Yankees 2014 international signing class starts coming into view

Too Early to Tell

CF Antonio Arias is a promising curiosity. The native of Venezuela is hitting .340/.450/.420 in the Dominican League. And Arias is slightly younger than most of the others on this list, just turning 19 in the middle of June. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that this is Antonio’s third year at the same level. So, is he a young player starting to take off or the product of three years against the same level of competition? That question is likely to begin to be answered soon as Arias has earned a chance to come stateside.

Things start to get more interesting with Diego Castillo. His stats tell a story whose ending is hard to read. His slash is merely respectable: .262/.303/.317. But he is a true shortstop, a position for which Diego’s numbers are more than good enough.

Two years ago he batted .331 and last year, with similar numbers from this year, he was voted the 19th best prospect in the entire GCL (according to Baseball America). So Castillo already has some positive history.

And more telling is that the Yankees promoted Diego to Charleston before 2017 even began, while most of the 2014 class is scattered throughout lower levels. Being 19 at Low-A is an accomplishment, even if he is not the equal of fellow-teen Estevan Florial. Remember that Blake Rutherford was 20 and also at Charleston, until recently.

Diego has shown some real promise, and we will know more of his story this time next year.

An Amundaray of Hope (Sorry)

RF Jonathan Amundaray was the number seven ranked international prospect in 2014 and signed for $1.5 million. His current numbers, though, are pretty bad: .154/.175/.179. But he makes our maybe list for two reasons.

First, he showed real improvement over his first two years, moving from .111/.346/.167 in 2015 to .269/.321/.394 the next year. And, second, he has only had 39 at-bats this year. That combined is enough to warrant waiting to make any decisions or predictions. But Amundaray has to turn it back on soon.