Wander Lust: Franco is mashing

Last July the Tampa Bay Rays made a splash in International Free Agent market by locking up the number one overall prospect, according to Baseball America, in Wander Franco. Franco is the nephew of Erick Aybar and former Ray Willy Aybar. Franco received a $3.85MM signing bonus.

As Rays fans know all too well even at the top end of the IFA market the results have extremely high variance. In 2014 the Rays signed the number one overall prospect, Adrian Rondon. Rondon hasn’t performed stateside, and has been out performed by Jesus Sanchez, Ronaldo Hernandez, Vidal Brujan, and Resly Linares among players from the same signing class. Apparently projecting sixteen year olds is more art than science.

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