Phillies acquire large sum of international money: What do they do with it?

The Phillies acquired nearly a million dollars of international signing bonus money at the trade deadline, now what will they do with it?

At the trade deadline this year, the Phillies traded four different players who were on expiring contracts. In return, the team received several Low-A prospects and reserve outfielder Hyun-Soo Kim. In addition, the team also received about one million dollars in international signing money.

Prior to this CBA, the international signing pool was based like the draft, with the worst teams getting the most money to spend without having to pay any penalty. However, if you wanted to go over, you could, like the Red Sox did with Yoan Moncada, albeit you would take some major penalties. Therefore, the clubs with the biggest wallets could pick up the best prospects if they were willing to take the financial hit.

Now, the rules are different. Small-market and small-revenue teams get extra money to spend, either $5.25 or $5.75 million, while all other teams start off with $4.75 million to spend. Thanks to these trades, Philadelphia has launched themselves into that upper threshold of spending, which is all the better considering this cap is a hard one and teams can’t go over.

If the Phils continue making trades, they can add up to $3.56 million to their total pool to use on the international market as teams can add up to 75 percent of their original pool through trades.

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All this spending money puts them in prime position to pick up a bevy of international prospects. They have done well in that department as several of their top prospects have come through international signings. Maikel Franco, Sixto Sanchez, Franklyn Kilome, Adonis Medina, and more were all signed by the international scouting department for relatively small sums of money – Franco got the biggest bonus at $100,000.

Hopefully, this new international money can be used to pick up some solid prospects in the next signing period.

Ben Badler of Baseball America scouted two different prospects with big power in the Dominican Prospect League. Marco Luciano and Jeffrey Diaz, two different 15-year-olds, flashed their power in front of Badler and they could wind up being some of the top prospects in the next signing class, where the Phillies have plenty of money.

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This international money could be a bane for the team if they want to get as many prospects as they can.