Oh Wagner, what have we done?
You may recall reading whiteyball blogger Michael Riehn’s posting of his top Cardinals prospects a few days ago. Below was his write up on number 5 prospect, Dominican native Wagner Mateo.
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Wagner Mateo
5. Wagner Mateo, International Signing, 3B/OF, 16: Picked by many scouting services as one of the top 3 international prospects in 2009, the Cardinals shelled out over 3.1 million dollars to sign the 16 year old Dominican prospect. He will have time and room to grow in the Cardinals system, but it will be a while before we see him in Cardinal red (or AA ball for that matter).
The ceiling for Mateo may be the highest in the organization, so many prospect gurus will have him rated higher, but he was born in 1993 so I believe you must temper your expectations. (See Shelby Miller and subtract 2 more years as to why this can be bad.)
Projections get more sketchy the farther out you go, but he has shown a nice ability to hit, with a compact left handed swing and is a scout’s 5 tool dream.
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Unfortunately for the Cardinals Wagner did not pass his physical and the Cardinals have voided his contract. There is speculation of a vision issue and another unknown ailment that caused the Cardinals to back out of the contract that was to pay Mateo a nice signing bonus of over $3 million. Could this money possibly go into the Holliday/Pujols funds. Nobody knows.
What I’m affraid of is the harm this could do to the Cardinals presence in the Dominican. They have a good set up with their new baseball academy in the Dominican and having Albert Pujols, but let’s hope the handling of the Mateo contract doesn’t hurt future relationships. International signings are more like college recruiting rather than professional drafts we are used to seeing in the US. Teams build their Internationals Baseball Academy’s in order to recruit the best talent and hope to strike gold with the next great baseball star. If Dominican baseball players look at the Cardinals voiding Mateo’s contract in a negative light, then this could cause future players to avoid the Cardinals academy.
I understand the Cardinals had to do what was right for their organization, but I hope the rest of the Dominican athletes feel the same way about how the Mateo situation was handled.
On a side note, tickets for the NLDS and NLCS went on sale today. I’ve purchased some tickets to sell and try to make a profit on to cover my own playoff ticket expense, so if you’re interested in any playoff tickets, post a reply and I’ll get you my inventory for the NLDS and NLCS. You’ll definitely save money over buying on stubhub or ebay.
Filed Under: Baseball • Cardinal Prospects • Featured • Prospects
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Nice update on Wagner. I definitely wish the Cardinals would have “settled” or signed him to a lower amount instead of voiding he contract. This makes Shelby Miller even more important to the organization.
Greatings, Can i get a one small pic from your site?
Saurooon
Talk to me about these playoff tix. What do u have and how much? Great point in the article btw, hopefully el hombre can keep our name out of the mud!