9:07pm: Baseball America's Jim Callis tweets that Smoral's deal is worth exactly $2MM.
JUNE 18, 8:52pm: Smoral has officially signed with the Blue Jays, according to Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star (on Twitter).
JUNE 13: Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos says that negotiations between the club and Smoral are ongoing, writes John Lott of the National Post.
JUNE 6TH, 5:50pm: Smoral's deal is worth roughly $2MM, according to Keith Law of ESPN.com (via Twitter).
3:41pm: The Blue Jays have agreed to terms with supplementary first round selection Matt Smoral, Peter Gammons of MLB Network reports (on Twitter). Smoral appeared to have confirmed the news on his personal Twitter account.
The Blue Jays selected the high school left-hander with the 50th overall selection on Monday as compensation for losing reliever Frank Francisco to the Mets. The recommended bonus for the 50th overall selection is $1MM, according to Baseball America.
…That was fast.
thats what… nevermind
Read wrong.. Thought signed for a million..
Glad they signed him.. Hope they can nail down most of the high upside guys anyway..
this has been denied by smoral according to john lott
It’s likely that Lott was told to say that to remove any suspicion of a pre-draft deal. Either way, it seems to be Tyler Beede all over again.
How does it seem like Tyler Beede? He’s the guy who never signed at all, right?
Lott is a member of the media, he’s impartial. It would be Smoral that would have told Lott indefinitely that nothing has been decided. And MLB would probably know the instant the Jays sign him anyway, they just want to release a press release before Smoral breaks the news.
I don’t know how much truth this has. It’s too fast and most drafted players go to Dunedin to do Physicals. Don’t get me wrong, I love this if it is 100% true!
Highly doubt a high schooler goes straight to High-A to start his career, but since a lot of teams probably negotiated with high schoolers about top 10 round money/bonuses, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is signing.
He’s unlikely to be assigned to High A Dunedin. Dunedin is where the extended spring training is still occuring (until short season leagues start), and where the medicals would occur prior to signing. It is also where the Gulf Coast League Jays play.
that’s not what he meant. He means that they go down to the jays extended spring training facility so that they can get a physical done before contract negotiations.
Don’t see anyway they can finish this draft under budget. My theory is that the Blue Jays are planning on ignoring all penalties (both monetary and lost picks) and drafting these guys with what will likely be the last of these types of supplemental picks. Perhaps AA believes that with the new rules in place a lot of talent will be available after the 1st and 2nd rounds so even though they don’t get two picks they can still pick whoever they want throughout the draft and still get the players they want.
Very interesting strategy if that is the case. Would be expensive, but it could potentially put the Jays ahead of the pack talent wise.
They aren’t going to lose any picks. They have enough money, $8.8M ($9.24M with the extra 5%) to go between 7 guys, with a few of them already signed for slot.
Really? How much will it take to sign Alford? 2 million, 3 million? That’s 4MM behind two players right there. And if they don’t sign him they lose $424,00 from their draft pool. DeJong? Gotta be at least $1MM if not more. That’s $5 million. Say Stroman and Davis sign for slot $3.8 million. There is your $8.8 million right there without factoring in Nay and Gonzales.
The only way I could see this working is if they have pre draft deals and the seniors they are taking are accepting 5 figure deals, which would be really stupid for them.
I doubt they’ll sign Alford, so you can remove $2.4mm from your calculations (the $2mm you estimated for signing, plus the $0.4mm lost slot money). The Jays are probably fine with that too, since the Alford pick is protected so they will recover that pick in next year’s draft. The seniors in rounds 4-10 are also only signing for 4-figure deals (Alex Azor just signed for a $1,000 bonus), so once that process is complete the Jays should be able to redeploy ~$1.2mm back towards overslot signings (plus potentially more if they can get Davis or Stroman to sign for less than slot). Keep in mind also that the Jays can exceed the cap by 5% with only a luxury tax penalty, so that would add an additional $400K or so to the pool.
sf55forlife (I do that because sometimes the reply doesn’t go to the right sub-thread), the 7 college seniors the Jays drafted will all be signing $5,000 deals. The guy they drafted in the 4th round has already signed the deal. Don’t worry about 5 figure deals these guys are getting mid four figure deals. That’s why the Jays drafted the way they did. The whole 9.2 will be used to try to sign the top 7 picks (first 3 rounds). Smoral has signed for about 2. So that leaves 7.2 left. Gonzalez has said he will be signing for about slot, his slot os 680,000 (around that number, I don’t have time to look them all up right now so these are all rough numbers) so lets say 800K for him. Thats leaves 6.4. Stroman will be signing for less than slot (college senior that projects to be a bullpen arm) probably around 1.2-1.5 but lets say 1.6. That brings us down to 4.8. Davis is said to be happy with about 1.8 (He has a community college he’ll be going to if he doesn’t sign. Not much leverage at all). That brings us down to 3 million bucks to sign Alford and De Jong. And to be honest it’ll probably be closer to 3.5 million. Alford would have to be a moron not to take a gauranteed 2 million to go off and play the hit and miss game of football (injuries or just not being good enough to get drafted in the first place). So that leaves around 1-1.5 for Dejong, probably gets it done. So unless Alford is a crazy SOB (which I actually believes he is and he doesn’t sign) the Jays should be able to sign all these guys….and in doing so making a complete mockery of the MLBs new slotting system.
Shoot, gosh darnit, I forgot Nay…. it may take a little more wiggling than I first thought. Alford will probably not sign anyway so the Jays will have PLENTY of money to sign the rest of these guys…and in that case the draft will be a success. If they can get them all signed it would be an incredible jump for joy success. I hope they get Nay signed and I can’t believe I forgot him as I loved them getting a power bat….something that AA doesn’t seem to like to do. I wouldn’t mind him going out and grabbing a big fatty that can smack the ball 500 feet every now and then… 🙂
Some tidbits from today:
– Tucker Donahue (4th round) tells Baseball America he’s signed on for a four-figure bonus.
– Eric Phillips (6th) signed for $5000.
– Alex Azor (10th) signed for $1000, said he would “sign for a hot dog.”
IT BEGINS.
(No, but seriously, the Seniors have zero leverage and will not be given 5-figure bonuses. Phillips himself said he was lucky to get $5k.)
___________________
EDIT:
“How much will it take to sign Alford? 2 million, 3 million?”
*snicker*
Keith Law last year stated the Jays had a predraft deal with Beede. Which upset the Jay’s brass (AA). Now he’s stating the Jays inked Smoral to a 2mil deal. Sounds to me like he’s trying to get Jay’s draftees to think the Jays will go way over slot to sign. I honestly think he has a vendetta against the Jays. Maybe from previous employment with the Jays.
There’s no way the Jays are giving up their draft picks next year and way over paying the slot amount. Keith law is full of you know what.
Keith’s just reporting what’s he’s heard.
If you read his work consistently, you’d know he’s thankful for the Jays giving him that position, it’s the only job he’s ever had with a Major-League team.
Keith Law LOVES the Jays and typically rates their prospects through the roof. If you ever heard him talk about the Jays organization on the radio you would never say Law holds a grudge against the Jays.
Beede may have had a pre draft deal, but the word around that is that the Jays didn’t like the post draft medicals and it all fell apart on health.
I hate to say it, but Keith Law is full of win here.
AA locking it up! Great sign.