DIGGING DEEP FOR FUTURE ALL-STARS
Fernando Tatis Jr. and Yordan Alvarez are two of the most electric rookies in baseball. They also never played a single minor league game for the organizations that originally signed them.
The White Sox signed Tatis for $700,000 out of the Dominican Republic on July 2, 2015, then 11 months later traded him to the Padres to get James Shields. The Dodgers gave Alvarez a $2 million bonus out of Cuba as the 2015-16 signing period expired on June 15, 2016, then two weeks later sent him to the Astros for reliever Josh Fields.
It’s hard to pull off deals that lopsided, but clubs across the game are digging through the lowest levels of the minors to bolster their organizations. Once a player with that level of upside reaches a full-season league, he becomes harder to trade for, so teams are now going beyond even the Rookie-level leagues in the United States and are frequently
