Much has been made of the Cardinals’ efforts over the last several months to grow their player development side and infuse it with young, exciting, high-upside talent. One of the men in charge of contributing to that process is Cardinals Assistant General Manager and Head of Player Development Moises Rodriguez. Along with Tyler Gettinger, who writes for CardinalsProspects.com and operates under the online name Redbird Farmhands on all of his social media platforms, we had the privilege of sitting down with the point man when it comes to International scouting. In his time with the St. Louis Cardinals, Rodriguez has helped identify and sign names like Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, the late Oscar Taveras, and current Cardinals C/DH Ivan Herrera and Leo Bernal.
Third-party evaluators like MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and others have started to rank some of the Cardinals’ ascending International talent, including top prospect Rainiel Rodriguez, Yairo Padilla, Emmanuel Luna, Sebastian Dos Santos, Miguel Hernandez, Xavier Cruz, Branneli Franco, and many more. Thus, getting valuable insight into what the team is doing on the international side, in order to help further expedite the Cardinals return to MLB relevance, felt very important to obtain the opportunity to highlight an under-discussed element and bring you all this conversation.
00:00 Introduction to the Viva El Birdo’s Podcast
00:12 Meet the Hosts
00:23 Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
01:42 The Evolution of International Scouting
04:39 Identifying and Acquiring Top Talent
08:37 Differences Between International and Domestic Scouting
11:33 The Debate on International Draft
14:36 Incorporating Biomechanics in Talent Evaluation
17:25 Leadership Changes and Their Impact
20:40 Evaluating Player Adaptability and Makeup
23:15 Investment in the Asian Market
27:25 Navigating Free Agency and Scouting Challenges
28:42 Success in Caribbean Scouting
33:16 Emerging Talents in the Cardinals System
40:09 Evaluating International Pitching Prospects
44:28 The Rise of Emmanuel Luna
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Transcript:
Jake Wood (00:23)
Welcome to the Viva El Birdos podcast. My name is Jake Wood, and I write for Viva El Birdos.com. I am the host of the show, and I am joined by special guest host Tyler Gettinger, also known as Redbird Farmhands on all of his socials. Tyler, thanks for hopping on and helping me out today.
Tyler Gettinger (00:40)
Yep. Glad to be here.
Jake Wood (00:42)
Please be sure to like and subscribe to our channel. We are available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all of your favorite audio streaming platforms. Just a quick side note: if you or someone you know is interested in becoming a sponsor of the show, please be sure to reach out to me via social media. We would love to begin a partnership with anyone interested in sponsoring the show. The Cardinals Minor League system has a major up arrow next to its name, and there are several areas of talent flowing into the organization. Thanks in part to our guest of today’s show, Cardinals Assistant General Manager and Head of International Scouting, Moises Rodriguez.
Moises, thank you so much for the time today. We really appreciate you hopping on and talking some Cardinals baseball with us.
Moises (01:42)
Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Jake and Tyler. Appreciate you guys having me here, and yeah, looking forward to talking some international scouting with you guys.
Jake Wood (01:50)
You know, you came to the Cardinals in two thousand seven, and you know, you’re closing in on twenty years with the St. Louis organization. You’ve been a part of identifying and signing names like Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, current Cardinal Ivan Herrera, you know, and even the late Oscar Taveras. You know, are there any talents that you have brought in over the last couple of years of international cycles that kind of remind you of some of those guys that were listed previously?
Moises (02:19)
Yeah, that’s always tough, right? That’s a pretty high bar. Some of those names that you mentioned, our scouts at the time identified some unbelievable talent in some of those names that you mentioned. But, you know, we are now in a part of the cycle where we feel we’re restocking; we’re getting back to producing impact players, and some of these guys that you’re starting to see at the upper levels, some that are reaching the big leagues now, kind of remind me of that wave of success that we had early on and even in the mid 2010s. Guys like Rainiel, Bernal, a lot of the names that you guys know. Some guys in the pipeline are really low levels that maybe haven’t, you know, performed, but we like some guys in the DSL as low as that level that we’re really excited about. So yeah, really feel that what we have in the pipeline now resembles a lot of the early success that we had here, you know, in the late two thousands and mid two thousand tens.
Tyler Gettinger (03:16)
Moises, you’ve been in the org since two thousand and like seven, right? So like, how has international scouting overall just changed since you entered the org to where it is at this point?
Moises (03:25)
Yeah, it’s a great question. I’d say the most nota noticeable difference in the industry is just how many teams are competing, how many teams have built out their departments; everybody’s got a robust, you know, staff operation. When I started in 2007, I’d say maybe there were a handful of teams that were like super, super active. You know, you fast forward nineteen years later, everybody’s got scouts in every country. Everybody’s got a Dominican Republic Academy where guys are placed as soon as they’re acquired. Everybody’s got technical assist tech assistants; everybody’s got video people; everybody’s got analysts. It just feels like everybody’s competing because the international arena is one you can’t ignore if you want to have a really thriving organization. So I would just say the amount of competition, the amount of structure, the amount of attention that is now being paid to the international side is something very prominent and something that we need to, you know, not only keep up with, but build upon, innovate, and try to be the best at.
