Padres see bright futures in international signees Morejon and Ona
Peoria, Ariz. — The San Diego Padres have already spent more in the current international amateur signing period than they have in the past ten combined. Including 100-percent tax on expenditures over their $3.35 million-dollar cap, the organization has spent more than $80 million. In fact, the organization gave three of the four biggest signing bonuses ever in 2016.
Baseball America’s Ben Badler, wrote that San Diego gave eleven of the top 50 bonuses in 2016, including two of the top three to a pair of young Cubans; left-handed pitcher got Adrian Morejon, 18, ($11 million dollars and $22 million with the penalty) and corner outfielder Jorge Oña, 20, a ($7 million, and $14 million overall).
Baseball America Top 50 Bonuses
“With Cubans you will get an opportunity to see them in international tournaments,” said Padres’ General Manager A.J. Preller on how the team determined it would expend the amount they did on the two players.
“For example, we have seen Adrian Morejon for a long time. We saw him in the 15U World Championships. We saw him pitch the gold medal game and spent a lot of time with him in the Dominican Republic.”
In fact, the first time Padres’ Director of International Scouting Chris Kemp saw Morejon, he got the whole group to hop on a plane and make sure everyone shared the same excitement level.
“After I watched him throw the first inning I was on the phone to A.J. [Preller],” said Kemp last year on how the organization first determined that they wanted Morejon. “I told him this was the real deal and I needed him to get everyone down here Logan [White], Don [Welke], Mark [Conner] because this is going to be the top guy internationally for [the] year.
The Padres history of acquiring amateur players, notably including the drafts of Matt Bush in 2004 and Donovan Tate in 2009, is replete with stories of how expensive decisions were made on the fly with limited information - leading to some costly missteps.
Everyone liked what they saw, and according to Kemp, that is when the work started.
“I know some guys had [Kevin] Maitan of Venezuela as the top guy for a lot of people, but for me it was Morejon,” said Kemp. “If you are going to blow it out, you need to get the top guy and he was it.
“Before we could do that, we had to get everyone around the table and agree on what we needed to find out if we were going to invest in getting him. Which means we had to dig, get more looks, get to know him and his family and find out as much as we possibly could. In the end, we were pretty happy.”
Preller reiterated the same point, emphasizing what has been a mainstay of the organization’s scouting work since he took over; get as many sets of eyes as many looks as possible and develop as much history as you can with a player.
“By the time we went through our scouting process over a couple years’ period, we felt comfortable making the investment that we did.”
While Morejon still hasn’t been assigned to a minor league club, he’s still done plenty to impress since he first came stateside for instructs last fall.
In his first spring outing, Morejon sat between 92-95 MPH and flashed a plus slider and a type of knuckle-curve, which he uses as his changeup. The organization’s pitching coaches have been pleased not just with his plus stuff, but his unusual strength, unique poise, and his athletic, repeatable mechanics.
“About two and half years ago I started to pitch full-time,” said Morejon on a lunch break in spring training through Padres coach/interpreter Vicente Cafaro. “I try to concentrate on what I need to do and where to locate my pitches. I forget about everything else. It doesn’t matter if the batter hits it or not, I can’t control it.”
“I’m already thinking next pitch.”
At first glance Oña appears to be in the wrong camp, playing the wrong sport. A very sturdy six-foot-one and at least 225 lbs. he looks like he should be playing at a Division I school at middle linebacker.
“My family has always been big on my father’s side,” laughed Oña. “Coming to the U.S. helped me to get stronger because of better nutrition and the workout facilities,” he said through Cafaro.
“But the biggest difference between Cuba and here is just how long the season is going to be. I’m really trying to prepare myself mentally and physically to play longer than I ever have in my life.”
Although Oña says that his favorite position is center field, San Diego plans to use him mainly in right.
“I want to get better defensively this year and become more selective at the plate.”
“To me it’s just the consistent quality of his at-bats, especially when you compare them to his peers around the same age,’ said Sam Geaney, the Padres’ Director of Player Development on the most impressive feature of Oña’s game. “You see the strength and the bat speed - and that is a pretty big separator in itself - but how he grinds out each at-bat is the most impressive aspect of his game to me right now.”
The Padres are holding Morejon back in Extended Spring instead of starting him in Low-A Fort Wayne to begin the year.
“We look at all of our young prospects as individuals and we have a wide variety of focuses and reasons for keeping them back,” said Geaney. “In general, we want them pitching in July and August and really expanding into next year rather than at the beginning of April.”
“What we want to do, not only with Adrian but with all our young starters, is that when we send them out to pitch, we want them to pitch and go deep into games because that is what we want to develop for the major leagues.”
You can follow all of the action in the Padres' minor league system at www.madfriars.com and @madfriars on Twitter.
