With the expanding DR and other Caribbean baseball influence in the minors would it be worth any colleges time and resources to start getting them in college ball or at least JC ball?
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With the expanding DR and other Caribbean baseball influence in the minors would it be worth any colleges time and resources to start getting them in college ball or at least JC ball?
It would be difficult to almost impossible to get DR kids into any university. Their education system is not sufficient or else you would already have a lot of DR kids going that route. The average male in the DR only goes to school through age 13.
Why? International players can sign with pro teams when they turn 16 during the international signing period
I have a friend that grew up in DR and got off the island via pro ball - made it to AAA as a catcher
Understanding what he went through to get off the island - most American could not fathom
Any Dominican who is good enough to play in the SEC will have signed a pro contract long before 18.
What everyone else on here said is correct. I think we actually had a commit at one time that was from there that was a catcher- Carlos Leal? Pretty sure he ended up in D2.
We would probably have to go the Michael Oher Blindside route to have a prayer to get them in.
If we want to go international- Canada which we have done before, Puerto Rico, and maybe Japan are where we would need to look. And that's a stretch to even look in Puerto Rico or Japan honestly.
We need to get whoever pushed Dontae Jones through, to come on back and go get some DR kids.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg
I mean, maybe....Altuve got $15k signing bonus. I'm sure if it was today and he was offered 50k to go to college, he'd pick that. Now that being said, nobody had an idea he'd develop, so I highly doubt we would have found him either, but point is, there are kids that could potentially come.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quaoarsking
15K in Venezuela is like 1.5 million in America.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpaceWranglerDawg
Any kid worth recruiting is in one of the baseball academies operated by MLB teams by the age of 13. You honestly have to just completely luck out like we did with Jurrangelo and hope one of them moves to the US early and develops at the same rate.
That is something I could see potentially happening. Especially with Florida having schools like IMG.Quote:
Originally Posted by StarkVegasSteve
They can?t speak English or go to school past 5th grade. Some already make it to a few colleges but not the good onesQuote:
Originally Posted by parabrave