Written by Jay Yencich | 19 December 2011

Sometimes, we forget that Latin American prospects sign at times other than the mid-summer and early fall. Sure, the high profile signings usually go down pretty close to the opening of the period in July, but those that come later are not inherently worse. I have an old media guide lying around and, perusing that, it turns out that Pineda and George Mieses both signed in December and Campos and Carlos Peguero both waited it out until January. Does that mean that infielder Angel Yente, just signed for $225k, is in the same company? I wouldn't go that far, but it would be a bad idea to write him off purely for reasons of timing.

The link that announced it has a comically well-produced clip of Yente talking a little about himself and showing off his skills. The first impressions from that are as follows. He's not a burner, no one will mistake him for one, but he does a little better underway. His arm isn't a howitzer or anything, but once he gets the ball in hand (there are a few clips of him fine-tuning his grip), he gets rid of it in a hurry, so overall it's a plus tool. The swing he uses seems to be that of a guy who is accustomed to having good bat speed and will do whatever he can to get to the ball. Sometimes that means he's using a fairly level plane, other times he'll dip down a little, and in rare instances you might see an uppercut. The description of him had him as a "gap to gap" hitter and I can see that because it looked as though about five of the balls he hit went to right, two went to left-center, and only one hugged the left field foul line. It was impossible to get a read on the distance of the balls that weren't pulled due to the angle, but the ones that were pulled got some decent airtime. The article suggested that while he was a shortstop in the Dominican Prospect League, we're likely looking at him as a third baseman long-term just because of his size.

Overall, it looks like he's probably in the Francisco Martinez/Carlos Triunfel family of prospects, guys that have good defensive tools but are a little big for shortstop and whose offense is largely average-based with the hope of some power. I obviously don't know what his inclinations are as far as walking goes, so I'm really just inferring from the swing that contact is the name of his game. All in all, decent addition, good chance he could start in the DSL to start next season but don't be surprised if he turns up in Peoria instead.

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