NEWSLETTER
A couple months ago, the Cuban defector focus was on Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, a promising righty in his prime who was fixing to be the best-paid Cuban pitcher of all time. The Cubs were rumored as involved, but teams had some misgivings about both his projection in the big leagues and the state of his surgically-repaired arm. The Phillies won the bidding before ultimately negotiating a lower price tag when those arm concerns reared up, presumably in the physical.
Lost in that storyline was a companion Cuban pitcher who had defected around the same time, and, although he was viewed as a lesser option, was still in the ballpark of an attractive international pitching signee. The Cubs, again, were rumored as interested. That pitcher’s name was Dalier Hinojosa, and his story went quiet right around the time Gonzalez’s was reaching a fever pitch.
The silence broke today, with Ben Badler reporting that the Boston Red Sox have signed Hinojosa to a minor league deal, presumably with an accompanying bonus. Badler says the 27-year-old will likely start out in the upper minors as he adjusts to the States and prepares himself for the highest level competition.
In the end, this probably isn’t a huge miss, and probably doesn’t involve a huge amount of money. I suspect that the timing of the two pitchers’ emergence as defectors had a bit to do with Hinojosa being discussed a bit more than someone of his talent level would have otherwise been discussed.
