The Orioles have acquired shortstop Milton Ramos from the Mets for international signing bonus slots, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (Twitter link).
Baltimore, which is known for largely eschewing the international market, has now acquired several players in 2017 in exchange for bonus slots. After this year’s international signing period opened Sunday, the Orioles landed pitchers Matt Wotherspoon and Jason Wheeler from the Yankees and Dodgers, respectively. Previously, the O’s picked up the likes of Damien Magnifico, Paul Fry and Alex Katz for international spending space earlier this season.
The 21-year-old Ramos, who topped out as Baseball America’s 19th-best Mets prospect after the 2015 campaign, has hit just .242/.296/.312 at the lower levels of the minors since New York chose him in the third round of the 2014 draft. He owns a .227/.272/.276 line in 197 plate appearances at Single-A this season. He’ll remain at that level with the Orioles, per Kubatko.
It’s unclear how much international money the Orioles have traded away during the current period, but they opened the proceedings with $5.75MM. The Mets entered Sunday with $4.75MM to work with and have since agreed to use a combined $3.6MM on Dominican shortstops Ronny Mauricio and Adrian Hernandez.
