The Yankees are in the postseason and still chasing Tampa Bay in the AL East, but one of the organization’s biggest September storylines is happening far away from the Bronx. It’s centered on the club’s international scouting operation, where a sweeping reset is now taking shape.
The changes have already cost six employees this month, and the pattern points to a much larger overhaul than a routine staff shuffle. The Yankees are reworking the department that has long fed the organization players such as Robinson Canó, Alfonso Soriano, Gary Sánchez and Ivan Nova.
The shift began months ago. Donny Rowland, the longtime international scouting director, was not retained when his contract expired in November. In January, the Yankees turned the job over to Mario Garza, a 16-year organizational employee whose background includes player development, Latin American operations and baseball development.
At the time, Brian Cashman made it clear this was about more than swapping out one person for another.
“He’s a great evaluator of talent,” Cashman said. “He knows our systems.
He already knows all the personnel that we want to have. You want evaluation, you want fire hoses connecting to performance science and analytics.
That will give him a head start as we try to relaunch that department and move forward.”
That word - “relaunch” - now looks like the key to understanding everything that has followed.
Five international scouting employees have since not been retained in what Francys Romero described as the first wave of changes: Dominican Republic area scouts José Sabino and Arturo Pena Jr., Santo Domingo area scout Moises Brito, video assistant Miguel Mojica and Venezuela supervisor Jose Gavidia.
Romero wrote, “The Yankees plan to revamp their international scouting department and have already made five dismissals in recent days, according to industry sources. Among the scouts not being retained are Jose Sabino and Arturo Peña Jr. (Cibao Area Scout, DR), Moises Brito (Santo Domingo Area Scout), Miguel Mojica (Video Assistant) and Jose Gavidia (Venezuela Supervisor).”
Those moves came after the departure of veteran scout Victor Mata, whose Yankees career lasted more than three decades. Mata was involved in evaluating or signing Canó, Sánchez, Soriano, Nova and Zoilo Almonte.
His exit has been described differently by different reporters. Romero reported that the Yankees let Mata go.
Mike Rodriguez said Mata retired and received the benefits tied to his long tenure. The Yankees have not offered a detailed public explanation.
The broader picture suggests a planned reset rather than a sudden reaction. Rowland’s contract was not renewed in November.
Garza was elevated in January. The Yankees spent the season under that new leadership before the latest September departures.
There were also signs the system was due for a closer look. A March FanGraphs review said the Yankees have often put a large portion of their international bonus pool into one or two expensive players, and that too many of those high-dollar bets had not developed the way the club hoped. The same review said the system needed more position-player talent after recent graduations.
That context makes the loss of Wandy Asigen even more notable. One of the top players in the 2026 international class, the 16-year-old shortstop had been expected to reach an agreement with the Yankees before Rowland’s departure, then backed out and signed with the Mets for $3.9 million.
The Yankees also entered the signing period with a $5.44 million pool, tied for MLB’s smallest after losing $1 million for signing Max Fried.
Garza’s background helps explain the direction of the overhaul. Before taking over the international scouting department, he served as director of baseball development in 2024 and 2025, and earlier worked in Latin American operations and international player development. Cashman’s January comments suggested the organization wanted scouting and development to work much more closely together.
That does not mean the Yankees are abandoning old-school international scouting. In-person evaluation and relationships still matter, especially in markets like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where the club has built much of its pipeline. But the people running the department now are being asked to blend that traditional work with a more modern information flow.
The challenge is obvious: New York is moving on from staffers with deep roots in Latin America while expecting a new structure to keep those relationships intact and sharpen the evaluation process at the same time.
There’s no quick way to judge whether the overhaul works. A lineup decision can be measured immediately. A teenager signed in the international market may not reach the majors for five or six years.
That’s what makes this so significant. The Yankees are 88-63, have already locked up a postseason spot and hold the American League’s top wild-card position. Even so, this reset is aimed at the next wave of Yankees players, not the current playoff push.
For now, the sequence is clear: Rowland out, Garza promoted, Asigen lost, Mata gone and five more international staffers not retained. What the Yankees have not said publicly is whether more changes are coming.
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