Atlanta Braves Sign 17-Year-Old Nicaraguan Pitcher Benard
Twins starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey (37) plays with some baseballs in the dugout at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
Yesterday came news of a new International player signing for the Atlanta Braves – one Shendell Benard, a nearly 18-year-old Nicaraguan native who has been training in one of the sports academies in that country.
Word of this acquisition came from the conservative Nicaraguan news outlet La Prensa. What follows here is their story on the signing (translated from this source):
The slender coastal pitcher Shendell Benard is the newest addition to the Atlanta Braves, one of the organizations in the major league most aggressive ballplayers firms in our country.
More from Tomahawk Take
- Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
- Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
- The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
- Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
- Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
Marvin Throneberry, the Braves scout in Nicaragua is confident that Benard will be projected (well) in this organization.
“He has a good physique and presence on the hill and I like his discipline. His fastball is kept between 89 and 90 mph, plus throws curveball and changeup, and has especially good command of all his pitches. He is clearly someone we wanted to have with us; now it depends on him how much progress can be made in the organization,” said Throneberry, who does not take an exact count of total signings in the country, but estimates that already surpassed thirty.
Benard, who studied in the United States and played at this year’s National Championship with the Caribbean coast, is part of the MVP Elio Rivera Sport Academy, and will be 18 years old next month.
With Benard on board, the Braves maintain its leadership as the organization with more Nicaraguans, now five, led by Omar Obregon and escorted by Evertz Orozco (who was recognized as Pitcher of the Year), Dilmer Mejia and Jason Laguna.
(story written in Spanish by Gerald Hernández; player photo at link above)
A Few Notes
No terms of this signing were announced (nor any physical stats other than Shendell’s age), but we do know that Atlanta was close to their pool spending limit for the 2015-16 “season”, which ends July 1 next year. Therefore, this is not a high-dollar signing. Given persistent reports that the Braves are intending to spend large dollars on several Latin kids after July 1st (the 2016-17 season), there is no chance of them endangering those plans by going into the penalty brackets – even if Benard happens to be particularly special.
No, that scout mentioned is not the Marv Throneberry of the original New York Mets (who passed away several years ago). Marvin Mendosa Throneberry is instead a long-time scout in Nicaragua employed by the Atlanta Braves – since at least 2007. He’s still hunting prospects, too: his facebook page has video on it from Sunday of another pitcher – 6’3″ Luis Manuel Miranda. Judging from the article above, he’s been reasonably successful in getting players signed.
Benard’s first stop as a Brave will likely be the Dominican baseball academy operated by the Braves, where he’ll probably be plugged into the next Dominican Summer League in 2016.
Nicaragua isn’t exactly a hotbed of baseball prospects. But anytime your team has a reputation for having a serious presence in a country… like the Braves do in Curaçao, for instance… then it will certainly help you to lock in the better players available. It does sound like Throneberry is doing a fine job of that for Atlanta.
Wikipedia lists 14 natives of Nicaragua as major leaguers, five of whom are still active. The best known of these fourteen is clearly Dennis Martinez, who finished up with the Braves in 1998, enjoying a 23-year career.
Curiously, one of the more recent retirees was an outfielder for the Giants named Marvin Benard (1995-2003). He’s now 44 years old, but there’s no indication that he’s a relative of Shendell. Marvin stood 5’10”; it’s hard to guess from the photo on the La Prensa site, but Shendell’s proportions suggest to me that he could be a bit over 6′.
The scouts – they are always looking… always digging, it seems. Kudos to Throneberry and congratulations to Shendell Benard: welcome to the organization!