That for the panel of experts of Major League Baseball the Dominicans Fernando Tatis Jr., (3), John Soto (4) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., (8) appear among the 10 best players today is another argument that confirms the specialness of this promotion of talents recruited in 2015 and that threatens to destroy any other.
“The class of us has to be one of the best in recent years and be careful if in history. From the showcases it was seen and look how many we have already reached Big leagues”. The one who gave this opinion was Soto during a visit to DL. The data proves them right.
If it is already meritorious to reach the Big Top, the most complex thing is to find that talent with the conditions to establish themselves and justify the enormous investments made by the teams.
Soto is referring to a promotion whose traces are so marked as to not be erased even with a lot of dust.
The 306 Quisqueyans recruited in the country between 2004 and 2015 and who reached the Big Show (5.7% of the 5,283 signed) have accumulated 613.7 wins over a replacement player in the Baseball-Reference (bWAR) version.
The list does not include the 15 who along the way reached the Big Top signed through the United States draft.
The economic balance is overwhelming. The teams invested US$476,590,170 on this route to recruit these young people, according to data provided by the MLB to DL, but those players have already won $1,421,494,008. In addition, they have insured another US$633,725,815 in contracts and lost US$67,500,000 in options.
Of that group, only three promotions (all with at least six more years of experience in the Majors) present better performance than the 51.9 WAR of the contingent led by Soto, Tatis Jr., and Guerrero Jr.
Leading the way are the 30 signed in 2009, which already add up to 119.6 bWAR, led by José Ramírez (34.3), Carlos “Tsunami” Martínez (13.3), Jorge Polanco (12.5) and Gary Sánchez (11.7).
Behind them comes the platoon discovered in 2007. The 27 graduates have contributed 91.4 bWAR with Starling Marte (34.8) and Jean Segura (26.3) as the most advantaged students.
The other squad is the one recruited in 2004. Of them 23 reached the Big Top and add 91.8 bWAR with Johnny Cueto (32.9) and Carlos Santana (31.6) at the top.
Soto’s promotion almost doubles the harvest of those identified in 2010, which totals 29 men, with 26 bWAR and Héctor Neris (7.5) and Jeimer Candelario (6.8) as leaders. He has nine times more than those signed a year before them. From the class of 2014, 16 have already been called up, but they only have 5.7 bWAR.
Of those that have already seen a decade pass since their signings, 2005 has been the least fruitful and still ends with 18.5 bWAR. There are 28 graduates of that harvest, led by Michael Pineda (12.6) and Neftalí Féliz (7.3).
Measured in green ballots, the most benefited to date is that of the talents identified in 2004 with US$343,868,356, followed by 2007 with US$235,684,864, then comes 2009 with US$198,606,373 and the fourth anchor is 2006 with US$185,166,483 according to Spotrac.
How many follow?
The trickle to the Big Show from that group recruited between 2004 and 2015 began to arrive in 2008 with Cueto and has reached its highest point in 2017 with 38, including Rafael Devers, Luis Castillo and Miguel Andújar.
In the 2021 campaign, 155 men from that battalion appeared in the league, or the same as 50.6%. Of them, 126 arrived between 2015 and 2021. There are 106 who have not played since 2018.
Although in that 2017 the highest number came (38) for 2021 only 19 of them played, a sample of the voracity of the show and the little patience with those who qualify the casting.
