MONDAY: The Astros announced that they signed McCullers, Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reports (on Twitter).
SUNDAY, 4:44 pm: McCullers will receive a $2.5MM bonus, the most over slot so far this year, according to Jim Callis of Baseball America. Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle tweets McCullers' bonus is between the slot values of the 12th and 13th overall picks and was made possible by the savings on the signing of Carlos Correa.
4:05 pm: The Astros will sign their supplementary first round draft choice right-handed pitcher Lance McCullers pending the successful completion of a physical Monday morning, reports Laura Keeley of the Tampa Bay Times. The recommended slot value for the 41st selection is $1,258,700. The Astros received the pick as compensation for losing Clint Barmes.
According to Baseball America, McCullers has a strong, athletic body and pitches with power and aggression. The majority of scouts believe he projects as a reliever. McCullers will forego his scholarship to the University of Florida.
Interesting..Interesting… Sign mcCullers and Carrero, let Appler slide.. get both for *around* what Appler was going to cost after boras turned down 6m and don’t have to waste time with Boras to boot.. VERY high HS power arm.. Less miles, vs more refined college arm… pros and cons.. Could work out better and could work out worse, but I still like the idea of houston making ANY decent moves in the draft and hats off to ’em.. These 2 signs represent more than they spent en masse last year combined…
actually they did still have to deal with Boras. He is Mccullers agent 🙂 He is also Ruiz agent their 4 rd pick they really want to sign.
They still had to deal with Boras. McCullers was a Boras guy. I agree with you though, i like seeing Houston willing to go out and make moves
Funny how McCullers gets just a little less than what PIT “should” offer Appel for where he is slotted. Great sign here and money still left over for Virant and Ruiz.
well played
So he was a top 10-15 talent and signed for 12-13 slot money. Not sure why someone didn’t just draft him there to begin with. Great job Luhnow!
there were lots of questions about whether he’d end up as a reliever long term.
Not good in a HS arm you’re taking him at 10-15. Just fine for a HS arm you’re taking in the supplemental round.
The Astros’ draft was amazing.
Also worth noting: the Stros still have ~1MM of Correa savings money remaining in their cap space for other overslot picks.
Hopefully they can sign that 4th round 3B prospect Ruiz now.
Astros still have four players at the College World Series to sign but I think they did a great job getting two Top 15 prospects for the price of one. Since you can’t trade down like the NFL or NBA GMs do, this was the next best thing and shrewdly done.
Anyone have an idea on how much Ruiz or Virant are looking for? The Astros have about 1.3 mil in savings right now due to correa and other guys signing. I imagine they are looking for a 7 figure deal, but it’s only a guess
Don’t forget that they can also go over their total pool by 5% without losing future picks and only having to pay a 75% tax on the overage (which comes out to an MLB-minimum salary, worst case); because of their high pool total, they can go over by right around $550,000. Meaning they still have nearly $2 million to play with that we know of, and possibly more depending on what some of the other first round guys signed for; they may have gotten some savings on some of them. Luhnow and his crew have shown everyone how to work within the new draft system.