Santo Domingo – The board of the HYL Baseball Academy, located in Guerra Municipality in Santo Domingo, denounced that the organization was allegedly defrauded by the father of a sought-after prospect whom he had developed for some time and with whom he had an initial relationship. There was agreement.
HYL co-owner Harold DePlan pointed out that for nearly two years the academy focused all of its resources and time on young short stop player, Diego Frontado, whose father, Andres Frontado, moved to his native Venezuela without warning to the country. A few days later he was spotted by directors from a Major League team who had been briefly interested.
“After working tirelessly from sunrise to sunset, looking for the possibility to reach a signing and get, within a short period of time, every player’s dream, to reach the Major Leagues, they magically disappeared and they also answered Didn’t give our call. as was customary. We later learned from another person that he went to Venezuela because we had spent so much time and resources developing his physique, his skills, his speed, his strength, and that we had given his father 30,000 US dollars in addition to shelter and support. Dollars were also given. Both of them at that time,” he regretted.
DePlan highlighted that Diego Frontado was being viewed at a tryout by directors of the Milwaukee Brewers who landed in June 2022, a team eyeing the prospect who is now 13 years old, and a week from now first disappears.
“We later learned that he is in an academy in his country, and coincidentally it is with the same team that now has a pre-agreement there for US1.6 million,” he said.
Meanwhile, HYL co-owner Luis Batista, showing evidence of the facts with photos and videos of the process, explains that, for more than a year, he sheltered the player in a house in which the father was installed. Was. With all the expenses of maintaining both a separate apartment, especially food, schooling and English, they took her to activities and presented her at stages and hotels. “We treat them like family. We take the prospect to a higher level with exhibition, advertisement etc.
Batista explains that he also had to invest in the academy with a new complex, just because of the hope of investing in a player whom he describes as special, with real expectations of great value, a phenomenon due to his talent, because he There are practically five tools at play, in addition to his intelligence.
“We devoted all our time to preparing him, developing his defense, his arm, his athleticism and power and even his speed, which we managed to do in the 60 yards in 6.5 seconds up to that point, ” he insisted.
Diplan says that when they managed to communicate they also blackmailed that the child’s nanny has cancer and hence they left.
“The difficult thing is that at that time other teams were interested in the player at the same time and we could not give them a simple explanation that he left the country, leaving us in the air. We are in bad shape as an organization , and are accompanied by many economic and moral damages,” he said.
Both professional prospect developers state that they report “fraud” so that this type of case does not happen, as has happened to others like them before, but they remain silent out of fear.
The H&L Baseball Academy has signed prospects with Major League teams such as the most recent case of Welby Francisca with the Cleveland Guardians for US$1,450,000; Jose Rodriguez with the Minnesota Twins; Nathanael Rodriguez of Tampa et al.
