Pirates not renewing director of international scouting Junior Vizcaino’s contract

PITTSBURGH — The Pirates are planning a major shakeup to their scouting team this winter, as they will not renew the contract of director of international scouting Junior Vizcaino.

Vizcaino has been with the organization in this position since December of 2017, inheriting the position from Rene Gayo, who was dismissed for receiving improper payments. In his time with the Pirates, Vizcaino helped bring credibility back to their standing on the international market while being party to the continued development of the team’s Dominican facilities, which it now boasts as one of the best in baseball.

However, the Pirates have not been able to produce enough Major League players from the international market who were signed under Vizcaino’s tenure. The team decided to give him this last year to see how some of his earlier classes would produce but ultimately decided that a change was necessary.

“Bottom line is we felt like to get better in this space and to produce more, it was time to make a change,” general manager Ben Cherington told MLB.com earlier in the week. “It’s a hard market. We know that you work your tail off to scout a player, sign a player, it’s going to take years before you really know the answer. But we felt like we had enough time, enough classes to get a sense of what we were getting. We made the decision that we had to get better, and a change was necessary to do that.”

“I think Junior is really a hard working, loyal, proud scout who worked really hard for the Pirates,” Cherington also said. “He did some things really well and came into a situation prior to me being here that was in need of some attention and credibility, and he brought that attention and credibility.”

Vizcaino’s contract with the Pirates will expire at the end of December. His dismissal does not mean that more major changes are expected on the international scouting front at this time.

Pittsburgh currently has only three players on its 40-man roster whom it signed as international free agents: Right-hander Luis Ortiz, infielder/outfielder Ji Hwan Bae and infielder Tsung-Che Cheng (Cheng has yet to appear in the Majors). Bae and Ortiz are the only two international players the Pirates have signed in Vizcaino’s time with the club who reached the Majors as Pirates, though several players Vizcaino signed were used in trades. That includes Jun-Seok Shim being part of the Trade Deadline package for Bryan De La Cruz from the Marlins and Rodolfo Nolasco being flipped for Daulton Jefferies from the Giants, both of which happened this year.

On the Minor League side, the Pirates have seven players inside MLB Pipeline’s Top 30 prospects list whom they signed as international free agents: shortstop Yordany De Los Santos (No. 13), Cheng (No. 18), infielder Jhonny Severino (No. 19), first baseman/outfielder Tony Blanco Jr. (No. 20), outfielder Shalin Polanco (No. 22), catcher Omar Alfonzo (No. 26) and outfielder/first baseman Edward Florentino (No. 29).

A search for a new director will begin soon. Whomever the Pirates hire will be inheriting top-notch facilities in the Dominican Republic and the knowledge that the organization routinely spends its international signing bonus pool.

The current international signing pool period will conclude on Dec. 15, and the new one will begin on Jan. 15, 2025. The Pirates’ pool next year will be $6,908,600, putting them in the grouping with the second-largest bonus pool.

This will be the second change Pittsburgh has made on the scouting side within the past year after promoting Joe DelliCarri to the vice president of scouting while hiring Justin Horowitz as the director of amateur scouting last November.