Latin America’s best starting pitcher in baseball was signed from Venezuela for just $25,000. He was never a top-100 prospect, never an All-Star, and like many of his peers, turned to pitching out of sheer utility.
“The problem is, there are too many position players in Latin America,” Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Suarez said. “So, I went across there. A pitcher. It helped me stand out.
Suarez, 28, leads the league with a 1.70 ERA. After 13 seasons in professional baseball, he’s slowly but surely embarked on an increasingly rare path: from Latin America to the top of the MLB rotation.
About 25 percent of MLB players are from Latin America and the Caribbean, but less than 15 percent of starting pitchers fall into that group, according to league office data. The position player rankings are littered with Latino superstars (20 of the top 50 by FanGraphs WAR), but only eight of the top 50 starting pitchers by ERA are Latino.
This imbalance defies superficial expectations. In the era of Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Eli de la Cruz, baseball lacked clear heirs to Felix Hernandez and Pedro Martinez, Become the next great Latin American ace. Twelve of the 25 hardest-pitch position players are Latino, and 11 of the 25 hardest-pitch pitchers are Latino, so why aren’t more starting pitchers?
America’s top players tend to pitch and hit at least as early as high school, and many only become legitimate pitching prospects after further physical and skill development in college. Justin Verlander grew up in Virginia and is now one of the best starting pitchers of his generation. He went undrafted out of high school but spent three years at Old Dominion University. Later became the second pick.
Few Latin American companies have the opportunity to take this path. They’re often signed as young as 16, and many Latin American major league players — even those with the strongest arms — tell stories of picking a position at an early age and then staying there. Even the strongest throwers will be shunned from the mound as long as they can hit.
Today, Kenley Jansen is one of the most accomplished relief pitchers of all time, ranking fifth in saves in major league history, but when the 17-year-old Jansen was signed out of Curacao in 2004 , he was a catcher and has been a catcher. When he finally moved to the mound in 2009, he was in the majors within a year.
“If I were an American kid, I wouldn’t be a minor league catcher,” Jensen said. “Some coaches might have turned me into a pitcher. I’ll never play professional baseball. They’ll recognize that arm.
Despite his highly successful career — four All-Star appearances, two National League Relay Player of the Year honors — Jansen said he wonders if he could have made the transition sooner and had more time and guidance to develop. His second pitcher, whether he could be the starter. He’s certainly not alone. League data shows 45.3 percent of Latino players are pitchers, but a disproportionate number are relievers. Some of these differences are financial.
Twenty years ago, Latin America’s elite pitchers generated some of the largest signing bonuses in the international market. Hernandez, Ervin Santana, Francisco Rodriguez and Francisco Liriano were signed for nearly seven-figure sums at a time when such huge deals were rare. That amount has been reduced since MLB and MLB agreed to cap international amateur spending at $5 million per club in a collective bargaining agreement reached after the 2016 season. The new rules caused teams to become more risk-averse, a calculation that favored batsmen.
Executives involved in international scouting, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue, said position players — especially when they are scouted and signed as teenagers, as is the case with most Latin American players — are considered the worst. If a young hitter loses his athleticism, he can still advance as a leadoff outfielder or first baseman. If his bat doesn’t develop, he could become an elite defender or a versatile utility guy. Pitchers have few backup plans, and even the most promising young players can quickly stall if injured or stunted.
“Position players are the ones who get signing bonuses,” said one major league executive with scouting experience in Latin America. “They become pitchers because they don’t hit enough, or run enough, or move well enough.”
Phillies starting Ranger Suarez leads the majors in ERA, but his path is increasingly rare for players from Latin America. (Orlando Mirez/USA Today)
In baseball, there’s a popular saying often attributed to players from the Dominican Republic: “You’re not getting off the island.” This illustrates the mentality that Latin American players have to work hard to get signed. Plate discipline alone isn’t enough, and these days — especially for those looking to sign big money — pitching can’t do the same either. We’ll never know, but the best Latin American pitcher today might just be a shortstop or a right fielder.
“It’s kind of funny,” San Diego Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis said. “Everyone in (Latin America’s colleges) was a shortstop. They just brought a few pitchers in so they could throw to you.
Eli de la Cruz, the Cincinnati Reds shortstop from the Dominican Republic, is 6-foot-5 and has one of the strongest arms in baseball, but he said he hasn’t pitched since he was very young. Rays center fielder Jose Siri, also from the Dominican and another of the toughest pitchers in the game, was more specific: He hasn’t pitched since he was 9 years old. Right fielder Starling Marte was asked to pitch to an amateur pitcher.
“I was never interested in it,” Malte said. “I saw other pitchers getting hit hard, and I didn’t like that. I remember a couple of games, I was in the outfield, and I saw somebody get hit, and I said, ‘Damn, I don’t want to go through that.
Why did he do this? In January, more than 35 international amateur players received signing bonuses of at least $1 million, but none were pitchers. Big money is going to hitters, and even the most sought-after weapons can fetch six or even five figures.
