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

14. Andrés's Dream and the Future of the Astros in Venezuela

211 When Andrés left the Astros, there was no public announcement and no press release from the organization. There was no mention of Andrés’s departure in the Houston Chronicle, no discussion of his leaving on Houston talk radio, and there was no fanfare and no celebration when he went to the Astros’ offices at Minute Maid Park on the last day of November 2005 to drop off his radar gun and computer . It would have been awkward to explain the departure of the organization’s highest-ranking Latino, especially when the Astros were taking heat (rightly or wrongly) for being the first team since the 1953 New York Yankees to play in the World Series with no African American players on the roster. Although most in Houston were unaware Andrés had left the organization , he had delivered twenty-two major league players, at least two dozen quality prospects still in the Astros’ pipeline, and a network of coaches, instructors, scouts, and contacts that assured a continuous flow of talent. The most notable legacy of his Venezuelan venture is, of course, the players who made it to the big leagues. In the period between January 1990 and the end of 2000, Andrés and his staff signed seventy-six Venezuelans, and by September 2007 nineteen of those players—25 percent—had played in the major leagues, including five that represented Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.1 (The three other big leaguers produced at the academy were Panama native Manuel Barrios, Devern Hansack from Nicaragua, and Felipe Paulino, who was born in the Dominican Republic.) When the baseball industry in general has only 5 to 7 percent of players signed that Andrés’s Dream and the Future of the Astros in Venezuela 14 212 Andrés’s Dream and the Future of the Astros in Venezuela reach the major leagues, the 25 percent success rate of the Astros and Andrés was astounding. Making it even more incredible is the fact that the organization was signing young men, often just sixteen years old, who had not fully developed physically and who had no statistical record. More academy products are on the way. Pitcher Paul Estrada is on the Astros’ 40-man roster. Infielder Waldimir Sutil and pitchers Levi Romero and Enyelbert Soto are prospects in the Astros’ system to watch, and Andrés believes that there are a dozen players from the 2005 Venezuelan Summer League team that have major league potential. Success was not limited to finding, signing, and developing players for Houston. Andrés was instrumental in establishing the Venezuelan Summer League, upgrading the Liga de Desarrollo, and heightening the awareness of other major league organizations that the country could be a large-scale producer of prospects. That increased interest also brought with it an escalation in signing bonuses . Prior to the opening of the Astros’ academy in 1989, most Venezuelan players were signed for sums ranging between $5,000 and $10,000. Attention focused on Venezuela in 1995 when the Yankees gave pitcher Tony Armas Jr., now playing with Pittsburgh, the largest bonus ever—$125,000—but in 1996 that was eclipsed by the $1.6 million bonus outfielder Jackson Melián received from the Yankees . In 1999 Florida topped that figure by giving $1.8 million to shortstop Miguel Cabrera. The Astros would never, and Andrés did not want to, give such extravagant bonuses in Venezuela. In fact, the total amount of the bonuses paid by the Astros to the 100 Venezuelan players signed between 1990 and early 2005 did not equal the $2 million the Yankees were willing to pay to one player—Jesús Montero, a sixteen-year-old Venezuelan catcher in July 2006. Even with the increased bonuses given by the competition, Andrés was nevertheless able to compete because some players accepted lower amounts to sign with the Astros because of the track record the academy had established. The Astros’ mystique in Venezuela was built on the manner in which players and their parents were treated by Andrés and his staff 213 Andrés’s Dream and the Future of the Astros in Venezuela and on the fact that academy prospects had become major league stars, including Johán Santana, Bob Abreu, Carlos Guillén, Melvin Mora, Richard Hidalgo, and Freddy García. But basically it was Andr és’s vision...