Jake Wood (04:39)
You know, last spring training there kinda began a buzz about two international prospects that, you know, Baseball America, as just one third-party outlet, identified as, you know, these guys to watch out for. Those, of course, were like the aforementioned Raniel Rodriguez and another kid named Yairo Padilla. You know, obviously, you fast forward about twenty-four months later and Rodriguez is now near a consensus top-ten prospect in the sport, you know, and Padilla, when he was able to stay on the field, flashed some of those raw tools that had evaluators excited. You know, what did you guys see in the Cardinals system that, you know, screamed, you know, gotta have these guys?
Moises (05:16)
Well, I’m assuming you’re talking about the acquisition process. So, you know,
Jake Wood (05:19)
Correct, yes.
Moises (05:20)
Rainel was an i Rainell was an interesting story. He was going to a high school in Pennsylvania in the spring of his sophomore season. He decided, you know what, I want to try something else. He had a contact in the Dominican Republic and left Pennsylvania. So when he got to the Dominican Republic, where we scouted him and completed our evaluation, he was a little bit of an unknown, right? Like we had reached out to some of our Northeast scouts, and just because some of the things that he was doing when we invited him to our tryouts were freakish, right? He was hitting the ball hard. It wasn’t just pull-side hitting the ball in the air, just doing damage, and you know, it was a little short, a little out of shape. You know, the offense and the bat were definitely ahead of his defense. But, you know, again, just sort of unknown on the circuit. We really had a solid relationship with his agent. kept seeing him, kept not believing what we were seeing with our eyes as far as, like, how hard he was hitting, hitting the ball, performance, and you know, we got to a point where we needed to ignore the profile ’cause I think sometimes you get a little too hung up on, you know, how good of a defender is gonna be. And we’ve learned from some prior mistakes, you know, looking at players through that lens a little too much. So we’re right now, it was just a special bat from the beginning, and you know, every time he’d do something, we’d look around as though to say, Hey, did you see that? And fortunately, you know, we hammered something out with the agent and got it done. As far as Padilla, Padilla’s a really good P D success story. When we did see him, he was projectable; he was a premium position, you know, shortstop that can defend, had really good hands. You could tell he was gonna stick at the position, really balanced from both sides of the plate, really liked that. Not a ton of impact in his swing, but made a ton of contact. Always put the ball in play, was a little bit on his front foot, was a little weak, but just kind of like oozed projection, and you know, really speed was a big part of his game. So just a really interesting package that you could dream on. And you know, once we got him into the system, he put on some strength. He’s battled some injuries as of late, as you mentioned, but you know, this year he’s starting hitting the ball a lot harder. He’s always made contact. He’s, you know, borderline reckless on the bases. He just plays really hard. It’s not a knock. That’s actually a compliment. Love the way he competes, and you know, still a lot of still a lot of upside there, and somebody that we should really hone in on because if he puts together a healthy season, the sky’s the limit for him.
Tyler Gettinger (08:17)
Yeah. Moises, when looking at, like, international scouting, especially when compared to its domestic counterpart, you know, obviously domestically you’re scouting mostly like college kids, maybe some high schoolers, but you have like the perfect game events and obviously the college season. But internationally, with the signing period and just how the academies work, how is that different from, you know, the domestic draft counterpart?
Moises (08:37)
Well, it’s huge. Fundamentally, obviously, on the international side, it’s free agency, and the draft is, you know, a selection process, right? So huge differences on the free agency side. In theory, you can agree with a ten-year-old, right? As long as you secure a verbal commitment in the draft, you’re not always gonna get the guy that you love, that you scout, that you’re all in on because you’ve got to wait your turn. So that’s the exciting part on the international side: as long as you’ve got your process complete, in theory you can reach a verbal agreement with anyone. The huge difference is the youth baseball infrastructure; obviously here in the draft you’ve got high school, you’ve got college, you’ve got, you know, much more organized like youth baseball like entities. In a lot of these countries, you don’t have high school baseball. In fact, in the majority of where we scout, there isn’t high school baseball. So you’re very dependent on trainers. A lot of these inde independent, Buscon- that’s a term that you’ve heard a lot- academies. So we count a lot on those relationships, access to players, and that’s really what drives our strategy is like accessing the best players, and the way that you do that is being really tapped in. Our scouts gotta have networks, you gotta maintain relationships, and you know, at the end of the day you’ve gotta close deals, right? So that’s the exciting part about it: you go out, you see a player you like, and you’ve gotta be responsible; you’ve gotta check the boxes, make sure your evaluation is complete, within what you’re doing internally, within your systems. But that’s the biggest difference. It’s just free agency versus draft, and you know that’s the thrill of it, that at any time you could show up, come across a player that’s eligible and shake his hand and hope it materializes, you know, two years later. And that’s also a dynamic that’s very unique to the international space: you not only have to, you know, reach an agreement, shake hands with the trainer, the family, the player, but you’ve got to be able to see that commitment through the day that they’re actually eligible to sign, right? So it’s a very complex process. You shake hands, yes, we’ve got a deal in place, but you’ve also got a window between that deal and the time they sign, they put ink to paper, where you’ve got to take advantage of development time. You’ve got to make sure that other teams aren’t trying to jump in there and offer more money. So that’s where the relationship part comes in. You’ve got to have really sound relationships. So when you shake hands with a player, with an agent, it stays in place.
