Cincinnati Reds ink 18 players on opening day of international signing period

Liberts Aponte highlights the class.

Major League Baseball’s international signing window opened on January 15th, and the Cincinnati Reds wasted little time in getting many of their ‘recruits’ under contract.

The Reds officially signed 18 players on Wednesday, highlighted by Liberts Aponte - a 17 year old native of Venezuela who ranked 18th on MLB Pipeline’s list of the top international prospects available in this class. Aponte, a shortstop, is known for his incredibly glovework, and he and the Reds agreed on a reported $2 million bonus, per MLB.com’s Jesse Borek.

The Reds entered the window with a total bonus pool of $7.56 million to use on international signings, with some $800,000 of that pool also going to sign catcher Enry Torres as part of their class.

The Reds introduced their entire class of signings (so far) on Twitter earlier in the day.

Baseball America has a tracker up for all of the international signings by team. You may notice on said tracker that the Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, and San Diego Padres are the only three teams to not agree to terms with any international free agents so far. You may also recall that superstar international free agent Roki Sasaki has reportedly narrowed his list of finalists to the Dodgers, Blue Jays, and Padres.

Sadly, it would appear that Roki isn’t going to sign with the Reds in this window.