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2015 Amateur Draft

Draft Signings: Rhett Wiseman, Miles Gordon

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Here are the day’s notable draft signings, with slot values via Baseball America:

  • The Nationals have signed third-rounder Rhett Wiseman with an at-slot bonus of $554.1K, Jim Callis of MLB.com reports on Twitter. An outfielder from Vanderbilt, Wiseman profiles as a quality all-around ballplayer rather than bringing any superior tools to the table. Baseball America rated Wiseman as the 88th overall draft-eligible player, his only top-100 ranking.
  • Reds fourth-rounder Miles Gordon has signed with the club, Callis recently tweeted. The outfielder will receive a $475K bonus that lands $18,300 shy of the slot value for the 115th pick, Devan Fink tweets. The speedy Canadian product rated within BA’s top 200, based upon his athleticism and reasonably high ceiling. He had been slated to attend the University of San Francisco.

After 2014 Mess, Astros Pleased With 2015 Draft

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The Astros had a strange and disappointing 2014 draft, failing to sign top overall pick Brady Aiken and also failing to sign highly regarded fifth-rounder Jacob Nix when they lost the bonus pool allotment contingent upon Aiken’s signing. But amateur scouting director Mike Elias is pleased with his team’s 2015 draft and feels it makes up for the disappointing results in 2014, Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle writes.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget about that unfortunate part of that draft class,” says Elias. “I think we took a lot of other good players in that draft, but to certainly not sign the first overall pick, have what happened happen, and have the other complications that arose from that occur, it was an unpleasant experience I think for everyone involved.”

Since the Astros didn’t sign Aiken, they got the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft, which they used to sign LSU shortstop Alex Bregman. They also got Florida high school outfielder Kyle Tucker with their regular first-round pick (No. 5 overall), then picked another top talent, Georgia high school outfielder Daz Cameron, with the No. 37 overall pick, a Comp Round A selection they had acquired in the trade that sent Jarred Cosart the Marlins. All three have begun their careers in the Astros organization.

That the Astros had both the No. 2 and No. 5 overall picks gave them an enormous bonus pool of about $17.3MM, far bigger than that of that of the Rockies, who had the second biggest pool at about $14MM, and more than twice as large as the average pool, which came in at around $7.46MM.

The Astros have signed all their picks in the first ten rounds. Bregman signed for $5.9MM, significantly less than his allotment of about $7.4MM, and the Astros saved on later picks as well, picking college seniors in the seventh through tenth rounds as a way of limiting costs. They were thus able to sign Cameron away from a Florida State commitment with a hefty $4MM bonus that ties Tucker for the fourth-largest bonus in the entire draft so far (keeping in mind that top overall pick Dansby Swanson has not yet signed). The Astros also signed their 11th-round pick, California high school lefty Patrick Sandoval, for $900K, of which $800K counted against their pool.

“[T]o come away with three top 10 players, essentially, out of two high picks and a (compensation round pick at No. 37), it’s huge,” Elias says. “And it is, I think, the optimal outcome for the compensation that we received for not signing Brady last year. … [O]n paper, I do feel that we made the most of a scenario we were presented with for 2015.”

Braves To Sign Top Draft Pick Kolby Allard

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6:04pm: Law tweets that Allard will receive a bonus of $3,042,000, about $200K above the recommended pool value for the No. 14 pick. Such a bonus would not cause the Braves to lose a pick next year.

5:40pm: A tweet from California high school lefty and Braves top pick Kolby Allard strongly implies that he and the team have agreed to terms. “Headin’ out to Braves Country in a couple days, let the journey begin!” Allard writes.

Earlier this week, it appeared that Allard might spurn the Braves and instead head to UCLA. Allard was the No. 14 overall pick in the draft, and that pick comes with a pool value of $2,842,400. He would likely have been selected earlier and potentially gotten a bigger bonus, however, were it not for a stress reaction in his back. The Braves have signed all their other picks in the first ten rounds, mostly tracking fairly closely with MLB’s pool values for each pick, so they didn’t save a significant amount against their pool on those picks. MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted earlier this week, however, that since the Braves don’t lose a pick next year unless they go more than 5% beyond their pool, they could give Allard a bonus of up to about $3.47MM.

MLB.com ranked Allard the No. 16 prospect in the draft, praising his fastball (which sits at 92-94 MPH), curveball and low-effort delivery. Baseball America (subscription only) ranked Allard No. 18, while ESPN’s Keith Law rated Allard quite highly at No. 6, writing that, pre-injury, Allard ranked as the best high school pitcher in a weak draft for that player category.

Dodgers To Sign Josh Sborz, Philip Pfeifer

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TODAY: Sborz will take home $722,500 and Pfeifer will receive $222,500, MLB.com’s Jim Callis tweets. In total, then, Los Angeles saved $446,700 on the two signings.