Jake Wood (11:33)
No, and I don’t want to ask you directly about the CBA because obviously that’s just a little bit above you, right? But you know, one of the topics that frequently is talked about when negotiations are present is the idea of an international draft. And, you know, kind of on the topic of what you were talking about, is that a concept for you specifically that you would support? Obviously, you know, kind of like you mentioned, we see stories from around the league being talked about where some Latin-born players are agreeing to pre-arrange deals at like 12, 13 years old. You even mentioned as low as 10. You know, some around the industry raise the question of the morality in doing so; you know, would this be a responsible step on behalf of Major League Baseball and curtailing some of those issues altogether?
Moises (12:15)
Yeah, so the international draft topic has been around since my MLB days over twenty years ago. It seems to come up in every CBA negotiation. As far as our position on it, yes. I think we’d love to have a more structured system so you’re not out scouting an age range between twelve and eighteen. I mean, that puts a lot of pressure on, and by the way, all teams are dealing with this pressure, right? Everybody’s competing, as I mentioned earlier. But it puts you in a position without a draft where you’re hurrying, you’re rushing to scoop up sort of quote-unquote whatever talent is left. And it just accelerates the evaluation process to the point where you’re scouting twelve-year-olds. So I do think it’d be healthy for our industry to have a draft, where it ends up obviously above my pay grade, as you said. But I think it would be beneficial. I think internally we’ve been preparing for that scenario, just by the way we operate, how we go about reporting evaluations or scouting formats. I think a lot of the tools that we’re using, a lot of the ball tracking, data points that we’re incorporating. A lot of that we’ve been preparing for a couple of years, even I think during the last negotiation five years ago. But I do think it’d be healthy. I look at it; it used to be that if you reached a verbal deal with a player one year before July second, when July second was the signing eligibility day, that was considered early. And now again we’re seeing that four years before. And when you think about high-risk category, for example, in the draft, we talk about how the high school pitching demographic is such high risk. Well, put that into context with what we’re doing, right? Which is even way riskier. You add on attrition rates, and it’s just like it’s a very difficult thing that we do as an industry. So yeah, to answer your question, I think a lot of people would support it. I don’t think anybody enjoys getting up at three in the morning to go scout a thirteen-year-old. And as responsible as you wanna be, we’re gonna make mistakes. Again, not just the Cardinals, but as an industry, and I think we just wanna be in a position where we’re scouting guys that are closer to maturity than we are now to make better decisions.
Tyler Gettinger (14:46)
So you guys brought in Jacob Buffa this last off-season to be part of the international group, and and I at the time I thought that was an interesting h hire because he’s big into the sports science and biomechanics of it all. And can you speak to Jacob specifically or just as a whole, like how does biomechanics play into evaluating, you know, such young talent, you know, teenage talent since, you know, they are far away and there is a lot of projectability there?
Moises (15:09)
Yeah, that’s an evolving area. That’s a good point that you’ve noticed. So the one thing I would say is when Chaim came in we just wanted to make sure that in every acquisition area we were leveraging all our areas of expertise, be it player development, by way of, like, coaching assessments when we’re looking at some of these players, incorporating that. On the performance science, you know, we call it performance internally, physical assessments, like leveraging the expertise of people that we have in-house that can assess physical traits of some of these players. Jacob does have that background, which is beneficial; it’s super valuable. So that’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely an edge; it’s definitely something that we’re using to make decisions. And look, we need to be ahead of the game. And, you know, Chaim is always challenging us with, you know, what could we do to be better? And bringing people in like Jacob with different perspectives and combining him with our scouts that have had success here for many years, just kind of meshing that in addition to a lot of these new tools that we’re incorporating into our decision-making, it’s only gonna make us better. But yeah, the physical assessment part is something that is evolving. We are using it to, you know, within our evaluations, whether it’s getting guys on force plates, whether it’s movement screens, and just trying to, like, more objectively, you know, document a lot of these physical traits and trying to learn how those, you know, traits age over time, right? Like we’re just learning how to gauge a lot of these traits, these physical characteristics in fourteen- to fifteen-year-olds, and like what happens four years down the line? Like what you measured at fourteen, fifteen, is that something that’s gonna age out in a certain way, whether it’s twitch, whether it’s a strength profile. So again, an evolving area, and it’s something that we’re spending a lot of time trying to get a better handle on.
