2024 International Prospect Rankings and Scouting Reports

Scouting reports, tool grades, and projected signing teams and bonuses for just shy of 50 players from the 2024 class can now be viewed over on The Board. Because the International Players tab has an apples and oranges mix of older pros from Asian leagues and soon-to-be first-year players, there is no explicit ranking for this amateur class on The Board.

However, I’ve stacked the class with a ranking in the table below, and as usual, that ranking will live on the International Players dropdown of The Board after most of these guys have finished signing in the coming weeks. .

As I’ve honed a process for this over the years, my first step has become to source rumored bonus amounts, often hopping on the phone with people who are involved with international players or scouting to see who they’ve heard will be receiving $1 million or more. This is also when I start to collect biographical data like position, date of birth, handedness, and measurables.

Once I have a fairly complete picture of the players expected to garner meaningful bonuses, I start to make more scouting and evaluation-centric calls and inquiries to augment the initial, bonus-based foundation of the list.

Combine that with my in-person notes (rare in this market) and supplementary video analysis (more common than ever thanks to encrypted file sharing and players’ social media), plus one last pass at all the bonuses, and things are fully baked.

Of course, there are some holes left open by doing it this way. Chiefly, there are definitely players below my bonus threshold who are talented enough to be on this list, but I simply don’t know about them yet. Aside from team personnel who closely monitor their own guys’ progress as signing day approaches, I haven’t found a way to capture those pop-up prospects, and obviously the team personnel route creates issues with objectivity and telegraphing sources. For now, it’s up to all but a few of the $700,000 and below bonus guys to separate themselves later this year when they start playing pro ball.

Every player who I believe is set to receive a bonus of $1 million or more (aside from a handful of players rumored to have failed MLB’s age and identification check) is included in this ranking, along with a smattering of players with high six-figure bonuses, guys who emerged as favorites of scouts or of mine throughout the process.

Expected bonus amounts have been sourced via scout and executive word of mouth across the past 18 months or so, and then cross-checked in the week leading up to publication. There are a couple of bonus amounts below where my sources were not in exact agreement.

In those cases, the gap is typically only $100,000-$200,000, but I’ve put an asterisk on those amounts below to indicate the imprecision. I’m going to talk more about early verbal bonus agreements, the byproduct of me trying to source them, and more after the ranking table and some thoughts on the class:

Note that Leodalis De Vries is in a tier of his own atop the class. I had a (non-Padres) scouting executive tell me I should quit this exercise and just write a profile about De Vries, who is one of the more talented prospects to come along in the last five to 10 years.

The way De Vries’ reports have trended over the last year suggests he may end up at second base eventually, but the hit and power combo is going to clear that bar pretty easily. It’s uncommon for me to have a new international prospect on the Top 100 list straight away, but De Vries’ reports are strong enough that I’m compelled to have him toward the back of the list.

As teams have become aware that other clubs are doing this, some of them have begun to squirrel away money until later in the process so they have the bonus space to approach players whose deals have fallen through when they re-enter the market. In a couple cases this year, players who were allegedly sent back to the market ended up receiving more than their initial commitment because of the supply/demand dynamics at play.

Most clubs frown upon breaking verbal agreements (as does your author) even as they all feel free to break the rules around early deals. I do not have an update on the court case outlined in this story, which could set a relevant precedent around this stuff.

There has also been no new progress made toward the implementation of an international draft that would parallel the process by which domestic amateurs make their way to pro ball.

Such a process would serve as a way to curtail the practice of teams and players agreeing to verbal deals before players are eligible to sign and correct some of the other abuses of the current system, but it would also limit player agency, eliminating prospects’ ability to pick their employer.