The New York Yankees aren’t waiting for the regular season to end to make organizational changes. Over the past week, they’ve laid off numerous members of their international scouting department.
MLB insider Francys Romero reported on September 15 that the Yankees dismissed five different scouts, those being Jose Sabino and Arturo Peña Jr. (Cibao Area Scout, Dominican Republic), Moises Brito (Santo Domingo Area Scout), Miguel Mojica (Video Assistant) and Jose Gavidia (Venezuela Supervisor). On Saturday, Romero reported two more scouts leaving the Yankees’ organization: Victor Deyan (Technology, Venezuela) and Edgar Rodriguez (Area Scout, Nicaragua).
Earlier in the month, the Yankees fired longtime scout Victor Mata, who had been in the organization for over 30 years and discovered/signed players like Alfonso Soriano, Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera, Luis Severino, Gary Sanchez and Jasson Dominguez, among others.
All of these moves can be traced back to the past offseason, which saw the Yankees decline to retain international director Danny Rowland and replace him with Mario Garza. On one hand, it makes sense for a new international director to surround themselves with new scouts. On the other hand, this points to a concerning trend regarding the Yankees’ farm system.
It’s been a while since the Yankees’ farm was considered one of the best in baseball. Compare that to the Dodgers, who have consistently been ranked as arguably the best farm system in MLB while having similar financial resources to the Bronx Bombers.
Outside of their name-brand prospects like Dominguez, Anthony Volpe, Spencer Jones and George Lombard Jr., the Yankees haven’t been shy in using their top 30 prospects in trades lately. For example, the Heliot Ramos trade included New York’s No. 5 prospect Henry Lalane, a former international signing. But while the trades and prospect graduations have contributed to the low farm system rankings, another reason is that the Yankees haven’t gotten much from their international prospects in years.
Of the Yankees’ current Top 30 prospects, only seven of them were international signings by the team (Carlos Lagrange, Allen Facundo, Yostin Pena, Luis Serna, Stiven Marinez, Richard Matic and Chien-Fan Lai). Former high-profile international signings like Roderick Arias, Brando Mayea and Alexander Vargas have all been disappointments, with Vargas being a massive flop and no longer in a major league organization.
Then, of course, there were the international prospects that made it to the majors but did next to nothing for the Yankees. Examples include Deivi Garcia, Estevan Florial, Oswald Peraza, Everson Pereira and Yoendrys Gomez. At the very least, the Yankees did get some trade value from Peraza and Pereira, as the former netted them emerging prospect Wilberson De Pena and the latter brought Jose Caballero to the Bronx. But the other three had no real value, with Garcia and Gomez both designated for assignment and claimed off waivers.
Unfortunately, it also looks like Jasson Dominguez is heading down that path. Once viewed as a future star in the Yankees’ outfield, Dominguez has been undone by injuries, inconsistent hitting and extremely poor defense; Spencer Jones has effectively replaced him as that future outfield star. The Martian still has youth on his side, as he’s just 23 years old, but it appears the only way he’ll reach his potential is with a change of scenery.
The failure to develop Dominguez is a microcosm of the Yankees’ failures in the international scouting department, which is why a complete overhaul is taking place. The good news is that the Yankees finally view this as a problem and are making the changes needed to develop future international talent. Regardless, it’s going to take a while before the rebuilt international pipeline bears fruit.
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