If you were to refer to Kevin Maitan as the LeBron James of international baseball prospects you wouldn’t be wrong. How many 13 year old’s pop up on the prospect radar, and not only that, but inspire gushing articles almost immediately. To say he’s the buzziest July 2nd signing since Miguel Sano would be an understatement. This is the world we live in, a place where a 13 year old from Venezuela can demand the kind of attention reserved for AAU basketball standouts. All this to say the time has arrived , and the age of the Mighty Maitan is almost upon us. That’s right the July 2nd date is right around the corner, and a juicy crop of internationals look to test the water. Chief among them is Maitan, the 16 year old shortstop with the big power and even bigger reputation. Let’s jump into why he matters, and what sort of resources you should allocate to land him.
To sum up Maitan in one word it’s power. Raw, nasty, shiny, glistening power. At just 16 years old it’s said that the switch hitting Maitan could hit balls out of Major League parks now. He’s drawn lofty comparisons to Miguel Cabrera and Chipper Jones. Problem is there’s one catch to all this hyperbole, HE’S 16 YEARS OLD! No matter how good a 16 year old is how can you project him to become two of the best players ever? General comparisons rant aside, these are lofty comparisons and they’re coming from professional scouts too. Well assumed professionals I suppose. Unless you travel the world and go to amateur baseball showcases for some reason other than being paid to scout. What you can see of Maitan is very raw footage like a camera on his swing, hitting BP at a showcase. What good is that? I’m not a professional scout… That doesn’t tell shizz with a mouthful. So I guess we’re going to have to take these nameless scout guy’s word for it, and trust that he’s a dream fantasy player. A switch hitting corner infielder with plus power, approach, and contact. It’s easy to get lost in all that, but the point of this paragraph is…he’s 16!! Which means two things, 1. he’s immensely talented and 2. it’s very, very early.
Rumor is he’s already under a handshake agreement with the Braves, but handshakes are broken all the time. I broke 4 just this afternoon, but such is the life in the high stakes game of carpet installation. So while all signs point to Maitan joining the Braves, who knows. There’s a lot of who knows when writing about these young internationals. Is anyone sure Eddy Julio Martinez isn’t in fact an elaborate ruse? Like could I dress a major leaguer up and have him take batting practice, and then call him a random name, and see if I could get scouts to buy it. Regardless the Braves are the likely winners of the Maitan sweepstakes, but it’s been rumored the Cardinals, Padres, and Nationals are still in the mix.
So depending upon your dynasty format Maitan might be someone you sit on until your offseason first year player draft, and if that’s the case he’s an easy number one overall pick in my opinion. But if you have midseason auctions on internationals, as a few of my leagues have, I’d be prepared to spend big. This obviously leads to the question “what’s big?”. For that answer I can’t say, but I’ve heard it’s the motion in the ocean. In all seriousness I’d look at what Yoan Moncada went for last year and place a bid similar to that. Players like this are a great investment. Not so much for the player they will develop into, but the return a player like this can command on the trade market a year or two from now. For example think about what Moncada’s trade value is now that he’s destroyed each level of competition he’s faced. He’s easily a top 20 dynasty trade chip, especially to a rebuilding club in deeper leagues looking to move older, and depending upon the format, costly players for younger, cost controlled assets. There is no player in this year’s or last year’s drafts that will have the sort of cache that Moncada has now or Maitan will have a year from now. So be prepared to spend but it could be a worthwhile investment even for a competing team with salary space available in cap leagues.
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