The Mariners have agreed to sign second round selection Joe DeCarlo for a $1.3MM bonus, Kendall Rogers of Perfect Game USA reports (on Twitter). The Mariners selected the high school infielder 64th overall.
DeCarlo becomes the first player outside the first and supplemental rounds to obtain a seven-figure bonus, Jim Callis of Baseball America reports. MLB’s recommended bonus for the selection was $806K. DeCarlo has solid power, but will likely move from shortstop to third base as a professional, according to Baseball America.
So he receives nearly twice as much as recommended and is projected to go from SS to 3rd? Excuse me Jack Z., but I thought Seager was doing a pretty decent job at 3rd and Liddi was a good back-up.
Now if Jack is considering using DeCarlo as trade-bait then great, but if that’s the case then why would he pay him well above the recommended amount?
I must be missing something.
There’s way too much time behind his development to speculate about current/future playing time.
The real question is whether allocating this kind of money to this kid will make it more difficult to sign Zunino…
But that’s just it. Drafting is speculation and paying them according to that speculation is what makes or breaks a GM’s role on the club.
Hopefully they can sign Zunino, but what I’m going to find interesting is if they pay all their draft picks more than recommended. It would be unfortunate if Seattle has to pay twice the going rate on players just to get them to sign there.
There is the thought that Seager will move back to Second and they might move Ackley to LF. And you can never have too many hitters in your system.
I think they can sign Zunino for 4.5-5.0 mil. I just hope they can get their 2 3rd rd guys.
Jack and Tom must really love this kid. He wasn’t projected to go until the 4th round or so and they popped him in the second, THEN paid him a half-million dollars over-slot with a month to go until the signing deadline. I’m annoyed. How is it every other team is signing their top-100 talents to slot deals and we reach for a top 200 guy and get worked over?
They will get Zunino signed one way or another. It’s the guys like Diaz, Lopes, and Taylor that we need to ink and keep it under the 10% overage mark. The cushion is gone thanks to DeCarlo and Pike.
I find it very hard that they sign Pike now…
They already signed him for over $800,000.
First of all, the reason that he was signed over slot is to buy out his commitments to college. For someone with as much talent as this kid has, and to have him sign instead of going to college was going to costs money, higher than slot. Which is one of the reasons he was projected to go later in the draft, was sign ability. The Mariners took a bit of a gamble taking him earlier, and for him to except the deal is a win. It has nothing to do with “having to pay him more to play for Seattle”.
As far as him moving to 3rd base, that is accurate. His body type projects as someone that will add muscle (and with that weight) which profiles him better at 3rd base. Usually kids out of high school, the most athletic player on the field plays SS. Its not a negative that he profiles better somewhere else, and he wasn’t drafted to stay at SS. There are so many kids that are drafted and moved off of SS every year, its not a negative thing. Its adds credibility to the kid that he is athletic.
As far as “being happy with Seager, so why did we draft this guy?”, question/comment. You never ever ever ever draft based on need or what you currently have. You want to try to draft based on the best available talent at that pick (example Zunino when we have Montero) or like the Nationals did last year when they picked Anthony Rendon (3B) when they just signed Zimmerman to an extension. It takes 2-5 years to develop talent (especially high school talent), and a lot can happen in that period of time. Seager could be great, he could get moved off the position, he could get hurt or traded. There are to many variables that happen week to week in baseball, let alone years. Start drafting for need and you ruin your overall depth in the farm.