How the Pirates signed David Matoma, a 16-year-old pitching prospect from Uganda

June 28, 2024

PITTSBURGH — Long before David Matoma put his signature on a contract to join the Pirates’ minor-league system, he and the club built a long-distance relationship by cell phone.

Matoma, a 16-year-old right-handed pitcher, finalized his deal Sunday, becoming only the third player from Uganda ever to sign with an MLB team. Terms of his bonus were not disclosed.

Tom Gillespie, a Pirates scout who is based in Germany, first heard about Matoma more than a year ago, but it took a while for the two to connect.

“My coach (Bernard Okello) told me, ‘There’s a scout who’s looking for you,’” Matoma said Thursday in a video call from his home in Luwero, Uganda. “I talked with (Gillespie) by phone when I was at school. Later, I asked Coach Okello about Tom and (the coach) told me he was too busy to talk right now. I said, ‘OK, but when am I going to talk with him again?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’”

Matoma didn’t want to throw away an opportunity to impress an MLB scout, so he did what any teenager would do — he researched Gillespie on social media. Eventually, he dug up Gillespie’s contact info on WhatsApp and sent the veteran scout more than 30 videos of his bullpen sessions.

“Technology makes it a lot easier,” Gillespie said. “I’ve been able to keep tabs on David with video, see the pocket radars, and get an idea of how the velocity was improving and how that matched up with what I was seeing with my eyes.”

Last spring, Gillespie journeyed to Luwero, a town of 42,000 in central Uganda about 40 miles north of the capital city of Kampala, to finally watch Matoma throw in person.

Gillespie liked what he saw. Lean and wiry at 6-foot, 155 pounds, Matoma fires a fastball that touches 92 mph. “He’s got a fast arm,” Gillespie said. “Slider, good feel for spin, 83 to 84 mph. A developing changeup at 81 mph.”

Matoma started out as a middle infielder and switched to a full-time pitcher a couple of years ago. “I saw videos of David hitting just last week,” Gillespie said with a grin. “I don’t know if he can still play a position, but he keeps trying to tell me he can hit.”

As he watched Matoma play, Gillespie framed his evaluation in the context of a pitcher who’s still very young, still growing and who’s had little exposure to organized coaching.

“There’s got to be a base level of athleticism,” Gillespie said. “There’s got to be the traits of a ballplayer to build upon. But there’s also going to be some (sense of) what can be expected from him wouldn’t be the standard in other parts of the world. There’s going to be a learning curve.”

After deciding Matoma was worthy of a contract, Gillespie went to work on convincing his boss, international scouting director Junior Vizcaino. That treasure trove of videos came in handy again, as Gillispie relayed them to Pirates cross-checkers for their analysis.

Vizcaino approved the contract offer. It’s a gamble, as Uganda isn’t a baseball hotbed. Then again, the Pirates have scoured unusual spots for talent before.

In 2017, Gift Ngoepe, a South African, appeared in 28 games with the Pirates and became the first player developed in Africa to play in MLB. The Pirates also have signed players from India (Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel) and Lithuania (Dovydas Neverauskas).

“We’re not signing kids from different countries just to fill a quota,” Vizcaino said. “We (go after) kids we think are going to be good professional players, and you run into them in different parts of the world. Once we identify that kind of talent, we’re not shy about going after them.”

Last year, the Dodgers signed the first two Ugandan players, pitchers Ben Serunkuma and Umar Male, and hired MLB’s first Ugandan coach, Joshua Kizito Muwanguzi.

Serunkuma and Male pitched last year with the Dodgers’ team in the Dominican Summer League. They’re from the same town and played on the same team as Matoma.

Matoma began playing baseball in 2016, a year after Uganda sent shockwaves through the sport by beating the Dominican Republic in the opening game of the Little League World Series. Uganda is among the 20 poorest countries in the world, with a gross national income per capita of $800 (in U.S. dollars), and until 25 years ago had no organized baseball teams.

“In Africa — Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania — many kids play baseball really well, but cannot get the chance to play at the next level because we have no (financial) support,” Matoma said.

After signing his contract, David Matoma played catch with children in his hometown of Luwero. (Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Pirates)

Scouting in Uganda is difficult, Gillespie said, because any kind of structured schedule or league play is rare. “It’s tough to know when to go to competitions to see what (talent) is actually there,” he said. “The easiest way I can do it is (by) making connections and keeping in contact with people to say, ‘Hey, who’s standing out?’”

Gillespie grew up on a farm in Iowa and smiles as he tells of his mom hitting him grounders after school. After college, he played in different leagues in Europe. Gillespie joined the Pirates in 2012 and is their scouting supervisor for Europe and Africa.

About 15 years ago, Gillespie visited Uganda for the first time to help with a coaching clinic. “There’s still not a lot of people playing in Uganda, but the (quality of play) has gotten a lot better,” Gillespie said. “Part of that is (due to) Coach Felix Okuye (president of the Uganda Baseball and Softball Association), who has worked a lot in (Matoma’s) hometown.”

In a couple of weeks, Matoma will head to the Pirates’ training academy in the Dominican Republic to begin his pro career. He visited the academy twice before signing his contract and already has met Latin America pitching coordinator Amaury Telemaco and coach Gera Alvarez.

Matoma knows he’s a sort of pioneer for Ugandan baseball — and a role model, too.

“Kids in Uganda are lacking chances to get to the next level,” Matoma said. “The chance will be in your hands if you keep playing. If you stop playing, you have no chance.”

(Top photo of Bernard Okello, left, David Matoma, center, and Tom Gillespie: Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Pirates)

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