FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Jurrangelo Cijntje wants to keep his options open with the Seattle organization as a pitcher who switches between throwing right-handed and left-handed.
The 15th overall pick by the Mariners in Major League Baseball's amateur draft Sunday night, Cijntje said there was a reason he threw righty to lefty batters more often with Mississippi State in 2024.
“I had discomfort in my left side in the middle of the season,” Cijntje said. “I was talking to my pitching coach, and he was like, ‘You can just rest now from the left side and you can just focus on the right side.’ Everything is good now.”
The Mariners said they want Cijntje, who was a switch-pitcher for Curacao in the 2016 Little League World Series, to decide how to proceed as a righty and/or lefty as a pro. Cijntje says he would prefer to continue pitching from both sides.
According to his MLB.com draft profile, Cijntje was a natural left-hander who started throwing righty as a 6-year-old to mimic his father, Mechangelo, a former pro baseball player in the Netherlands.
There is some natural righty in him, though. Cijntje says he writes right-handed, while eating is somewhat like pitching — the 21-year-old uses both hands.
Cijntje agrees with scouting reports that say his fastball velocity is better right-handed, in the mid-90 mph range compared to low 90s from the left side. He throws with a lower arm angle as a lefty, which means relying more on off-speed pitches from that side.
Scouts also believe Cijntje's future might be as a right-hander, which is why going against the percentages by pitching right-handed against lefties more often this season was notable.
“On the right side, I have more feel just because I used the right side very much more than the left side because at some point I stopped using the left side,” Cijntje said. “But I can feel the left side is becoming better.”
Cijntje was drafted in the 18th round by Milwaukee in 2022 out of high school in the Miami area but chose to attend Mississippi State.
After a rough freshman season in 2023, Cijntje was 8-2 with a 3.67 ERA this past season. He pointed to a 15-5 win over then-defending champion LSU as a launching pad for where he ended up as one of the six prospects awaiting their fate at a rodeo arena in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards.
“I think after that, I started getting good outing after good outing,” Cijntje said. “For me, that was like, ‘You’ve got to be on your A game,' and don't back down about nothing.”
Now, Cijntje doesn't want to back down on pitching righty and lefty.
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Seattle Mariners Executive Vice President & General Manager Justin Hollander, far left, President, Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto, second from left, react after Senior Director, Amateur Scouting Scott Hunter, right, makes the selection for the team's first pick of Jurrangelo Cijntje, of Mississippi State, in the draft room at T-Mobile Park during the MLB baseball draft, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Jurrangelo Cijntje is interviewed after being selected 15th overall by the Seattle Mariners in the first round of the MLB baseball draft in Fort Worth, Texas, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
ROME (AP) — Human rights groups voiced outrage Wednesday after Italy released a Libyan warlord on a technicality, after he was arrested on a warrant from the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Hague-based court, for its part, issued a more diplomatic response but its anger appeared evident. In a stern statement late Wednesday, the ICC reminded Italy that it is obliged to “cooperate fully” with its prosecutions and said it was still awaiting information about what exactly Rome had done.
The reaction came after the Italian government on Tuesday released and sent back home Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, who heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force.
Al-Masri had been arrested Sunday in Turin, where he reportedly had attended the Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before. The ICC warrant, dated the day before, accused al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Mitiga prison in Libya starting in 2015 that are punishable with life in prison.
The ICC said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. It said the warrant was transmitted to member states on Saturday, including Italy, and that the court had also provided real-time information that he had entered Europe.
The court said it had reminded Italy at the time to contact it “without delay” if it ran into any problems cooperating with the warrant.
But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed Tuesday, and he was sent back to Libya aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services, because of what the appeals court said was a procedural error in his arrest. The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time, since the justice ministry handles all relations with the ICC.
The ICC said it had not been given prior notice of the Rome court's decision, as required, and “is seeking, and is yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken.”
Al-Masri returned to Tripoli late Tuesday, received at the Mitiga airport by supporters who celebrated his release, according to local media. Footage circulated online showed dozens of young men chanting and carrying what appeared to be al-Masri on their shoulders.
“This is a stunning blow to victims, survivors and international justice and a missed opportunity to break the cycle of impunity in Libya,” said Amnesty International’s Esther Major, deputy director of research for Europe.
Nordio appeared in the Senate on Wednesday for a previously-scheduled briefing, and was grilled by outraged opposition lawmakers who demanded clarity about what happened. Former Premier Matteo Renzi accused the right-wing government of hypocrisy given its stated crackdown on human traffickers.
“But when a trafficker whom the International Criminal Court tells us is a dangerous criminal lands on your table, it’s not like you chase him down, you brought him home to Libya with a plane of the Italian secret services,” said Renzi of the Italia Viva party. “Either you’ve gone crazy or this is the image of a hypocritical, indecent government.”
The Democratic Party demanded Premier Giorgia Meloni respond specifically to parliament about the case, saying it raised “grave questions” given the known abuses in Libyan prisons for which al-Masri is accused. Nordio didn't respond.
Italy has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, on whom it relies to patrol its coasts and prevent waves of migrants from leaving. Any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.
Human rights groups have documented gross abuses in the Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept, and have accused Italy of being complicit in their mistreatment.
Two humanitarian groups, Mediterranea Saving Humans and Refugees in Libya, which have documented abuses committed against migrants in Libyan detention facilities, said they were incredulous that Italy let al-Masri go.
David Yambio, a 27-year-old from South Sudan who said he was abused by al-Masri while he was detained at the Mitiga prison in 2019-2020, said he felt betrayed by Italy. Yambio, who eventually escaped from the prison and arrived in Italy on a smuggler’s boat in 2022, said he had a “fleeting feeling of justice” when he heard that al-Masri had been arrested in Turin.
“Those who waited long before me, the Libyans who are victims of his criminal network, his war crimes, have been wanting for this day to come,” said Yambio, who received asylum and now lives in Modena and runs his Refugees in Libya advocacy group. “But when it came, it was immediately extinguished hours before it could even truly be felt in our hearts.”
But Tarik Lamloum, a Libyan activist working with the Belaady Organization for Human Rights which focuses on migrants in Libya, said Italy’s release of al-Masri was expected. He said his release shows the power of militias who control the flow of migrants to Europe through Libya’s shores.
“Tripoli militias are able to pressure (Italy) because they control the migrants file,” he told The Associated Press.
Militias in western Libya are part of the official state forces tasked with intercepting migrants at sea, including in the EU-trained coast guard. They also run state detention centers, where abuses of migrants are common.
As a result, militias — some of them led by warlords the U.N. has sanctioned for abuses — benefit from millions in funds the European Union gives to Libya to stop the migrant flow to Europe.
The European Commission spokesman reaffirmed all EU members had pledged to cooperate with the court.
“We respect the court’s impartiality and we are fully attached to international criminal justice to combat impunity," said EU commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni. In a 2023 summit, the EU leaders committed “to cooperate fully with the court, including rapid execution of any pending arrests,” he added.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Paolo Santalucia in Rome and Molly Quell in The Hague contributed.
FILE - View of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi makes his remarks during Justice Minister Carlo Nordio's appearance at the Senate for the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio puts his hand to his head during the presentation of the report on the justice administration, at the Senate, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio addresses the Senate during the report on the justice administration, in Rome, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Roberto Monaldo//LaPresse via AP)