It’s been some time since the Astros have been able to pay top dollar for international prospects, as their signing of Yuli Gurriel among others earned them penalties for overspending their bonus pool in the 2016 signing period, which capped their max signing bonus at just $300k for the 2017 and 2018 periods. While the Astros were able to maneuver this situation admirably and come away with some solid prospects, they were no doubt excited to have some more cash to work with on the international market in 2019.
Spending freely again this past year, the Astros inked several players, from numerous locales, to deals north of the $300k limit they’d been constricted by the last two years.