Venezuelan Bust, Baseball Boom: Andres Reiner and Scouting on the New Frontier

9. The Talent Search Expands: Scouting in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, and Beyond [Includes Image Plates]

124 Competition for players in Venezuela intensified in the mid-1990s, with bonuses going through the roof, and Andrés saw the necessity to further expand his search to untapped smaller markets in the Caribbean . Major league clubs with limited scouting budgets, he believed , had to find new talent pools in order to gain an advantage over deep-pocket competitors. Although none of these underscouted markets would produce the quantity of players coming out of the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, Andrés wanted to make sure he was aware of the next Fernando Valenzuela (Mexico), Dennis Martínez (Nicaragua), Mariano Rivera (Panama), Edgar Rentería (Colombia), Andruw Jones (Curaçao), or Sidney Ponson (Aruba). And when mlb implemented new regulations in Venezuela at the end of the decade that limited the Astros’ ability to develop players at the academy, he became even more vigorous in his move into the hinterland of baseball scouting where there were fewer rules. Andrés started a scouting program and opened a mini-academy in Panama in 1992 and operated a facility in Mexico for a short time in 1997 before diverting those resources to Colombia and Nicaragua a few years later. He had scouts in Aruba and Curaçao, and in 2002 he even signed a player from Brazil, Neil Massaki. When I visited with Massaki at the Venezuelan academy in the summer of 2003, he showed me one of his prize possessions, a baseball card of another Brazilian, José Pett. The Talent Search Expands Scouting in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, and Beyond 9 125 The Talent Search Expands In 1992 José Pett—then a sixteen-year-old pitching prospect—provoked a feeding frenzy among scouts.1 Many, including Florida Marlins director of international scouting Orrin Freeman, descended on soccer-crazy Brazil. While going through airport security in São Paulo, a guard looked inquisitively at Freeman’s radar gun. “What’s this?” he asked. Freeman explained that the instrument measured the speed of a baseball. The guard, still puzzled, then asked, “What’s a baseball?” Andrés made two trips to Brazil to see the 6-6, 190-pound Pett. “He will be a very good pitcher. He has an excellent arm and is very aggressive on the mound,” Andrés told me after his first trip. By the time Andrés returned to Brazil for Pett’s formal tryout, five teams—the Astros, Florida, Atlanta, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Toronto —were still in the running to sign him. Astros scout Paul Weaver joined Andrés in Brazil, and the two met with José’s father, Adjimar Pett, who told them they could sign his son if the Astros would match or top the other offers. Weaver called Houston scouting director Dan O’Brien and expressed his amazement that the Astros were still in the discussions but added, “Dan, I don’t think we have enough chips to stay in the game.” When Weaver and Andrés informed O’Brien that it would cost at least $500,000 to $600,000 to sign Pett, they were told they could not bid that high but to see the process through until the end. So the two scouts stayed in Brazil, but it was as if they were shopping at Neiman Marcus with the Wal-Mart budget given them by the Astros. Toronto’s delegation to Brazil, headed by gm Pat Gillick, a former Astro, walked away with the prize, signing Pett for a bonus of $760,000 (tax-free due to an agreement between Brazil and Canada). There was no way the Astros were going to spend almost $1 million to top Toronto’s bid. Earlier that summer the Astros had the number -one selection in the June draft and had the opportunity to sign a seventeen-year-old Michigan high-school player named Derek Jeter. The Astros’ scout in the region, former major league pitcher and Hall of Fame member Hal Newhouser, reported that Jeter—who wanted a $1 million bonus—would be a franchise player. But the Astros passed on Jeter choosing instead to sign Phil Nevin for $700,000. 126 The Talent Search Expands The Pett signing set the pace for high-price international signing bonuses. In 1993 the Atlanta Braves paid $700,000 for Australian shortstop Glen Williams (who finally made his debut twelve years later with Minnesota). Within a few years, million-dollar signing bonuses , although not...