It’s time for Baseball America’s annual International Reviews, where BA subscribers can access a breakdown of every team’s 2020-21 international signing class. Each club’s International Review has scouting reports and videos on the team’s top signings, other notable players from the class and sleepers to follow.
For context, things are a little bit different than normal with these this year. Major League Baseball pushed back the start of the signing period from July 2, 2020 to Jan. 15, 2021, with the current period still open until Dec. 15. That means teams can still add to their signing classes, though many of them have already spent their full bonus pool allotments.
Teams generally also have less information on their own players than they would in a normal year. Usually players would sign on July 2, then a lot of them would participate in Tricky League (an unofficial league for July 2 signings to play games), then play more games in Dominican instructional league from September through November. That obviously didn’t happen with this class. MLB also had an in-person scouting ban in place for six months last year, along with additional restrictions on who could enter a club facility. Clubs have been able to bring a lot of their international signings into their academies since Jan. 15, but it’s been different and more restricted than usual.
In total, we will have more than 200 reports on the latest international signings. They are the most accurate, in-depth reports available anywhere on these prospects, following up on seeing many of these players in person as amateurs with more recent conversations with international scouts and club officials throughout the game.
You can find them all below.
2020-21 MLB International Reviews: Cincinnati Reds
Scouting reports on a deep, diverse mix of prospects from the latest Reds international signing class.