Never heard of Imeldo but Stanley Espinal isn't really even a prospect.
edit: Looks like Imeldo is the fringiest of prospects as well. Not sure I get it on St. Louis's end but I guess something is better than nothing.
If they weren't planning on spending anything of substance on international prospects this year the money is basically an unusable and expiring asset, so flipping it for anything would have value.
But just to frame how legitimate Diaz and Espinal are, Chris Hatfield at SoxProspects commented that the max they can acquire from other teams is 75% over their current budget, so $8.3M, and with Longhi getting them $2.75M the most they could have gotten for Diaz and Espinal would be about $812K.
So with $6.1M to the three headliners they'd have another $2.2M for Daza, Abreu, and anyone else they get.
Longhi was starting to show some life but he's sandwiched between Sam Travis and Josh Ockimey and I think it's fair to say that most view them both as superior prospects to Longhi. Then there's Dalbec who is a coin toss to stick at 3B, and while Devers and Chavis both look like they're 3B capable at this time they can't both play it at the same time in Boston.
I wonder how much the SLG% surge over the last month made this possible, or if the Reds simply weren't looking to spend at all in the IAFA market because $2.75M is almost half their budget for a first base prospect with a consistent history of mid 700's OPS seasons throughout the minors.
This is an interesting strategy for the Sox to take. I'd have to think that a big part of this was Eddie Romero's move up to Assistant GM last October, as this is the spending period where he earned his credentials, being involved with signing Anderson Espinoza, Rafael Devers, the Basabe brothers, and Javier Guerra. To see the Sox go this hard in a market Ben Badler referred to as the best IAFA class in a while is very interesting.
A bit of background:
The Sox went hard in the 2014-2015 International Amateur FA market, that's when they signed Anderson Espinoza and Christian Acosta, a host of other lower budget guys (Junior Espinoza, Roniel Raudes, etc.) and blew past the max budget before signing Moncada and going way over budget, resulting in the penalty for the next year.
In the 2015-2016 market the Sox were capped at $300K for an individual bonus limit. They signed a host of players but 5 of the 7 they gave $300K to saw those contracts voided based on MLB's assessment that the Sox were transferring bonus money through lower signings to them, circumventing the system.
That resulted in the 2016-2017 ban on signing international amateurs.
It's been a tumultuous and abnormal market for the Sox and this season looks to continue that trend apparently.
