Breaking Down the SF Giants 2025 International Signing Class

[@tomdolan9761]

This is a year we could see Rayner Arias and Diego Velasquez start really showing up in the system as real prospects

[@EYDShow]

Arias is a guy that I can see really getting national attention and rapidly climbing up top 100 lists. Velasquez is a guy that I feel is always going to be one of those “underrated” guys. But I do think he’ll climb into the Giants top 10 this season.

[@GrandAdmiralPosey]

I sure hope so.

[@GregHammer-f6n]

Great signing...we signed "The Jesus!" 😂 Also, CALL IN SHOW, Cody!

[@GeorgeKhoury-ss7js]

Great video Cody. I’m excited about the upside of this international class. Giants did a great job signing this class.

[@fionalove4827]

Great video Cody!

[@joshrobinson5616]

💪 Go Giants!

[@JaybeeAU]

Giants didn't stuff about this time. Great video Cody.

[@tomdolan9761]

Carlos Martinez out of Venezuela is the catcher. They also signed a couple of RHP from Columbia Jose Gonzalez and Yesid Mendoza

[@EYDShow]

Appreciate it! I drew a blank on the name and found it after I recorded 🤣

[@49ermediapodcast]

Call in show would be dope

[@arsononemwv]

Yes call in!

[@moneymarty1]

Winn with the Cards has everybody beat at short as far as arm strength. Dude chucks it.

[@EYDShow]

Dude has a cannon for sure

[@thesalvatinarmycaptainkim]

Giants are probably about 3-4years away from being competitive. Just hang in there Giants fans.

[@EYDShow]

They’ll likely play competitive baseball, but I’d agree they’re probably 3-4 years away from being true contenders. Things go right in 2025 they may have an opportunity to take a huge leap in 2026.

[@JES408]

Lol that's untrue

[@jwerdy5179]

Tell me you don't know baseball without telling me you don't know baseball. The Detroit Tigers were projected to win like 60 games last season. And we see wildcards win the world series all the time

[@EYDShow]

@@jwerdy5179 yeah an objectively worse roster won 80 games last season. I don’t see this team being uncompetitive. Very well might not be enough to make the playoffs but they aren’t going to be terrible IMO

[@jwerdy5179]

@EYDShow Exactly. This years roster might be better than last year. Anything can happen

[@DeeeeDrawwwwsss93]

I look forward to seeing these kids develop and work their way up. Djean Macares is very intriguing to me. I hope he can get a bit more in the power department and that way he can standout more. This class has a chance to be really good. Hope it shakes out well

[@EYDShow]

I really think it can have a similar impact to the 2018 class. Hopefully with more MLB impact but that class did produce two extremely valuable prospects at one point.

[@capnralls]

How are international players chosen? Is there a draft? Where can I find info on the process?

[@EYDShow]

For the international market it is a free agency. Many teams are scouting and recruiting these players when they are 13-14 years old and have handshake agreements in place well beforehand. Players can sign at 16-17 years old. Teams are limited to a specific pool of money from which they can spend without going over. The amount a team has to spend is determined by a variety of factors such has if they were a revenue sharing team, payed the competitive balance tax, signed players with qualifying offers attached etc. Money can’t roll over from one signing period to the next. Once a signing period begins (ex. 2025’s began today) teams are able to trade for more money in their pool. They can trade for up to 60% of their original pool amount. We saw this today where SF flipped Sabol and Kempner in separate trades and got $250k back for each player. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, but I believe much of this info is available on the mlb.com site. If you have any other questions I can try to answer them the best I can. I’m not an expert, just someone that spends way too much time looking at this stuff 🤣

[@tomdolan9761]

The Giants top international prospect for 2026 is Luis Hernández a 15 year old power bat from Venezuela

[@EYDShow]

Yessir! Super advanced prospect as well. Has been playing in their professional league which is very impressive. Have read he’s more likely to stick at 2B down the road though.

[@tomdolan9761]

@ He"s 15 so I'd expect a growth spirt. I like that right handed swing...and I like him thinking orange and black at an early age.

