{"id":522009,"date":"2026-01-15T18:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/522009\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:03:12","slug":"rays-2026-international-signing-day-open-thread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/522009\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays 2026 International Signing Day Open Thread"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Blanco has been one of the biggest up-arrow players in Venezuela and has become one of the elite players in the 2026 class.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/tampa-bay-rays-2026-international-class-scouting-report\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baseball America<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Fabricio Blanco isn\u2019t getting the biggest bonus for the Rays, but on talent, he stacks up among the top tier of prospects for any team this year. He\u2019s a 5-foot-11, switch-hitting shortstop who has been an outstanding offensive performer in games in Venezuela, taking a tight turn of the barrel from both sides of the plate and consistently barreling balls with good at-bats and the bat speed to drive the ball out to his pull side. He has the tools, actions and instincts to stay at shortstop, giving him an exciting, well-rounded blend of tools and skills at a premium position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/5-mlb-teams-with-exciting-international-signing-classes-for-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baseball America<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">A switch-hitter, Blanco displays top-notch contact skills as he\u2019s able to utilize his quick hands to get the barrel of his bat to a variety of offerings. He\u2019ll need to hone in on pitch selection &#8212; and get more reps from the right side &#8212; as he enters the pro ranks, especially so as he looks to continue tapping into his blossoming pop. While not presently a huge stolen-base threat, he\u2019s aggressive on the basepaths during game action and is often apt to get his uniform dirty<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=1025X1734621&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fmilb%2Fprospects%2F2026%2Finternational%2Ffabricio-blanco-837521\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MLB Pipeline<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blanco has been one of the biggest up-arrow players in Venezuela and has become one of the elite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,46244,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-522009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-rays","11":"tag-rays-prospects","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115900435951217919","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}