Giants bet big with Rayner Arias, branch out with 2023 international signing class
Giants international scouting director Joe Salermo hoped to achieve two goals by the time the club announced its 2023 class of signees on Jan. 15.
He wanted to sign one of the top international free agents on the market. And with whatever money in the bonus pool that remained, he wanted to use some of it to make investments in areas where the Giants haven’t historically competed for talent.
Advertisement
As a result, the Giants signed 23 players on Sunday — more than double the 11 they announced a year ago — and they didn’t all come from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. They signed players from Curacao, Mexico and Taiwan as well. And they also expect to announce a 24th signing, Cuban shortstop Anthony Tandron, in the coming days.
But their biggest bet is on Rayner Arias, a 16-year-old right-handed hitter with power potential whom the Giants have been tracking in the Dominican for more than two years. Arias received a $2.7 million bonus, which is more than half of the $5.284 million in the club’s international bonus pool.
Venezuelan shortstop Yosneiker Rivas received a $1 million bonus. Taiwanese right-hander Chen-Hsun Lee, believed to be the first international player from Asia who wasn’t signed by the Giants out of a pro organization, received $650,000.
The success of this class will probably hinge on Arias, whose bonus is the largest the Giants haven given to an international player since they inked Bahamian shortstop Lucius Fox for $6 million in the 2015 signing period. Their current top international prospect, shortstop Marco Luciano, received $2.6 million in 2018; Bahamian infielder Ryan Reckley, their top signee a year ago, received $2.2 million.
“We think Arias is a special guy — a combination of a power bat with hitting ability and a good makeup and good baseball IQ,” said Salermo, reached by phone in the Dominican on Monday. “We felt he had a good background and good family foundation.”
Giants signed OF Rayner Arias (16.8Y, 6'1" 180) to an IFA contract out of the Dominican Republic. $2.8M bonus.
MLBdotcom: Hit:55|Power:55|Run:50|Arm:50|Field:50
Strong frame, above avg hit & power, good plate discipline, good arm, COF, advanced baseball IQ, grew up around game. pic.twitter.com/ijyraifOap
— GPT (@giantsprospects) January 15, 2023
Arias’ father, Pablo, reached Double A as a pitcher in the Detroit Tigers system and had a long career in the Dominican Winter League before he transitioned to a scouting career, beginning with the Washington Nationals and currently with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The younger Arias was a 6-foot athlete with a quick bat when the Giants first noticed him as a 14-year-old at the Jaime Ramos Academy in the Dominican. He has since grown two inches and put on 20 pounds.
Advertisement
“Not only did his tools and baseball skills improve, but his data improved,” Salermo said. “All of that is part of the puzzle to evaluate players. The at-bats and consistent contact kept improving along with bat speed and exit velocity. He didn’t chase much. Seemed to have good strike zone knowledge. We’ve seen continual improvement.”
An MLB.com report likened Arias to Chicago White Sox outfielder Eloy Jiménez. Salermo didn’t back away from that comparison.
“He’s a plus athlete who can play right field,” Salermo said. “We think he’s capable of hitting .275, .280 with 20-plus home runs. The baseball skills are advanced enough to start (in the U.S.) but that’s up to player development. He’ll go workout in the U.S. for a few weeks and they’ll determine where to start him.”
Because so many international signees are younger and younger when they reach unofficial agreement with teams, they end up skipping the showcase circuits. So there isn’t much point trying to rank signing classes or determine which teams made the biggest impacts.
But Lee, 20, is among the players who have the longest track records. He first gained attention in 2013 while pitching for Taiwan in the Little League World Series, threw in the low 90s as a 17-year-old and likely was on his way to a seven-figure bonus before undergoing Tommy John surgery to reconstruct the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in 2019. Lee flashed mid-90s velocity again this past summer while pitching for Taiwan’s under-23 team in an international tournament.
“We’re excited about him,” Salermo said. “We’re looking at him like a college junior. Advanced starting pitching is tough to find. He’s 6-foot-4 and he’s built himself back up. We’ve been trying to open up that market for the Giants and our area scout, Evan Hsueh, does a great job for us.”
Advertisement
While other organizations have scaled back their operations in Venezuela, the Giants still maintain a seven-scout staff in Venezuela plus an eighth assistant who provides full-time data analysis support. Their efforts in recent years led to the signing of outfielder Luis Matos and shortstop Aeverson Arteaga, two players who appear in virtually every Giants’ top-10 prospect list.
Rivas, a smooth-fielding shortstop and left-handed hitter who attended the Carlos Guillen Academy, has the best chance to become the next prospect from Venezuela to rise through the system.
“He’s a contact machine with plus ability at shortstop, a plus arm,” Salermo said. “He’s more of a contact bat but he’ll stay up the middle.”
Salermo is also excited about Carlos Gutierrez, a center fielder from Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua, whose standout attributes are his range and defensive instincts. Gutierrez and Jorge Ramirez, a catcher from Ensenada, are the Giants’ first signees from Mexico in several years. Because the Giants don’t have an area scout in Mexico, their efforts were collaborative. International cross checker Charlie Sullivan wrote up an intriguing report after noticing Gutierrez at the Edgar Gonzalez academy in Tijuana and the Giants kept following up on him. When Gutierrez joined Mexico’s under-18 team and performed well against better pitching in a summer tournament in Sarasota, Fla., they offered him a $35,000 bonus.
Gutierrez has a chance to be “a steal” for that amount of money, Salermo said.
Here’s the Giants full international signing class. Arias got the biggest bonus ($2.8 million, per @JesseSanchezMLB) pic.twitter.com/k3q8EOt7Nc
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) January 16, 2023
(Top photo from left to right — Joe Salermo, Rayner Arias, Felix Peguero: Courtesy of the San Francisco Giants)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k2lwcWtiaXxzfJFsZmlpX2aDcLPImqWtq11nfXN%2FjKKlrZ2io661tc6nmKVlo560r7XNoKpo