Mariners snag Luis Veloz in International Free Agency (UPDATE)

UPDATE (8:00 am - 7/3):

Just kidding. Something went wrong, y'all

— Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) July 3, 2016

***

International free agency, and all of the chaos that comes with it, is officially underway and the Seattle Mariners managed to pick up a Top-30 prospect:

Source: #Mariners agree to a $1.2M deal with Luis Veloz, #25 on @MLB Top 30 Int’l Prospects list https://t.co/BTsVF5bAYy @MLBPipeline

— Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) July 2, 2016

The signing was of no surprise to anyone, as the Mariners have been the favorite to land Veloz for awhile now. Let's take a look at the newest Mariner:

At A Glance

The Rundown

Veloz is an impressive physical specimen despite being just sixteen; standing at 6'4" and weighing 180 pounds, he will always stick out on a baseball field. He shows solid athleticism moving around in the outfield and while he'll never be the fastest guy on a roster, his speed is certainly an asset moving forward.

Veloz's best tool is his arm strength. If his wing isn't the best amongst position players in the whole free agency class, then it's ever so slightly below one or two others. You can catch glimpses of it below:

At the plate, Veloz flashes plenty of raw power with his big, aggressive swing. As the video above mentions, his biggest need will be the development of a consistent approach and pitch recognition. If you skim through videos of his at-bats online, you'll find they are riddled with ugly swings and misses at pitches off the plate, similar to the one at the nine-second mark in the video below:

At this point in time, he seems very much like a plus-power, high-strikeout guy moving forward until things change.

One interesting thing to note, and this also comes from the MLB.com video above, is that scouts feel he could be a pitcher if he is unable to develop as a hitter. Once again, the arm strength is impressive, and it's easy to imagine him running it up to the mid-90s on the mound in the future. For the Mariners' sake, however, let's all just hope he turns into George Springer or something.

goms.