[@GrandAdmiralPosey]

Any videos on him? I haven’t been able to find any

[@EYDShow]

@@GrandAdmiralPosey if you’re on X message me and I can forward a few things I’ve seen posted in the past. Not much out there though unfortunately

[@nickbovi]

If Josuar is advanced as he is touted to be, if would be cool to see him start in San Jose, if you look at both Soto and Acuna they both started a rookie ball(low A), and moved through the system quickly(obviously given their great talents). Would really love to see one of our guys rocket through the system and get to the majors quickly. We haven't really had a homegrown guy do that really ever, not counting college guys like Buster or Thrill.

[@EYDShow]

Even Acuña didn’t see full season ball until he was 18 though, so I just don’t see Gonzales hitting SJ until 2026 at the earliest. It’s like I said though, only way he shoots through so fast that he makes it at 19-20 is if he’s a generational prospect, which I just don’t go out and predict that for guys.

[@lawrencemesta1426]

Call in!!!! Damn dunno if KZbin would like my opinion

[@tomdolan9761]

Another guy we should be in on next year if he's posted is Korean MVP Doyeaong Kim, a 21 year old third baseman. If he does anything like he did in 2024 he's going to be highly coveted so let's be in the conversation early

[@EYDShow]

I don’t know when he is going to choose to post. Some rumors out there that he’s going to wait til he’s 25 like Lee so he doesn’t have to be limited to a rookie deal.

[@tomdolan9761]

My point is let's establish the connection early so that by the time he posts he sees himself in orange and black.

[@tomdolan9761]

Since the generally are pursuing these guys when they're thirteen or fourteen I wonder who they're targeting in 2026 and 2027?

[@tc3070]

Did you happen to catch Posey's interview with KNBR yesterday? Question was asked what he thought of trading as a tool to obtain major league talent to improve the club and his answer was to me a bit alarming. He stated clubs are unwilling to trade their minor league talent because they don't want to have egg on their face if that talent excels with an other club. He seemed to agree with that philosophy I get the concern but I would like him to have a more open mind about that issue.

[@EYDShow]

Yeah I took it as more there are certain players they will be unwilling to move. If I recall correctly they kind of tied that question into talking about Bryce Eldridge and I know he was pretty adamant that they don’t want to trade him.

[@GrandAdmiralPosey]

Side note, I wish the ABC islands would gain independence in the WBC. Curacao tried. Same with the Bahamas from this so called “Great Britain”

[@paulbegley1464]

Well I sure the Giants get at least the top player. I really don't want to wear a bag over my head when wearing my Giants cap 😢

[@SanFranFan30]

Apparently we traded away Blake Sabol for IFA money I wonder what's going on there.

[@EYDShow]

They also traded William Kempner to MIA for more money. They received $250k for each player. Entirely possibly they try to get someone else but from the sounds of it a few teams tried to pry Josuar De Jesus away and SF bumped up his signing bonus from the expected $2.5M to $3M. So the $500k from those trades seems to have gone there best I can tell.

[@SanFranFan30]

@@EYDShow The Giants started out with just over 5.1 million in IFA pool money, Josuar+Djean+Yulian add up to ~5 million and they got that catcher for a rumored 50k so I think they would now have ~550k left over, I wonder who's out there they could get.

[@SanFranFan30]

@@EYDShow Also I know you've been talking up Josuar's arm on your show but I'm seeing mixed ratings on his arm as MLB Pipeline has him at a 55 grade arm.

[@EYDShow]

I think it was on BA that they said he “could have a 70 grade arm”. I know Ricky and I both saw it on one of the sites. It very well may be a projection and the 55 grade is where it is today. As for who they signed the overall list of signees was ~15 people. So the other 11 likely ate up the rest of the bonus pool.

[@SanFranFan30]

@@EYDShow any IFAs signed for under 10k don't count against the bonus pool and since most of those guys they signed were complete unknowns with no bonus number attached (beyond that catcher Carlos Martinez who got 50k) I would assume that the other 11 dude mostly got sub-10k deals. Maybe some of the leftover 500k got used but I find that to be unlikely.

[@GrandAdmiralPosey]

So they add 500k. Wonder which other kids they’ll get with it.

[@EYDShow]

Some rumors that other teams tried to snag Gonzales so the trades were to increase his signing bonus. Would line up with the math since his initial reported bonus was $2.5M and he ended up signing for $3M