The Cincinnati Reds have acquired a right-handed hitting outfielder from the Los Angeles Dodgers. That’s what Reds fans have been clamoring for, right? Well, not entirely. Cincinnati did go out and pick up an outfielder, but for now it’s in the form of a recently turned 19-year-old minor leaguer. Francys Romero reported that the club traded for Arnaldo Lantigua of the Dodgers, sending Los Angeles over $1,000,000 in 2025 international bonus pool space in return. Mark Sheldon of Reds.com reported that it was $1,500,000.
Before diving too far in, let’s explain what all is happening here. The 2025 international signing period for amateur players began on Wednesday. Each team is given a bonus pool allotment from Major League Baseball based on several factors. The teams can not spend beyond their allotment, but they can trade for up to 60% more than their original pool was for. In the Dodgers case, given that they have just landed Japanese superstar Roki Sasaki – they need to add as much as they can here in order to meet whatever agreement with him that they had.
The Reds, who signed 18 players this week and spent a large amount of their pool (if you are interested in reading about those players, we have scouting reports on all of them at this link). But they did have a little bit of their pool remaining (they were tied for having the largest available pool) and they used some of that to acquire Lantigua. It’s important to note that the Reds did not actually send any money in this deal. They just sent the Dodgers an “allowed to spend” $1,500,000 allotment.
Now that all of that is out of the way, let’s talk about the prospect that Cincinnati just traded for. Arnaldo Lantigua was signed in January of 2023 by the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic a few weeks after his 17th birthday. He struggled to hit for average in his 29 games that season, hitting just .222. But he walked 18 times and had 26 strikeouts while also slugging .475 in a league where the slugging percentage was .356.
He returned to the Dominican Summer League this past season as an 18-year-old and things went much better. The outfielder played in 49 games and hit .301/.430/.575 with 19 extra-base hits, 33 walks, and 34 strikeouts. His 11 home runs were tied for 2nd in the league and he was one of just five players in the 51-team league to have double-digit homers.
As a player who has never stepped foot on a field in the US, he is the definition of a lottery ticket. But for a lottery ticket there’s plenty to like. While you generally want to take stats from the Dominican Summer League with a grain of salt, it’s better when guys crush the ball there than when they don’t. There are plenty of examples of guys who never hit well there and still became big leaguers – we’re essentially talking about a league full of teenagers and guys grow and develop a lot after that point in time. Still, Arnaldo Lantigua crushed the ball in 2024 and that’s a good sign. Toss in that he was considered a quality prospect even before that and it’s another check mark in the good column.
In the long run we’ll have to wait and see what happens here, but the Reds were able to take advantage of this opportunity and capitalize on adding a real prospect to their farm system just for the opportunity of allowing the Dodgers to spend money. Tough to see any downsides at all with this kind of deal.
You can see the career stats for Arnaldo Lantigua here.
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