According to the Dominican Prospect League baseball site, the Pittsburgh Pirates have signed 16 year old catcher Yoel Gonzalez. Gonzalez wasn’t eligible to sign until today, when he turned 16. The DPL site says he signed for $350,000. He’s 6′ 1″, 175 pounds, and a righty/righty.
The scouting report on the site notes that he’s a mature receiver behind the plate, who receives the ball cleanly and blocks with good fundamentals and quickness. He’s got clean arm action, with pop times in the 1.9-2.0 range. Offensively he’s got a lot of projection, squaring up to balls and hitting to all fields. He’s more of a gap hitter right now, but could develop average power in the future.
The international signing tracker has been updated with the move.
What are pop times?
They measure how fast a catcher can throw down to second. The time starts when the ball pops the catcher’s glove, and ends when the ball pops the second baseman’s glove.
That’s pretty good for a 16 year old, yes?
Well no doubt, we needed a guy name Yoel in the organization.