The Cincinnati Reds are reportedly interested in Cuban left handed pitcher Osvaldo Hernandez. He’s 18-years-old and is eligible to sign now. Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com was the first to report this.

Cuban LHP Osvaldo Hernandez, 18, declared FA & can sign. He’s 92-94 mph. List of teams interested include SD, CIN, HOU, NYM, ATL, TEX, BOS. — Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) February 11, 2017

It’s worth noting here that the timing is very important. The Cincinnati Reds have gone over their spending limit pool for the current period. However, they are able to keep spending until the end of this signing period (June 15th). They will have to pay a 100% tax on whatever they pay for a player they sign moving forward. So, if they signed a player for $2M, they would also have to pay a fine of $2M to Major League Baseball. The Boston Red Sox can’t sign anyone until July 2nd as a part of a penalty for working around rules in the previous signing period.

The Cincinnati Reds have been very aggressive in the Cuban pitching market. It all started with Aroldis Chapman and continued with Raisel Iglesias. Last year the team picked up Vladimir Gutierrez as well. It’s easily been their most successful, and also their most expensive endeavor on the amateur market.

The left hander never pitched in the Cuban National Series before he left the country. That gives us no stats to compare him to other Cuban pitchers. There’s very little information out there on the lefty currently. He pitched for Team Cuba in the Pan-Am Games in the past, allowing just four hits in 10.1 innings against Team USA. Here’s the line from the two games:

Date IP H ER BB K 10/1/2016 5.1 2 1 3 5 10/9/2016 4.1 3 2 1 0

He also performed well in the Cuban “minor leagues” where he went 8-1 with a 0.92 ERA in 68.0 innings according to an article in the El Nuevo Herald.

With the Reds being limited for the next two years, they should be pursuing any and all talent that they consider to be premiere talent while they still can. Even if they have to overpay for it a little bit, they can make that up in the budget the next two seasons when they will be ineligible to sign anyone for over $300,000. There’s obviously a limit on what you want to overspend on a player on, but with limited opportunities it makes sense to go hard for players like this.