Press release from the Diamondbacks and unsigned draft pick Barret Loux:
"We have reached an agreement regarding Barret Loux’s status that is mutually beneficial to the parties. Today Commissioner Selig has announced that Loux will become a free agent on September 1. As such, he will be free to sign with any Major League Club at that time. In addition, the Arizona Diamondbacks will receive a Supplemental Selection in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft. The agreement also provides an opportunity for the Commissioner’s Office and the Players Association globally to the address the issues that can arise from questions concerning a drafted player’s health. Given the private nature of the underlying disagreement here, neither party will be making any further public comments about this situation."
Chosen sixth overall by the D'Backs, Loux's July physical revealed a labrum tear and elbow issues according to Yahoo's Jeff Passan. The D'Backs backed out of a $2MM agreement, as was their right, and will receive the seventh overall pick as compensation in 2011. With the money freed up the Diamondbacks went over slot yesterday to sign draft picks such as Ty Linton ($1.25MM), Tyler Green ($750K), and Blake Perry ($500K).
Once Loux reaches free agency, Yahoo's Kendall Rogers wouldn't be surprised to see the White Sox pursue him (Twitter link). The Astros will look into signing Loux, GM Ed Wade told Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle. Free agency is a very positive outcome for Loux, as one MLBTR commenter explains here.
Weird…
mets should sign him, they need to make up for some awful drafts
I can’t think of a team that shouldn’t sign him.
dbacks
Brewers might want to take a chance. Make up for their first round pick having been lost and then get two picks in next years first round.
Read my mind on that. Obviously, there was nothing we could have done about Covey’s choosing to go to college, because of his Diabetes diagnosis, but the Brewers have a chance to make up for it with this. He may have an arm injury, but that means his asking price may very well be down! Take advantage, and take a flyer on the kid.
Redsox! if theo sees a young college pitcher he takes his chances and drafts him or sign him! i would not be surprise that he signs a Minor league deal! Kelly Ranaudo & Loux that would be a future great rotation for the sox
Epstein already spent nearly 10.5M on just the 1st 11 picks and took a flyer on HS flamethrower #16 pick Adam Duke because he failed his medicals, so doubt would throw cash at another that has a serious injury is my 2C, especially when Duke would (guess) cost far less and was a BA top 100 as well.
Anthony Ranaudo
don’t get your hopes up buddy. risk/reward is not in the Mets vocabulary unless his name is Oliver Perez and gets paid 12 mil a year…
yup cuz pelfrey ( 2005 ) ,niese ( 2005 ), Parnell ( 2005 ), ike davis ( 2008 ) , josh thole ( 2008 ) Nieuwenhuis (2008 ), Ratliff ( 2008 ), are examples of awful drafts…i never met a fanbase so negative as the mets…between the racist ones and just the plain sorry sad bunch of wet dishrags, one would think the mets havent had a season above .500 in 18 years, and every other team was drafting a bunch of joe mauer’s. I’m not saying i dont complain about the team at times..( esp about the wilpons )…but i would def call the met fan base a glass half empty looking bunch if i ever saw one.
Thole was drafted in 2005. Smith, Kunz, Vineyard, and Rustich were all wasted picks. They got nothing out of the draft for 2 years.
ike, kirl, havens, ratliff are within the last 2 years…i guess they are
all awful as well…
1st round, 2nd round, 1st round, 3rd round so its not like these werent well known guys but lets see how all 4 guys do in the MLB before you make these claims.
first off the mets didnt even have a 1st round pick last year…the 2nd
round pick they got was steven matz…and if ur judging picks based off of
one year, Ike Davis sucked gorilla donkey n*ts his first year…not hitting
a single HR…of course the met fan base jumped to conclusions and called
him a bust after 35 games…SMH…
so its too early to call 2008 a success…but ur ready to call 2009, an
awful draft?…I rest my case
look at the 2009 draft, then you will understand.
Whoa! Thats awesome!!!!!!
I expect at least 15 teams could be willing to take a gamble on him. This reminds me a lot of the Chapman situation just with an arm injury. I’d like to see a low market team take a flyer on Loux. Maybe the Royals can add to their already loaded system. I hope it’s the Jays but they aren’t a small market team.
Padres!!!
I don’t understand why they got the extra supplemental pick. Wouldn’t a more appropriate solution be to make the compensation pick at #7 compensation-eligible if they fail to sign the pick next year? It seems that they’re making out ahead for drafting someone with a significant injury history and finding out… wait for it… that he was injured.
I’m wondering if the person who wrote the press release is using the term “supplemental pick” to refer to the #7 pick. I agree that it wouldn’t make a ton of sense otherwise.
Or did I crack out and misinterpret ‘Suplimental Selection’ as a pick in the sup. round when maybe he was talking about the #7 pick? seems like odd wording, though.
Teams always gets another 1st round pick if they fail to sign their 1st round pick 2 other teams got it this year also
Yeah, but ‘Supplemental Selection’ is awfully misleading wording, given that there is a Supplemental round after the 1st round. When I read it initially, I honestly thought they were talking about getting an additional pick in the supplemental round (aside from the comp pick at #7), which obviously made me do a double-take. I’d guess it’s a writer that doesn’t really know the draft, otherwise he would have been a bit more careful in word selection.
