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Latin America Flag Mural - Brewers' Domincan Academy
A mural at the Milwaukee Brewers' Dominican Academy featuring Latin American flags (2024)
While it will almost certainly be several years before the investment pays dividends, some of the Brewers’ biggest moves of the offseason came last week when the Brewers welcomed a new international signing period by adding three of the year’s top prospects. Shortstops Ricky Moneys, Diego Frontado and Jose Rodriguez were this year’s 20th, 24th and 49th best available signees according to MLB Pipeline. All three are 17 years old and Moneys is from the Dominican Republic while Frontado and Rodriguez are from Venezuela.
The trio will almost certainly spend the 2026 season at the Brewers’ new Dominican Academy, which opened in 2024. Recent players to pass through this and the Brewers’ prior academy have provided quite the return on investment: Still only 21 years old, Jackson Chourio has already played in 279 MLB games and hit 42 home runs. Three of the Brewers’ top prospects are also recent graduates of the academy, infielders Jesus Made and Luis Pena and catcher Jeferson Quero. Within a year or two it’s possible Chourio will have multiple teammates who followed him all the way up the ladder from the academy to the majors.
That success, however, has been a long time coming. Chourio was the first position player to go from the Brewers’ Dominican teams to the majors since shortstop Orlando Arcia, who had passed through a decade earlier. Before that, in the early 2000’s the Brewers had an extended experiment where they were the only MLB team without any Dominican presence, sending international signees straight to their minor league facilities in Phoenix.
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International Players
The Brewers recommitted to the Dominican Republic in the 2010s but the return on that investment was limited at best. Arcia is the only player mentioned in this 2014 piece on the Brewers “buying in” in the Dominican Republic who played above the low levels of the minors. That piece also mentions a rumored deal that came to fruition for infielder Gilbert Lara, who received a signing bonus of more than $3 million, easily the Brewers’ largest commitment ever to an international player and never reached AA in the Brewers organization.
International players are eligible to sign contracts with MLB teams at 16 years old, and the challenges inherent in evaluating would-be high school sophomores as possible professionals are obvious. That extreme difficulty shows in the success rate of international signees: Each year teams add dozens of them, many fielding multiple teams of teenagers in the Dominican Summer League, and only handfuls of those players will even go on to play in the lowest levels of the minors in the US.
After more than a decade without much to show for it, the Brewers’ commitment and investment to international talent is starting to pay off in recent years. In addition to Chourio, the Brewers have advanced several pitchers from the academy to the majors: Abner Uribe, who made his pro debut in the Dominican Republic in 2018, is perhaps the most notable success, but 2021-22 Brewers reliever Miguel Sanchez also passed through in 2016 and Miguel Diaz, who has pitched seven seasons in the majors with the Padres, Tigers and Astros, was also with the Brewers in the Dominican Summer League in 2012 and 2013.
Signing and developing international pitchers is even more challenging than position players. Just three of the aforementioned 50 players in MLB Pipeline’s list of this year’s top international signees were pitchers. That’s not to say it can’t be done, of course: Two pitchers who started their pro careers in the Dominican received Cy Young Award votes in 2025: Cristopher Sanchez of the Phillies and the Brewers’ own Freddy Peralta, who pitched there during his time in the Mariners organization.
With that said, selecting potential stars out of the field of 16 and 17-year-old international signees is an incredibly difficult business and the Brewers struggled to do it more than most for a long time. That tide has turned recently, however, and that gives Brewers fans all the more cause to be excited about this year’s wave of new additions.
