Johnny Almaraz could raise Phillies' international profile

Johnny Almaraz did not plan on taking off his baseball uniform and putting on a scout's hat in his early 20s. No, the plan was to pitch in the big leagues and, if that did not work out, he was going to return to Southwest Texas State and get his degree in health administration.

Plan A, as it turned out, was stripped from Almaraz's control in his second minor-league season with the Cincinnati Reds, who had selected the righthanded pitcher in the 14th round of the 1988 draft. The Texas native pitched 14 times for Billings, Mont., in his rookie minor-league season and went 5-5 with a 5.04 ERA. He never pitched again.

"I broke camp with Greensboro my second year and I had an injury that basically ended my career," Almaraz said. "They asked me if I wanted to stay as a scout because they thought I was a student of the game."

That was in 1989.

The late Tony Robello, a fellow Texan and a scouting legend with the Reds, persuaded Almaraz that an alternative career in baseball was better than what might be waiting for him out in the real world.

"Tony convinced me to scout for a year," Almaraz said. "He said, 'You can finish school and do this. If you don't like it, you can hang it up altogether.' "

A quarter-century and millions of frequent-flier miles later, Almaraz is still in scouting and just beginning his career with the Phillies as the team's amateur scouting director. It's a new role for Almaraz and a vital one for the Phillies, a big-market team that fell to the bottom of the National League East standings in 2014.

Almaraz, 49, replaced Marti Wolever, who was fired a couple of days before the end of the season. He's an interesting hire because his background leans heavily toward international scouting at a time when general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is on record as saying the Phillies may move more in that direction because free-agent options are not nearly as attractive as they used to be.

Since the latter stages of this season, the Phillies have shown an interest in Yasmany Tomas, a power-hitting corner outfielder from Cuba; Kang Jung-ho, a slugging shortstop from South Korea; and Kenta Maeda, a pitcher from Japan.

Wolever said he had not been involved much in international scouting in recent years. That role shifted to assistant general manager Benny Looper, who worked alongside international scouting director Sal Agostinelli. Amaro has also recently been more involved in looking at international players like the ones mentioned above.

After starting his career as a Texas area scout for the Reds, Almaraz became heavily involved with Cincinnati's international program, where he was instrumental in setting up academies in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. As an area scout, he signed Adam Dunn. As an international scout, he signed Johnny Cueto. He interviewed for the Reds job as general manager after the 2005 season but did not get it. After one season as the director of player development, he left Cincinnati. Reports at the time said he thought the Reds had stopped valuing his input.

With the Braves, he was the director of Latin American operations and then spent the last five years as the director of international scouting. Julio Teheran, the 23-year-old ace of Atlanta's staff, was signed by Almaraz in 2007 for $850,000.

In addition to his international scouting duties, Almaraz also did on-the-field instructing and off-the-field counseling with Latin players. He'll miss those roles, but not as much as he missed his wife and two kids over the last seven years.

"This is an opportunity to be the head of a department that has really great people working for it," Almaraz said. "This is a great organization that was dominant in the National League East for years. It will be good to be back in the States competing against the 29 other teams in the draft."

Almaraz is here because the Phillies have not been dominant in recent years and the collapse cost Wolever his job. The new scouting director spent Thursday afternoon in Florida, where he talked baseball with Mike Stauffer, an area scout who covers Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Louisiana, and the Florida panhandle.

By the time the Phillies complete their organization meetings in Florida in two weeks, Almaraz said, he will have talked to all of his area scouts as the team prepares for its first draft without Wolever involved since 1992.

"For me, one of the important qualities in order to be a strong leader is to listen to every one of your scouts," Almaraz said. "Area scouts are a vital piece of the department. They know the players better than anybody. We've got great scouts in Philadelphia and this is going to be a collective effort from everybody."

Almaraz, however, will have final say on which players the Phillies draft in the future and there are not many jobs more important than that one in an organization.

@brookob