Jake Wood (17:26)
You know, obviously, so you came into the organization around two thousand seven, which was right around the same time that John Mozeliak took over as, you know, general manager, then elevated to president of baseball operations, and now Chaim came in in twenty twenty four. Can you kind of talk about how, like, not only has your or at least your element of the organization changed since Chaim, you know, transitioned and took, you know, point to kind of what it was like under John Mozeliak, because like you had mentioned, you know, in the mid twenty tens the international team was having a lot of of success and, you know, I don’t I think there was still a relatively steady stream of international talent coming into the organization, but clearly it’s not on the same level of what it is right now that w that we’re kind of seeing and that obviously that’s a credit and a testament to the work that, you know, your team is doing. But just kinda, can you kind of talk about the differences under the two different leadership structures?
Moises (18:24)
Yeah, it’s a good question. I would say, you know, a lot of what we’re seeing now, part of it is a result of some initiatives and some things that we’re implementing around two thousand twenty-two, two thousand twenty-three, where we started using more tools a pr as part of our evaluation process. And sometimes, you know, these things are in the pipeline. You put these things into practice, and it takes a little bit to get some results. So I would say we started adding a lot of these new methods and incorporating more of that around two thousand twenty-three. We had some internal staff restructuring at the leadership level, at the country level, on the technical level, that kind of got us moving forward in a more positive direction around two thousand twenty-three. But you know, time would tell. Look, Chaim has a lot of experience. He’s been with two organizations that were very strong internationally. Chaim was very present with Tampa when they were super successful in Venezuela. So he’s very familiar with the international space. He’s very supportive, and you know we have a solid foundation to build on that we’ve, you know, had here. You know, we’ve had dry spells, no question about it. But I think what we’ve seen from Mr. DeWitt and our ownership group throughout the years is that they’re willing to spend in this area, and you know we keep heading in a very positive direction. But yeah, I would say, like, around two thousand twenty-three just started incorporating a lot more data. We started, you know, subscribing to more, like, ball track packages outside of the academy, right? Because at the academy we’ve got all the tools in the world, but you can’t get in, you know, 13, 14-year-olds at that age. So you’re scouting these guys outside of your environment. You know, what tools can you take a look at and use to, you know, fine-tune those evaluations. So definitely heading in a great direction, a lot of analysis, using a lot of our areas of expertise to get better. And at the end of the day, look, we’re doing this with fifteen- to sixteen-year-old kids. We’re gonna make a lot of mistakes as an industry, and our goal is really to, you know, in some ways make fewer mistakes than our competitors.
Tyler Gettinger (20:54)
Yeah. I’ve always thought like these Dominican and Venezuelan kids, you know, they have one of the hardest jobs to do, which is moving from the Dominican Republic Academy to stateside. So how can you guys, like, evaluate makeup, and is there any way to, like, evaluate whether this, you know, a certain player might make it that transition smoothly or if they have the personality to ad adapt to, you know, li living a thousand miles away from, you know, where they’re originally from?
Moises (21:17)
Well, that’s where Academy comes in, right? A lot of times you’re agreeing with these guys at fourteen, fifteen years old. You may have access to the player a year before they, like, report to the academy to be there on an everyday basis, and be under contract. So the process of acclimation, the process of what it takes to be a pro starts very early on. So a lot of that work, as soon as you shake hands with the agent, there’s an agreement in place; you start that process. And Joseph Cesado, who’s our assistant director of international operations, is very locked in from the time we shake hands with these players. Okay, where are these guys educational-wise? Where are these guys instruction-wise? I mean, those are all assessments that take place right away. And wherever those guys need support, we implement it immediately. And once they get to the academy, a lot of times you’ll have these guys in the academy one or two years before they travel. And for those not familiar with the academy, it’s a mini campus. These guys live there; they’ve got dormitories, they’ve got their classrooms, they’ve got obviously all their baseball facilities and spaces, they’ve got a training room, they’ve got a weight room, they’ve got admin spaces. So those guys, pretty much for a year, year and a half before they travel to the US, are just being poured into by our support staff. And by the time they jump on a plane, you know, we want to make sure they’re comfortable enough. And there’s nothing like landing in the US, living a new culture. You can only prepare them so much for it, but at least by the time they land, they’re in a better position to succeed. And hopefully you’ve taken away some of the anxieties that you know a normal human being has. For example, I travel to Asia, and you know, I’ve been around for a while; I’m an educated person, I’m bilingual, and I’ll go to Asia, and not being able to speak Japanese or Taiwanese, it’s very intimidating. I mean, so, you know, our job is to put these guys in the best position possible so they can focus on their on-field progress, their on-field development, and the more support staff you’ve got in-house specializing in those areas, the better job you’re gonna do with that.
Jake Wood (23:44)
You know, you brought up the internal or the Asian market. And I apologize. I kinda screamed there for a second. Just ’cause I’m so excited about this topic. The international side specifically, you know, Matt Slater was someone who was in charge of kind of the Asian side of things for a long time, and obviously he left the organization a couple of years ago. And so now that we’re seeing not specifically Shohei Ohtani, but a lot of these likely high-impact Asian players coming over, kinda like like Murakami, like Kazuma Okamoto, like all of these different names that are coming over from the Asian market. And obviously there’s some young asian players who may be available this offseason as well that a lot of Cardinals fans are very interested in. You know, what would you say is the level of investment the Cardinals have in the Asian market currently? And I think a lot of Cardinals fans would be curious to know about, like, just, I guess, the direction of that because obviously we haven’t had, I believe, a Japanese player since, like, KK back in, like twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. So, like, you know, w where where does the status of the Cardinals’ investment might be the wrong word, but you know, involvement in the Asian market stand today?
