The 16-year-old left-handed pitcher Stepan Havlicek, member of the Czech national junior team and student of Sport Grammar School in Brno, signed a six-year professional contract with the Major League club Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday in Blansko. Havlicek is the first player of Black Hill Blansko (till 2009 Extraleague team) to sign a pro contract and the fourth European player ever to sign with the Rays.Havlicek is going to two months of spring training in the USA (March/April) and will spend a couple of weeks in a training camp in Australia during the summer months. He is expected to make his debut for a farm club of the Rays next season, since his first priority is to finish school in Brno, before moving to the USA permanently.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Rays Sign Czech 16-Year Old
Dock Of The Rays was the first Rays outlet with it. Quote from a European baseball site:
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Here's a pic: http://www.sporting-photo.com/displayimage.php?album=204&pos=4
ReplyDeleteI found this comment about him from back in September:
ReplyDelete"Another European left-hander, 16-year-old Czech Stepan Havlicek, was expected to sign this summer for somewhere close to $100,000, but he came up with a dead arm after a heavy workload this summer. Now, it appears he won't sign before the spring."
Once again, our own home-grown American baseball players are at a disadvantage, since they can't sign at age 16. I never could figure out how this is fair.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Chapman gets twice as much as Strasburg and everyone complains about Strasburg, demands hard slots. Don't hear too much about putting limits on international signings though. Typical Selig inventing a problem to keep money from the kids. The American kids.
ReplyDeleteCould anyone giva a little writup on him? What he throws, his potential, where he will start off.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately there's not a whole lot of scouting on Czech players, especially one his age. I interpreted the article as saying he'll spend this year training and finishing school and would debut in the 2011 season in the Gulf Coast League as a 17/18 year old.
ReplyDeleteI think it means he will attend spring training this March and April, then head back to the Czech Republic to finish up school and train and then play for the GCL (most likely) in 2011. Obviously he'll be very raw but I will be interested to see just how advanced he is. Gotta love players almost two years younger than me signing contracts.. sigh. Anyone know how good the English programs in the Czech Republic are? I can't see many catchers being thrilled to learn that language.
ReplyDeleteUsually europeans are not that bad in english! Shouldn't be a problem!
ReplyDeleteGood point BurGi. We Americans sometimes think we are the only ones who speak english. We take a high school spanish class and think we're bilingual. :) I know I did.
ReplyDeleteMost europeans can speak 2 or 3 languages quite well. With a bunch of small countries packed together, it's kind of necessary. Over here we can travel thousands of miles without needing to know a different language.
Plus even if his english isn't great now, he has over a year to work on it, and lots of motivation (professional baseball career).
Good to see you around BurGi!