It’s January 15.

The Rangers won’t land the biggest international catch of all, but their scouts got plenty done as the signing period kicked off.

The floodgates are open. Teams have worked for months, if not years, for this day, the annual date on which international amateurs — and a select few international pros — can formally sign agreements to advance their careers stateside. January 15 (and before 2020, July 2) is always a big day for the Rangers. Half of their top 20 prospects arrived in the minor leagues as international free agents — nine as their own signs, plus RHP Jose Corniell, picked up from the Mariners in 2020 before he’d thrown a professional pitch.

There was more mystery this year, however, than most as far as Texas was concerned. Unlike other classes, which were known to be headed by Jurickson Profar or Nomar Mazara or Bayron Lora or Sebastian Walcott well before the light turned green on the international signing period. But this year, because the Rangers were among the eight teams believed to have gotten an audience last month with Roki Sasaki, it was expected that they were probably not handshaking agreements to pay at the top of the Latin American market and cut significantly into the $6,261,600 bonus pool they entered this international period with.

The Rangers were not, however, one of the teams in that group of eight that was held up by Sasaki’s camp, as it was clear they were out of the running for Sasaki on Monday, if not before then. Two days isn’t enough to start recruiting players — but there was at least some clarity by then in terms of how much of that $6,261,600 they would need to hang onto for Sasaki: none of it.

So Texas got busy.