I agree with you. The #7 pick is a compensatory pick, but not a supplemental pick. If they are talking about the 2011 #7 pick, it’s a poor choice of words.
wow how often does this happen?
Anytime a firstrounder doesnt sign
really? because i’m pretty sure that’s not true. if chapman got 30M, and washington offered strasburg 16M, why would he accept that if he would be a free agent if he declined?
Because if Strasburg had declined the Nationals’ highest offer last summer instead of signing with them as we all know he did, he wouldn’t have been a free agent.
i.e. Loux’s case as discussed in this article is the exception, not the rule. This is the first time I’ve heard of a player who was drafted in a given year and was not signed by the deadline being granted free agency in the same year.
Typically, an unsigned pick, after his first time being drafted(such as Aaron Crow from 2008 or James Paxton from 2009), will go play for a team in an independent league. That way, the player is eligible to be re-drafed the next year in the MLB First Year Player Draft.
Scott Boras had made some noise last year–assuming the Nats didn’t sign Strasburg–about taking Strasburg to a country like Costa Rica and establishing residency for Strasburg there and having him pitch for a team there. In that case, Strasburg would’ve been an international free agent in 2010, and any and all interested teams would’ve had to compete to sign him this summer during the 2010 IFA signing period. What a media circus that would’ve been…but luckily, it didn’t happen!
no
It doesn’t.
It was done in fairness to the player because he would have been ineligible to play at the college level because of how things went down with the D-Backs (& NCAA’s rules about use of agents). It was a good call and remarkably fair by MLB to grant him free agency instead of forcing him to sit out a year while waiting to be drafted next season. Loux’s availability may create a bit of a bidding war and he might not miss out on that much of the $2m signing bonus he was going to get as a result of it.
But why doesn’t it happen to every prospect who fails to sign? Offers are pulled due to injuryies all the time, just because he’s #7 doesn’t mean he should get special treatment.
Once again, he wasn’t able to go back and play in college. Look at Dylan Covey, he’s going to go to college and play for the next 3 or 4 years. You can’t just put Covey in the free agent pool.
I suppose Loux could have gone to indy ball like Aaron Crow and Luke Hochevar.
By why weren’t Crow and Hochevar granted FA? They didn’t sign and couldn’t go back to college.
this was b/c he failed a physical not b/c he was greedy…
Because they didn’t have injuries that prevented them from signing.
Tanner Scheppers say hello….
I actually think this could be a great outcome for everyone involved. The DBacks get the same pick in what is by all accounts a better draft than this year’s, and Loux gets the leverage of being able to negotiate with 30 teams rather than just one. I applaud the Commish’s office on what I feel is a fair and reasonable decision.
“I applaud the Commish’s office on what I feel is a fair and reasonable decision.”
Too bad such rational compassion wasn’t present after the Armando Galarraga Perfect Game (that wasn’t).
You can be certain Alex Anthopoulous will be in on it.
come on mets, you have to sign him.
How can you say any team HAVE to sign a guy with a frayed labrum?
the mets pitching prospects are THAT bad, thats why.
Sounds like the Cardinals (excluding Shelby Miller)
Good job by AZ, they get an extra pick in next years draft. It’s the one of the deepest drafts ever.
except they pretty much have to draft someone they know they can sign, as they won’t get to redraft again for a second time if they fail to sign the pick
i can give you one team that 100% wont sign him…the New York Mets.
He’s signing with Houston. He’s from Houston and expressed interested in signing with Houston had they have taken him out of high school in 2007.
the padres going to try to sign him for sure.
The Astros don’t seem likely to gamble $500K on an injured player. The Tigers drafted him out of HS in 2007, when he fell to the 24th round because of a shoulder injury his senior year. The Tigers offered him a bonus in the low six figures then. And now they missed out on their 4th round pick, Green from Texas. So, the Tigers seem like a good fit.
The Houston Chronicle indicates otherwise. Ed Wade said that he was a guy they had targeted going into the draft, and they will “do their due diligence” on him now that he’s a free agent. If he wants to stay in home, then the Astros sound like a match
Man, that would be a huge coup for the Astros too if they could sign him. Just this year through various transactions, they will have brought in Brett Wallace, J.A. Happ, Mark Melancon, Ariel Ovando, Delino Deshields, Mike Foltynewicz, Mike Kvasnicka, Austin Wates and possibly Barret Loux? Talk about a talent infusion
He has already been checked out by the Rangers medical staff after he failed his physical with the Dbacks…
I look for the Indians to jump all over this one, in the past they have signed guys who went undrafted with arm issues like scott lewis to name one.
This kids injury should not hold him out long, He has been dealing with the injury to his arm since High School, and he’s seem to pitched fine with it. I have a source who played with him during the summer league who said the reason he was failed on his physical was because of the Dbacks new gm who was not apart of the draft this year, he is not a fan of Barret