Moises (25:04)
Wow, KK, that’s a good name. I think he started game one of our playoff series against the Padres, if I’m not mistaken, in two thousand twenty, two thousand twenty-one. So
Jake Wood (25:12)
Yep. I believe so. I think that’s correct, yeah.
Moises (25:14)
Good success story there. Yeah, broad topic. The one thing I would say is we’ve got two areas in Asia, right? You’ve got your pro market, which is pretty much major league free agency if you want to look at it and simplify it that way. And then you’ve got your amateur market. The latter is a lot harder to tap into because a lot of these young amateur players have a professional league in their country, whether it’s the NPB, whether it’s actually college underneath the NPB, right? So a lot of these amateur players that are just as talented, maybe more talented than some of the guys on this side of the world, they’ve got options, right? There are protocol agreements; it’s very hard to pry them away; it’s very difficult. Even for some of the teams that have had like longstanding relationships and and successes in Asia, getting a lot of these amateur players is very difficult. So that’s not a broad population of players. That said, over the last few years, you know, we do have a scout in Japan that monitors both the pro and the amateur space. And over the last five years, I mean, we’ve been in on a lot of the small number of amateur players that have flirted with MLB- a lot of the guys that you’re probably reading about on Twitter right now, we’ve we’ve engaged, we’ve been doing the work, and sometimes it doesn’t go our way, and sometimes those guys just stay in Japan. So a lot of work is being put behind the scenes on the amateur side. On the pro side, which is probably what a lot of our fans really are interested in. You know, you touched on a couple of success stories, KK in Korea,
Mikolas is an expat, not really a sort of true international
Jake Wood (27:01)
Right.
Moises (27:02)
story, but that was a big hit. Seunghwan Oh, a Korean guy that ended up playing in the NPB. So, you know, we’ve had some successes with moderate investments, guys that returned a whole bunch. You know, once you start getting into the Yamamotos and the Sasakis, that’s where, you know, it becomes a little challenging. We do our work, we engage agents, we send scouts there annually. I go there once a year; we’re tapped in, and at the end of the day it’s like How much do you want to pay for a free agent? What we’ve done a better job of is putting ourselves in a better position to have these conversations, but a lot of times our geography, where we are physically in the United States, doesn’t help us. But look, we’re not taking a back seat; we’re not conceding. We we we’ve got a brand; we’ve got a very historic franchise to sell. And I’ve always got the, you know, pedal to the metal, so to speak. And I never want to give in to those narratives that we can’t compete. But, you know, it does become a game of, you know, how much you want in the stomach when it comes to free agent acquisitions, and a lot of what we’ve done over the years is try to understand how the Asian performance will translate into the US. So we feel like we’re in a good position there, understanding, you know, how some of that’s gonna carry over. And, you know, again, a lot of the exercises that we do with major league free agents are what we’re doing in this market as well.
Tyler Gettinger (28:42)
Yeah, I’m gonna flip it back to the Caribbean. You guys have had really good success in both Panama and Nicaragua lately. You obviously got Kenley Hunter from Nicaragua and then Leo Bernal, Ivan Herrera, and Juan Rujano from Panama. But like, is that something you guys are actively scouting those, you know, not those top two countries of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, or are those players coming to the Dominican Republic or Venezuela and going to tryouts or going to, you know, events in those countries?
Moises (29:11)
Yeah, Panama, that story is fascinating. So when you think about where all the players in Latin America come from as far as, you know, signing on the international side, I think we counted the other day somewhere around eighty-seven percent of the signings come from two countries, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. And that’s where we spend a lot of our time. We’ve got robust operations as far as Panama, so that leaves thirteen percent for a lot of other countries, right? Including the small ones that come from Asia, but mostly Panama, Mexico, Cuba. You can’t scout in Cuba, but Cuban players are all over the place. Not sure if I mentioned Colombia. But Panama, when I was at Major League Baseball and even in my early days here with the Cardinals, fascinated me because I made a visit to Panama. I fell in love with the country; I fell in love with the youth baseball infrastructure. They’re crazy about baseball. They hold the youth tournament every January for 14- to 16-year-olds; it’s on TV, it’s carried on radio; it’s televised. It’s got a little bit of an NCAA vibe to it. And you see players playing under the lights. I was just fascinated by how s how sound the Panamanian player was, fundamentally. I’d laugh because w when I went to one of these tournaments and I saw Edmundo Sosa for the first time, and Edmundo Sosa didn’t start the game that I was scouting that day, and the shortstop was actually the coach’s son. Who was not a prospect. You know? He was just a solid player that was making plays, but you know, when you start projecting and checking the boxes that we do with Scout, he wasn’t a prospect. And Edmundo Sosa comes in in the eighth inning of the game as a defensive replacement, plays second base, and makes a crazy instinctual play. And I’m like, whoa, kind of like it opened my eyes. Then he comes to the plate, takes a great at-bat. But I saw that within a super competitive environment. Now we didn’t make a decision to sign Edmundo Sosa based on that, but that environment, the little things that I saw in that environment, led us to invite Edmundo Sosa to a tryout in the Dominican Republic. We flew him over, completed our evaluation, and the rest was history, and you know he added value, and that’s a great success story. But the other thing about Panama is I always felt when I started in this job is that it would be great to have a cross-checker live in Panama because it’s so centrally located to the rest of Latin America that I always thought that was like the ideal place to have an international cross-checker. So, you know, we ended up hiring a gentleman locally by a scout of ours who’s now our assistant director of international scouting, Damaso Espino, as a local scout there who eventually grew to be a cross-checker, and he was the guy behind Ivan Herrera’s evaluation among other people, but he was the guy that worked with Ivan and, you know, put us in a great position to sign him. The same with Bernal, the same with Rujano. So kinda I’m not gonna say fell into success. I mean we sort of designed it over the years, but you’ve got to be really fortunate. You’re competing against 29 other teams and just really fortunate to have a presence with a good employee on the ground that put us in position to sign these guys and just keep going back to the well, right? We’ve done well there
Tyler Gettinger (33:00)
Yeah.
