Today's guest: Baseball America's Ben Badler

When it comes to covering international amateur signings, few do it better and with more experience than Ben Badler of Baseball America. Ben is my guest this week on the Steve on Baseball podcast, the initial edition of calender year 2026.

Next Thursday, Jan. 15, is the first day of the new international signing period. Under the Mike Elias front office the O’s have signed six players to million dollar bonuses since 2021.

This year they have four such players in this one class, per Baseball America.

We will get into that a whole lot more today with Ben, who has been at Baseball America since 2007.

“The Orioles this year seem like they are going to have one of the better classes this year. They’ve got some big bats at the top of the class. Arms as well. I think this is going to be one of their better signing classes in recent years,” Badler said.

The O’s top signee is expected to be shortstop Jose Luis Acevedo, a right-handed hitter from the Domincan Republic, who turned 17 in November. He’s got a plus hit tool and may be able to stick at shortstop as a solid defender.

On BA’s bonus board - they rank these international amateurs based on the amount of their projected bonuses - he is the No. 11 player. He might set an O’s team bonus record for an international amateur. That mark is currently held by Luis Almeyda who got $2.297 million in 2023.

Per the BA bonus board, the O’s are also getting players currently rated No. 24, No. 40 and No. 42. The board will be updated and expanded next week ahead of Thursday.

With international players making up about 30 percent of major league clubhouses, it is a talent source a team can’t ignore and under Elias and Koby Perez, the O’s do not. They make it a priority.

Once it was stunning to see even a few players from the international ranks in an O’s top 30 prospects lists. On the lastest BA O’s top 30 there are 11 international players led by Samuel Basallo at No. 1.

So today’s podcast is both very timely and very informative as we were able to grab Ben as the guest. He provided some great insights.

Enjoy the lastest podcast Birdland.

And click here for Badler’s latest on the BA international bonus big board top 50. (subscription may be required).

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