July 2nd marks the beginning of the international free agent period. Which teams did the best job on the first day of signings?

Saturday began the start of the 2016-2017 international free agent signing period in major league baseball. During that time, players who have reached 16 years old within the signing period can be signed to contracts. This starts a new season of international signing budgets, and many teams have chosen to go beyond their spending limits this season, fearing that the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement over the offseason will either begin an international draft or drastically change the current international signing rules.

Teams that had exceeded their budgets in the last two seasons were limited in this year’s market, and this amounted to 9 teams. Those teams were the Diamondbacks, Cubs, Royals, Angels, Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, Rays, and Blue Jays. The Red Sox were not allowed to sign any players due to penalties levied by major league baseball.

We’re going to look at a number of teams that went above and beyond their spending limits to see who had the best first day of signing. We’ll start with the team that signed by far the most players off of the Baseball America top-50 players…

San Diego Padres

Padres GM A.J. Preller cut his teeth on the international market with the Texas Rangers, so it was no surprise that when he was allowed to focus the organization on rebuilding its farm system, he would attack the international market with fervor.

This year, the Padres went all in, and they’re not even done. They signed 8 of Baseball America’s top 50 international prospects on Saturday, and they’re highly likely to be signing Cubans OF Jorge Ona and LHP Adrian Morjon, both teenagers and therefore subject to the international free agent signing pool restrictions.

On the day, the Padres signed #2 overall prospect Luis Almanzar from the Dominican Republic, a shorstop who, like Lucius Fox of the Giants last year, had played high school baseball in the U.S. He’s more true to the Dominican than Fox was to the Bahamas, though, as he spent only one year stateside. He’s got a solid profile to build power going forward and smooth defense at this point, but his body doesn’t fit shortstop going forward at the time being. Of course, that’s been said about other players in the past that then took it upon themselves to do the conditioning needed to stay at their preferred position.

The Padres also signed SS Gabriel Arias from Venezuela, BA’s #4 prospect, OF Jesson Rosario from the Dominican Republic (#6), C Alison Quintero from Venezuela (#22), SS Justin Lopez from Venezuela (#28), OF Tirso Ornelas from Mexico (#34), RHP Michell Miliano from the Dominican (#48), and SS Yordy Barley from the Dominican (#50) among a total of 16 signings announced today.

