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One of my favorite activities in preparation for pitchers and catchers reporting? Browsing the media guide for new and heretofore unrecognized names of international players, many of which will hopefully be silly. Past gems have included such top prospects as Westlonder Marcelino and Jetsy Extrano, both of whom aspire to be, perhaps if everything breaks right for them, the next Arquimedez Pozo.
On that note, the media guide is now available, props to InsideThePark vet Jason Churchill on making it available, and so I’ve gotten into the mid-February spirit by going through the time-honored ritual. This will not include the group I reported earlier at USSMariner, so we’re only going over the new guys, who are above average, by and large, please welcome…
LHP Leonel Cortorreal, a 6’5 Dominican lefty signed more than a year ago(?) who combines the first name of a door-to-door salesman or bumbling attorney with a last name that sounds like either something that happens in the upper atmosphere or a surgical maneuver involving a corkscrew.
C Ricardo Gonzalez, a Venezuelan with the blandest name of the season.
RHP Yeuri Gonzalez, who sounds slightly more exotic via the bastardization of Russian.
IF Jose Kalbakgi, a big kid who played with the parallel league squad in the offseason and whose last name sounds like an eastern European food dish or the sound you make when you get punched in the gut hard enough to vomit.
LHP Wander Marte, a southpaw from Boca Chica who I can only hope walks everyone.
OF Raysheron Michel, from Curacao!, and Engle signing whose first name I will really struggle to spell (it took me a few tries to stop typing Rayershon).
RHP Osmer Morales, who has a first name (surprisingly!) rooted in Anglo-Saxon tradition but no longer common in English speaking cultures (I have met an Osmer, and he was from Brazil).
RHP Jochi Ogando, another 6’5 Dominican pitcher, whose name will bring a smile no matter how you pronounce it.
C-OF Carlos Posso, a Colombian!, and one of the rare multi-position listings.
RHP Kevin Quintanilla, a Salvadoran whose signing was reported while I was on a plane or something.
And RHP Dylan Unsworth, whose nickname is “Sharkie”, and whom I will refer to as Sharkie as often as possible.
Among other interesting notes within the system were that Kalian Sams was out with a hamate injury, Nolan Gallagher finally had Tommy John, Joe White is on the restricted list (rarely a good sign), and Yubing Jia and Wei Wang, the two Chinese prospects signed forever ago, are still in system and still have not yet played. I’m beginning to lose faith that they’ll ever show, but if they do, and show well, well at least they’d have a fourth option year?
It’s worthwhile now to chat a bit about some of these mystery [young] men emerging from the mob to join the system. I’ll start out with Unsworth and work back. Yes, his nickname really is Sharkie. He’s a right-hander, seventeen, from South Africa, been in various U-18 and U-16 tourneys, and was at the European Academy this past season. He was also on the WBC tournament for the national team last year. I haven’t managed to find any video of him, so if anyone had any insights as to what he throws from that, let me know.
The Lookout Landing crew covered Quintanilla, so I’ll move on to Posso, who was a big deal in his native Colombia. Teams were following him for a number of years before he signed and the Mariners were right there with them. Curtis Wallace made the signing, as he has with basically every Colombian signing for a while now. There are other details thrown out there too, like he can hit for decent power, is active behind the plate, and runs well. I’d be inclined to think they’d keep him on catcher until they have to move him, but if he has wheels as opposed to being a smart runner, they may try him elsewhere.
Ogando was expected to get the number twelve bonus as projected by Baseball America coming into this year’s signing period. He’s a big kid who throws hard, and those are his strong suits. Everything else is a work in progress, and I mean everything. You can safely say he’s a big deal, but by standards of Dominican prospects only, which means there’s a good chance of him never doing anything special or getting physical talent into skills.
As for Morales, I’ve got nothing, nor do I have much on Michel aside from his playing on a few national teams, nor Marte, nor either Gonzalez, or even Cortorreal. All I have on Kalbakgi is that he hit .226/.385/.355 in 31 ABs in the parallel league in the winter, while running a less than impressive 13/4 K/BB. A sizable part of his OBP came from leaning into pitches.
That about covers it, but any other interesting details, or lack of details (mistakes in Unsworth’s profile), feel free to note them.
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