Moises (33:01)
And you know, after Ivan it was Bernal. After Bernal it was Rujano. Rujano’s got a lot of work to do, but just a baseball crazy country with a great, you know, infrastructure that we love to scout in.
Jake Wood (33:16)
You know, I wanna kinda use the rest of our time to kind of dive into some of the players that are starting to gain a little bit of steam in the Cardinals system. So, you know, we saw other talents take some really encouraging steps forward this season, like a Miggie Hernandez and a Sebastian dos Santos. You know, what should Cardinals fans know about these two guys who have some really loud upsides to both?
Moises (33:36)
Well for so people for people who followed our system, it’s really rare to have a player go from the DSL one year to traveling for the first time to the US and playing in Low-A. That’s pretty unheard of. It’s becoming a little more common, right? Because we’ve eliminated short-season leagues, and there are a lot more tools now to assess where a guy stands in his development curve. But for those guys to go from the DSL one year to make it to Low-A playing Palm Beach, where they did this year, that’s just a huge testament to their skill set, to their development process, to their makeup. Quite frankly, Tyler talked earlier about, you know, how do you know when someone’s ready to travel? Both of these guys, like, exemplify preparation, solid makeup; they love playing baseball and, you know, obviously they’re talented. They could swing the bat. They’ve been getting stronger, which, you know, happens when you’re when you go from sixteen to your age-eighteen season; naturally, you’re gonna get stronger. You saw it in the exit velos for Dos Santos with Hernandez, and just really exciting two up the middle prospects that I think we’re gonna hear from, and I think we’re gonna get a lot of contributions from for years to come. But it’s funny because Tyler, you asked me earlier like, Hey, what do you see in this guy, or Jake, you asked me what you see in these guys when we scouted them? You know, Sebastian dos Santos w came from an academy. The academy is Cesar Izturis’ Academy. Cesar Izturis
Jake Wood (35:19)
Mm-hmm.
Moises (35:20)
was a ridiculously sound defender, you know, with the Dodgers, with the Blue Jays back in the day. At the end of his career, he was a Cardinal, right?
Jake Wood (35:27)
I was gonna say I believe he moonlighted with Saint Louis, yeah.
Moises (35:33)
So, you know, Sebastian came from that academy. What did we know about Sebastian? We knew he was getting great instruction from a former major league player that was an unbelievable in-house, clubhouse person, excuse me, and Cesar passed along unbelievable fundamental training to Dos Santos, and then when we scouted him, just a beautiful swing from both sides of the plate, very sure-handed, quality plate appearances was already, you know, barreling up the baseball and, you know, Santos just kinda ran with his opportunity. Now, when we signed him, he was sort of a boxy five-foot-eight middle infielder running a seven-two and the sixty-yard dash. And that’s probably why we were able to get him at a lower price and why these guys are on third-party lists. But again, he grew two inches, he got stronger, he took advantage of his opportunity, and here he is as one of our better, you know, prospects.
Jake Wood (36:37)
Which kind of, you know, how you described him there in the end is also just another reminder of why, like, international scouting is a little bit both an art and a science, because there’s no way to perfectly project what these guys are eventually able to become, but you know, you take these measured risks and kind of project forward what they what you think they could be.
Moises (37:00)
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I mean, there’s a ton of projection and scouting of fifteen-year-olds. Now the tricky balance on our end is, you know, how much can you dream on that projection? Because you still gotta have skill. You still gotta have talent. Everybody’s looking for it. There’s a reason why we were all over Rainel Rodriguez and Emmanuel Luna. I mean, these guys have some present tools. So there are cases where you dream a little bit, and you know, I’ll t I’ll give you an example, like Hancel Rincon. We signed Hancel Rincon, who made the big leagues this year, throwing eighty-four, eighty-five, and, you know, had a good arm. Had some athleticism, had some traits that we liked, and we dreamed on him a little bit because he was, like, lanky, 6’2, and you know, there’s other guys that show you tools right away, like Luis Gastelum. Like, he had a good changeup. Now, Gastelum also had a good body; he also threw strikes. But there are different ways. You got to identify talent, skill. But there are times where you dream on a kid, and you take a shot on some athleticism and bet on the PD, yeah.
