The Nationals will be signing players today. A bunch of them, as a matter of fact.
Not big-league players. But players they certainly hope will become big leaguers someday once they join the organization from Latin America and work their way up the depth chart.
It’s the start of the 2024 international signing period across Major League Baseball, and this one will be notable for the Nationals because for the first time in a long time, there’s a new person in charge of the process.
Johnny DiPuglia, the franchise’s lead international scout since 2009, resigned in September and recently was hired by the Royals as a special assistant. Taking his place is Fausto Severino, who has worked for the Nats just as long but is only now getting his first opportunity to lead the department after serving as DiPuglia’s right-hand man for years.
Severino joined the Nationals in 2009 as the administrator of their Dominican academy, which was in a state of chaos after it was discovered an alleged top prospect falsified his name (Esmailyn Gonzalez) and age in order to secure a then-record $1.6 million signing bonus. The investigation into that case led to the downfalls of former general manager Jim Bowden and his top Latin American lieutenant, Jose Rijo.