Yankees Dominican Summer League Rosters

by: Ben Embry

The Dominican Summer League starts today.  Like previous years, the Yankees will be fielding two teams.  As you'll recall, New York invested over $30 million in several international free agents, (IFA for short), last July in an unprecedented spending spree.   By most accounts, New York signed 10 of the top 30 IFA, including highly touted prospects SS/3B Dermis Garcia, CF/RF Juan de Leon, and 3B Nelson Gomez.  Of the 10 elite prospects signed, all but Dermis Garcia and 18 year old Korean SS Hy-Joon Park are starting their summers in the Dominican, (see the rosters here: DSL Yankees 1 and DSL Yankees 2).  Here are the main prospects:

DSL Yankees 1
SS Diego Castillo
SS Wilkerman Garcia
3B Nelson Gomez

DSL Yankees 2
C Miguel Flames
RF Jonathan Amundaray
CF Antonio Arias
CF/RF Juan de Leon
RF/LF Brayan Emery

Honestly, I expected most of these players to begin their careers in the United States playing in the Gulf Coast League.  That season does not start for another 2-3 weeks, so I guess it's possible that they will play a handful of games here before coming up to the GCL.  However, most of  the times prospects play whole seasons in the Dominican and do not make that transition in the middle of a season.  If anything, I'm guessing anybody who comes up will do so in July or August.

There are a handful of other prospects on these rosters worth noting, including two prospects who made my Preseason top 30 lists for hitters and pitchers: #30 hitter SS Yonauris Rodriguez and #29 SP Orby Tavares.  The Yankees signed 8 other players last summer to 6 figure contracts that I will be tracking this summer: C Jason Lopez, CF Lisandro Blanco, RF Leobaldo Cabrera, RF/LF Frederick Cuevas, and CF Pablo Olivares on DSL Yankees 1 and SS/2B Griffin Garabito, SS Danienger Perez, and CF Raymundo Moreno on DSL Yankees 2.

Yankees spent close to $3M on international players in 2011

By Mike Axisa

The Yankees have traditionally been one of the biggest spenders on the international market, but last year they only spent approximately $2.93M on players according to Ben Balder. That ranks 11th out of the 30 teams. The Rangers were by far the biggest spenders last year at $12.83M, with most of it going to two outfielders: Nomar Mazara ($4.95M) and Ronald Guzman ($3.45M). Those are the first and third largest bonuses in history. The Yankees top signing was Dominican third baseman Miguel Andujar at $750k.

Thanks to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, every team will be allowed to spend just $2.9M on international free agents in 2012 starting July 2nd. The spending pool will be based on winning percentage starting in 2013, with the good clubs getting the least amount of money to spend. Once a team exceeds their spending pool, they lose future international free agent money. Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler can sign for any amount prior to July 2nd, and it sounds like he’s going to get close to $20M, if not more.