Tyler Gettinger (38:11)
How how how difficult is it to like, evaluate international, you know, these sixteen, seventeen year old pitchers when you’re like scouting ‘Cause I I feel like we always talk about the the international bats ’cause those are the ones that kinda move quicker, but how difficult is it to like get the pitchers and, you know, dream on that projectability with them?
Moises (38:28)
Yeah, pitching and scouting fifteen, sixteen-year-olds is, as I mentioned earlier, right? Like the high school pitching demographic is like that high-risk category in the draft. Put that in perspective with what you just mentioned, right? We’re doing this with fifteen,
Tyler Gettinger (38:44)
Yeah, yeah.
Moises (38:45)
sixteen-year-old kids. So I think the industry, and you guys may have the numbers, but as an industry, I think we’re paying less and less for the fifteen-, sixteen-year-old pitcher, and we’re moving toward, you know, spending a lot more of our money on the bats, on the position players. So what do we look for to answer your question? I mean, look, a lot of common denominators, right? Some good arm action, some athleticism, good delivery. Obviously, you want guys that have a feel for the strike zone, but you know, can they spin the baseball? A lot of these breaking balls aren’t gonna be defined, but like, you know, does their arm work in a way where you could dream on them developing or fine-tuning a breaking ball even more, right? We’re doing a lot of camera work where We’re trying to identify who pronates, who supinates, and look at the high-risk category of sixteen-year-old pitchers is one we’re scared to death of, and again just try to identify some athletes, some good arm actions, guys that fill up the zone and you know, there’s savvy that you wanna identify. There’s some poise, there’s some pitchability, and a lot of the things that we look for as scouts, but you know, definitely spending a lot more time and investing a lot more resources on the bats lately.
Jake Wood (40:09)
There were a couple of arms that I, you know, I’ve read about that I wanted to ask you about. Specifically, one that Tyler talks about a lot is Xavier Cruz. And then another name who kinda came with a little bit of fanfare was Branelli Franco. You know, can you tell us a little bit about those guys? What drew your attention to the to those those talents who primarily, you know, work off the bump?
Moises (40:31)
Man, Xavier, what an arm talent. Huge fastball. I mean, night and day from when we signed him. He was a converted shortstop, and he had just gotten on the mound when we scouted him. He went to our academy and was really mechanical in his delivery. But we knew he was a shortstop. So we knew there was some athleticism in there that we could get out of him. But he’s very upright in his delivery. Showed some fastball traits that have developed even further, spun the ball, had some good separation between his fastball and his breaking ball at the time, but just super raw, just super skinny, somebody that needed to add strength to his frame and a really great story. Injuries have really gotten in the way, but I think this year for, you know, a two-month period, you saw what we dreamed of when we signed him. I mean, upper nineties, fastball, big IVB, huge break on his slider and his curveball. I mean he he spends his curveball so much. I mean, he has a hard time landing it, right? So he’s kinda pitching people or steering him a little bit more toward the slider. But a lot to love there. Obviously the injury got him there at the end, but big, big arm talent when you speak to our pitching people, you know, he’s one of the names that they highlight and put up there with the likes of a Tanner (Franklin). As far as arm talent, obviously Xavier’s got a long way to
Jake Wood (42:04)
Wow.
Moises (42:04)
go and, you know, he’s still at the lower levels but can grow into a really huge, valuable pitching piece for us.
Jake Wood (42:15)
Tyler, do you have any more questions for Moises? No? Okay.
Tyler Gettinger (42:18)
No, I was I was gonna let you
I was gonna let Moises talk on Bernelli Franco if you wanted to.
Jake Wood (42:22)
Yeah, yeah, sorry.
Moises (42:25)
Man, Franco big Huge arm. Injuries got a little bit to him a little bit in the DSL his first season and beginning of his second season. Finished that DSL season strong, got in the strike zone more with his fastball, jumped on the plane here to the US, kind of struggled mechanically earlier in the year, was missing a ton on the arm side, was working through some mechanical adjustments, but look, huge, huge Fastball comes out super easy. Our staff and Branelli have done a good job of fine-tuning his breaking ball, adding some raw spin, really working on that, but high-octane stuff. You saw him a couple of times in Palm Beach and what he could do there. And again, with a lot of these young guys that have got arm talent, it’s all about consistency, right? You look at Velo, you look at some of the swing-and-miss, it’s great. And it’s more about getting in the zone, getting to trust their stuff. Xavier Cruz, going back to him, if you look at the rate at which he’s, you know, missing bats in the zone, it’s impressive. Now we just gotta get in the zone more, and the same with Branelli. But time will tell these guys at the lower levels, and make sure the health accompanies them, and see what we got.
