really want to play baseball or are just happy getting out of their native land, i.e. Yuniesky Betancourt. |
| 12. By: rocketdawg31 on 03-11-2010 12:49:11 It's really about how they handle the cultural differences, language barrier issues, and whether they really want to play baseball or are just happy getting out of their native land, i.e. Yuniesky Betancourt. I agree, Jase. For every Roberto Alomar (signed at 17, became fluent in English, probably the Hall of Fame eventually), you have any number of young phenoms that can't deal with all the other rigmarole that pertains to their occupation. Doesn't matter if they're Latino or U.S.-bred, that 'rigmarole attached' can be a direct factor in them not making it as a ballplayer. And the damnable thing is that there's no way to circumvent the fact that you're in no position to really evaluate what you've got until they're under your roof for a few years- all young men change, and the men they become may or may not be anything close to what you were thinking. I can never get over just how hard scouting truly is. I mean, if any scouting director got three major-leaguers consistently out of a 50-player draft, time after time? Everyone is going to want to know what the hell their secret is. Regarding DePaula- the thing I find intriguing is that he's apparently got three pitches already. A lot of kids this age just throw hard as their calling card, and have no idea how to change arm slot or speed. I hope we get him if he's deemed worthy of the risk. What he eventually becomes notwithstanding, we could really, really use more pitching prospects with higher ceilings throughout the org as a whole. |
| 13. By: safecochatter on 03-13-2010 09:51:16 jason, you going to peoria this month? like to get an educated opinion on tui making the team out of st. i know he didn't look that good at 2nd last year.. but his bat could be so much better than the other utilty infielders. |
| 14. By: Jason A. Churchill on 03-13-2010 17:37:21 yes, I get there Monday. |
| 15. By: Marlin Man on 03-13-2010 21:41:49 I can't believe Tui would stick as a Utility player- he has to get steady work to ever have a chance to make it up here, Just don't believe Wak and Z would put keep him up here to play 1 o or 2 games (at most) a week. M.M. |
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