The Marlins have agreed to a below-slot bonus with compensation round A selection Blake Anderson, reports Chris Cotillo of MLBDailyDish.com (via Twitter). Anderson will take home $1.17MM, about $400K less than the $1.574MM slot value at the 36th overall pick.
Anderson is a right-handed swinging high school catcher out of Mississippi. As Kiley McDaniel of Scout.com noted (via Twitter), four or five teams liked Anderson quite a bit, while the industry consensus did not see him as a premium prospect. McDaniel notes that he did not land within the list of the top 291 players that he compiled. Likewise, MLB.com did not place him among the draft’s top 200 prospects while ESPN.com’s Keith Law did not include him in his top 100 list.
Baseball America, on the other hand, did include Anderson as the 216th-best available draftee. He is said to have a strong arm behind the dish and good enough athleticism that he could stay there in spite of being a relatively tall 6’4. On the other hand, scouts were concerned with his bat speed and are not overly excited with his power potential.
Miami will surely look to apply the savings from Anderson’s signing towards one or more of the other high schoolers that the team selected early on in the draft. In addition to second overall choice Tyler Kolek, a power prep righty, the Fish own the rights to 43rd overall selection Justin Twine, a Texas high school shortstop, and four other younger draftees taken in the first ten rounds. Miami has the draft’s highest overall available pool, at $14.2MM.