Tyler Gettinger (43:52)
When I was I went down to spring training earlier this year, the thing that surprised me Branelli is like he’s massive. Like, you, you, like, look at him; like, the guy’s jacked. Like like I was surprised, you know, just how big he was for you know, just in terms of strength-wise; he looked
Moises (44:07)
He’s well built. You could put him in a big league clubhouse now, or you’re like, yeah, who’s that big leaguer? I mean, physically, you’re right. He’s just strong, durable, you know, six-three and kinda what you look for from a scouting eye, and yeah, you see him, and you point to him, you’re always like, Who’s that guy?
Tyler Gettinger (44:23)
Yeah.
Jake Wood (44:28)
Well, you know, talking about guys who are well built, you know, I want to go back to a name that you kind of referred to a little bit earlier. It’s not often that you hear someone referred to as the “Dominican Aaron Judge,” right? But that’s the moniker
Moises (44:38)
Ha ha ha.
Jake Wood (44:39)
around in Emmanuel Luna, who was one of the highest-paid international signings in recent memory for St. Louis. And, you know, he’s kind of the last name I wanted to touch on before we we gros close out the show. You know, from what you were able to observe before signing him. What immediately stood out to you, probably besides his size, that your team just absolutely loved about Emmanuel Luna?
Moises (45:02)
My first reaction is raw power. I don’t think we’ve scouted a guy, or very few guys, who we’ve scouted over the years, who show the raw power that Luna showed us when we were scouting him, and it’s carried over and actually turned into game power. You know, in the DSL, and obviously hampered a little bit by some, you know, soft tissue injuries early on. But just the power. And when you combine his strike zone management, his strike zone awareness with how hard he hits the ball, and then you couple that with, you know, the premium position, power-speed profile in center field, it’s just like a really intriguing, super high upside piece. And I think I read the other day that he had the hardest-hit ball in the DSL th this year, had the highest EV on a swing, and it was actually a hard ground ball to second base, right? So this isn’t a guy that’s just running into balls, just trying to like pull pull everything. He hits it, you know, opposite-field backside as hard as anyone. And again, it’s gotta stay on the field and probably got less than fifty plate appearances between DSL and instructional league this far, but in fifty plate appearances I think he hit six or seven home runs. I mean, the power’s real. It’s there; he’s a great kid, and you know, when you talk about prospect upside, the makeup is a huge part of it and I remember the day that we signed him on January fifteenth, he pulled me over to the side, and he said, “Look, I’m not gonna disappoint you. You’re giving me a lot of money. I’m not gonna disappoint this organization. You’ll see.” And I was just like blown away by
Jake Wood (46:54)
Wow.
Moises (46:55)
You know, those words by a sixteen-year-old. And, you know, it wasn’t eyewash; it was very genuine, and just a very driven kid from a great family wants to be great, and it’s interesting because he came from the same academy. That Jasson Dominguez came from and Samuel Basallo came from. And you know, this goes back to my earlier comment on, you know, having strong relationships with agents. Like we were in on Jasson Dominguez; didn’t win that, but you know, maybe that pursuit showed the agent that, look, these guys are serious and you know, put us in a good position to sign Luna years after, right? So just a great talent, hoping he can have a healthy two thousand twenty seven. He’s gonna be promoted, you know, next year, and yes a a name we definitely should keep an eye on and track.
Jake Wood (47:53)
So your expectation is that he will come stateside starting next year?
Moises (47:57)
He will. That decision has been made, and he’ll travel to the US in two thousand twenty-seven, and we’ll see him in spring training, and you know, a lot of times players tell us as to where he’s gonna play. They’ll tell us, but he’ll report to Jupiter and we’ll take it from there.
Jake Wood (48:12)
Very exciting.
Moises, I cannot thank you enough for taking some time out of your busy day to speak with us and, you know, shed some light on one of the more under-talked-about elements of the Cardinals’ talent acquisition side, at least, you know, from a media standpoint, of the farm system. So it continues to grow, it continues to improve, and, you know you’re in your team’s role is providing more high quality talent to it, and we we’re just so thankful again for you to take the time out to speak with us today.
Moises (48:38)
Yeah, I love chatting with you guys, and any time you guys want to talk international scouting, let me know.
Jake Wood (48:43)
Appreciate it. Tyler, thanks for stepping in and helping me out today, man. Obviously, you have your sources in the international scene and follow along with these guys as closely as you do. There’s nobody I could have thought of to help me with this conversation today. So thank you for your time as well.
Tyler Gettinger (48:56)
Thank you, Jake, and thank you, Moises, for hopping on with us.
Moises (48:59)
Yeah, good job, fellas. Appreciate the support. Take care.
Jake Wood (49:01)
absolutely.
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Viva El Birdos Podcast. Don’t forget to rate, review, and hit that subscribe button and notified every Monday morning for a new episode like this one. For Tyler Gettinger and Cardinals Assistant General Manager Moises Rodriguez, my name is Jake Wood, and we’ll talk to you all next week and bring you more great Cardinals content. Have a great day, St. Louis, and let’s go cards.
-Thanks for reading
