Earlier this evening, Astros GM Jeff Luhnow made it known that he expects to sign first-overall pick Carlos Correa this week. According to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com, the deal will likely be in the vicinity of $5MM. Houston has until July 13th at 4pm CDT to sign the top pick, but it sounds as though they'll have it done with plenty of time left on the clock. Here's tonight's batch of draft news..
- Some executives (though, not Pirates execs) told Buster Olney of ESPN.com (via Twitter) that Mark Appel was drafted about where they had him on their boards, at No. 8. The right-hander was in the mix for the first-overall pick but appears to have priced himself out of consideration.
- Astros scouting director Bobby Heck said the team had a pool of five players they were considering with the top pick and did not decide on Correa until the afternoon of the draft, writes Conor Glassey of Baseball America. All things considered, Glassey writes that there were only a few surprises on the first day of the draft.
- Potential signability issues scared some teams off from outfielder Anthony Alford, but the Blue Jays pulled the trigger on taking him in the third-round anyway. Alford, who is committed to Southern Miss on a football scholarship, has been scouted by Toronto all season long, writes MLB.com's Chris Toman.
Jays took a bunch of College seniors, middle reliever no name types in an effort to free up some money to sign a guy like Alford.. from what I heard I dont think its going to be enough..
and even if you were able to offer him enough to persuade him away from a football career.. if football is his first sport, would his heart ever be truly in to it?
Who knows about his heart, but if he’s concerned about his head it might push him towards the Jays.
Right, they’ve probably got somebody over there right now talking to him about Junior Seau, concussion, the chances of black QBs being high draft picks in the NFL, etc. But this is one guy they may not sign. If they sign Smoral, Gonzales, DeJong, Nay on top of their 2 first round picks, I’ll be more than happy.
Let him play football too. I believe Russell Wilson was a previous case like this…
Depends on how good of a football player he is… Unless he’s 100% fantastic enough to be a starter in the NFL, I could see him signing with the Jays.
If I were in his shoes? I’d pick baseball. There are honestly more jobs (Single A-MLB) available in baseball than football… but hey, I can’t be talking since I was never good enough to be a sports anything and primarily played baseball until I was 18.
Boston finally pulled that stunt also after taking a pile of high upside arms in the lower (Supp-7) rounds. Hopefully both can get some of the Seniors to sign the dotted line they sprinkled in so far for 25-50k and add all that up to get these REAL prospects inked.