“Teams are afraid to spend money on pitching because of injuries and risk factors,” one executive said. “You end up signing a lot of good, decent arms. But most of them are throwers or relievers. , someone who throws very hard.
This thinking extends to the domestic amateur draft, where only three high school pitchers have ever been selected first overall, two of whom never made it to the major leagues.
In the international market these days, teams tend to splurge on a few promising batsmen while offering smaller bonuses to a handful of young bowlers in the hope that one or two will eventually emerge.
The agents, known as “buscones,” who train and promote Latin American amateur players and take a cut of their signing bonuses, recognize this payout disparity, according to several executives and players familiar with the international market. They sometimes push the development of Latin America’s elite players. A player like Verlander, if born in the Dominican Republic, might be showcased as a center fielder with the size to hit for power and the arm strength to handle right field. He may never be guided to the mound.
“They’re trying to train position players so they can get more money,” Dominican-born Cincinnati Reds starter Frankie Montas said. “If you can hit the ball, they want you to keep hitting it as long as possible.”
Red Sox right fielder Wilyer Abreu, who has another of the strongest throwing arms among position players in the majors, said he was originally discovered as a two-way player in his native Venezuela. There was a time when he thought he might sign as a two-way player.
“As time went on, scouts told me they didn’t want to see me as a pitcher anymore,” Abreu said. “Just focusing on being a position player, that’s when everything changes.”
Abreu, then a sophomore at American High School, threw a left-handed fastball that some scouts had pegged at 90 mph. However, no one is interested in seeing how far he can go on the mound. Abreu, now 24, said he can’t remember any off-speed pitches he threw because he hadn’t tried them in so long.
If Abreu remains on the mound, his opportunities to develop a secondary pitching staff outside of the United States may be limited. Developing infrastructure—both facilities and people—is simply not the same. Driveline is at the forefront of pitching development in the United States, but has only a small presence in Latin America, with few Latin American players ending up pitching for elite college programs with state-of-the-art pitching development facilities and technology.
“You ask a 15-, 16-year-old kid to perform at the same level in a different country as an American who went to college (and) learned a lot,” Mariners star center fielder Julio Rodriguez said. . “It’s different. It’s definitely different.
This imbalance could create a wider gap.
“It’s part of the culture,” said Nelson Cruz, a retired slugger who served as the Dominican Republic’s general manager for the 2023 World Baseball Classic. “When you grow up, you want [play] Shortstop or center field. That’s the beauty of hitting home runs and playing defense and all that. A big part of that is having people in the major leagues that you look up to.
Mexico considers former Los Angeles Dodgers ace Fernando Valenzuela its most iconic baseball player, and since 2000, nearly 65 percent of Mexico’s major league players have been pitchers. In Puerto Rico, however, right fielder Roberto Clemente is a national hero, and there are catchers (Ivan Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, the Molina brothers) and center infielders ( Roberto Alomar, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa), but the Puerto Rican pitcher is far less iconic. Puerto Rican players are draft eligible and therefore exempt from the rules and quirks of international free agency, but since 2000, 73 percent of Puerto Rican-born players (107 of 146) have been position players. Jensen said he sees the same thing in his hometown of Curacao, where kids who once dreamed of following in the footsteps of center fielder Andrew Jones now hope to be the next center infielder Andrelton Simmons or Ozzie Al. Bis.
“I think everybody in Curacao wants to be a shortstop or a second baseman right now,” Jensen said. “Nobody wants to throw the ball, and we have a lot of great arm talent.”
However, for teams that successfully tap into this talent pool, the value is considerable.
In recent years, the Houston Astros have relied on a slew of low-cost Latino starters — Franber Valdez, Christian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia and Ronel Blanco – To keep their rotation competitive in their seventh straight American League Championship Series. The Phillies (Suarez), Atlanta Braves (Reinaldo Lopez) and Chicago Cubs (Javier Assad) have benefited from strong performances from Latino starters this season.
These are outliers, though. Since 2015, only one Latino pitcher has won the ERA title, and only two have ranked in the top 25 in starting pitcher WAR. The Astros, New York Mets, and Miami Marlins are the only teams to use three Latino starters this season; the vast majority of teams have used either a 1 or a 0. Only three Latino starters have been used in the entire National League West this season, and two of them were starters who played in just one game.
Even those who perform well on the mound may be secretly hoping they still have a chance to hit.
“I love (pitching),” said Mets starter Luis Severino, who made the switch from outfielder at age 15. “I love the adrenaline rush and the competition.
“But if I had to choose, I would definitely go with position players.”
CompetitorMatt Gelb, Britt Ghiroli and Trent Rosecrans contributed to this story
(Above: Daniel Goldfarb/ Competitor; Photo: Ron Vesely/MLB Photo via Getty Images; Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres via Getty Images; Rich Stories/Getty Images)
