Once a potential multi-million-dollar international signing, Aybar confessed to age fraud last year and settles for a modest contract from the Mets.
Baseball America has reported today that the Mets signed Dominican shortstop Cecilio Aybar as an international free agent. The contract, which was apparently signed by Aybar in May, is worth $251,100, and will likely consume the remainder of the Mets' international bonus pool for this year.
The signing still must be approved by Major League Baseball, and Aybar may have some difficulty securing a visa considering his confession in 2013 of age-related fraud:
In April 2013, Aybar confessed to MLB that he had been using his younger brother’s identity in an elaborate fraud scheme, though hardly a unique one. Aybar now presents himself as a 20-year-old born Nov. 23, 1993. Sources told Baseball America that school and hospital records were altered to try to eliminate any record of Cecilio Aybar, while his younger brother had false identifying papers created for him since the older brother was using his identity to try out for teams. After Aybar’s confession, declared Aybar ineligible to sign until April 26, 2014.
The scouting report on Aybar is that he runs and throws well but needs plenty of refinement to the other areas of his game. Aybar was looking at a multi-million-dollar payday when everyone thought he was sixteen, but given his tools relative to his actual age of now-twenty years, he had to settle for what the Mets offered.