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The Atlanta Braves have signed their fifth European prospect, catcher Víctor Velázquez, from the Tenerife Baseball Academy in Spain. The La Guancha native is the fifth European prospect to sign a professional contract wit the Major League Baseball club.
Velázquez participated in the second installment of the Tenerife Academy which is funded partly by the Braves organization. The promising backstop joins outfielder Deion Galvan and catcher Roberto Machado who were signed earlier this year by Johnny Almaraz, the Braves director of international operations.
The talented trio will join former academy members Ruben Rijkhof and Alejandro Sanchez Martinez in the Braves minor league system.
There are a lot of catchers coming out of the Tenerife Academy.
0 recs | 13 comments
I count 2 C, 2 OF, and a SS
are any of them on a full season squad right now? Seems like that Academy might really pay off in the future, is anyone else about to expand into Europe?
Mr. Sanchez - April 22, 2010
None of them are playing yet. Maybe a few will debut with the GCL team or Danville in July. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what comes from this academy.
cbwilk - April 22, 2010
Orlando Mercado in AA threw me off for a second. Should have known better.
Mr. Sanchez - April 22, 2010
Are they the Suzuki type cathchers
Or are they the classic sense of the catcher?
BeantownVol - April 22, 2010
Ole
Bmacbandwagon - April 22, 2010
Ole Machado
bwellnjonesco - April 22, 2010
No comprendo
HereComesBream - April 22, 2010
Why do we need more catchers? We have McCann….
HereComesBream - April 22, 2010
Because if Freeman doesn’t come through, McCann will end up moving to first base where he can play everyday.
Bobby Cocks - April 22, 2010 via mobile
We need more everything, all the time, thats how it works..
bwellnjonesco - April 22, 2010
And Bethancourt...
but guys get hurt, don’t pan out, or can be trade fodder. We’ve used two highly regarded Cs as the centerpiece prospect in deals for major talent recently (Tex and Vazquez), so it’s not like having a surplus of quality Cs in the system is a bad idea.
Mr. Sanchez - April 22, 2010
Censorship!
sdp - April 22, 2010
Disregard for request!
royhobbs - April 22, 2010
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