By my count, with some help from the MLB.com draft signings tracker, the Dodgers have $175,200 in savings from their current signings to play with. Of course, if the team goes less than 5% over its final pool allotment (which will depend on which players are signed from the first ten rounds), it won’t incur any lost future picks, providing some additional wiggle room.

YESTERDAY: The Dodgers have reached deals with two of their higher draft choices, Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Virginia righty Josh Sborz (74th overall, $827K slot) and Vanderbilt lefty Philip Pfeifer (101st, $564.7K), whose teams recently squared off in the College World Series, have agreed to undisclosed bonuses. (Slot values via Baseball America.)

Sborz rated as high as 114th on pre-draft boards, with MLB.com giving him that ranking and praising his arm speed and solid slider while noting that he’s expected to end up in the pen. Meanwhile, Baseball America tabbed Pfeifer as the 195th-best draft prospect, explaining that he lacks a big fastball but has three solid pitches and good deception.

The Dodgers still have some work left with their selections from the first ten rounds. First-round Vandy right-hander Walker Buehler and sandwich selection Kyle Funkhouser of Louisville remain unsigned, as does sixth-rounder Edwin Rios, a first baseman from Florida International.

NL East Notes: Phillies, Pettibone, Niese, Miley, Allard

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Phillies GM Ruben Amaro said Tuesday that he’s not under any pressure to make to make a trade and won’t be forced into moving a player, writes Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Zolecki notes that Amaro is very likely posturing, but the GM implied that the Phillies could wait until the offseason to move some of their pieces. “We’ve debated here internally about when is the greatest value of some of these players, a number of them,” said Amaro. “When does that player become the most valuable asset? Again, a lot of it depends on who’s going to step up, and who’s going to satisfy some of the things that we’re trying to do in a trade. If someone does, and we feel like it’s the right thing to do, we’ll do it.” Amaro did, however, say that he “would like to do something” on the trade market.

More notes from the NL East to kick off Wednesday morning…

  • Phillies right-hander Jonathan Pettibone may need another surgery, writes the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jake Kaplan. The 24-year-old Pettibone is currently rehabbing from right shoulder surgery, but Amaro told reporters yesterday that he had to shut down a simulated game at the team’s spring complex in Clearwater early. The loss of Pettibone has been a notable one for a Phillies team that is thin on upper-level rotation depth; Pettibone tossed 100 1/3 innings of 4.04 ERA ball in his rookie season back in 2013.
  • Jon Niese has posted stellar results of late, but Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes that a run of six straight starts has done little to restore the trade value of the Mets lefty. “It changes nothing for me,” an NL exec told Martino. “Stuff has gotten lighter every year. The Mets are going to tell everyone it’s as good as ever to keep trade value high.” A second evaluator told Martino, “I would assume GMs wouldn’t overreact to recent performance, and would consider the long term picture along with health and the financial commitment.” Niese’s hot streak — he has a 2.41 ERA over his past six starts — came up in yesterday’s MLBTR Chat, though I offered a similar take; six starts does little to override a history of shoulder issues, and Niese’s secondary stats haven’t been as impressive as his ERA in that time anyhow.
  • Many reports this offseason noted that the Marlins were interested in, if not close to acquiring Wade Miley prior to the Diamondbacks stepping back and eventually accepting another offer from the Red Sox. The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier spoke with GM-turned-manager Dan Jennings about his club’s interest in Miley: “We had conversations. The closeness, I don’t want to say, but we definitely had conversations,” said Jennings. One source indicated to Speier that the Marlins thought the deal was nearly complete before Boston swooped in.
  • The Braves continue to work toward a deal with No. 14 overall pick Kolby Allard, assistant GM John Coppolella tells David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re still going through the process, and we’re very hopeful that we can sign Kolby,” said Coppolella. “You would’ve like to have had him signed earlier, but you understand that it’s a process. I wouldn’t say there’s a holdup on his end or our end, we just haven’t reached the finish line yet.” O’Brien recently reported that there’s a “legit chance” that the Braves won’t ink Allard. He notes that there’s been some speculation that adviser Casey Close of Excel Sports has been seeking a bonus more in line with where Allard would’ve been drafted had a back injury not dropped his stock a bit. As I noted at the time of O’Brien’s initial report, the Braves can offer Allard about $3.462MM (which is $626K over slot) without incurring the loss of a pick.

Astros, 11th-Round Pick Sandoval Agree To $900K Bonus

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The Astros have agreed to a $900K bonus with 11th-round pick Patrick Sandoval, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com (on Twitter). Sandoval, a high school left-hander out of California, is receiving an enormous bonus for a player selected this late in the draft. Under the current rules, bonuses for players drafted after the 10th round do not count toward a team’s draft pool so long as they are $100K or less. In other words, the Astros are taking an $800K hit to their bonus pool with this bonus.

Houston has, to this point, spent $17,040,000 of its $17,289,200 bonus pool (per MLB.com), so the Sandoval signing will put them over their limit. However, teams are allowed to exceed their draft pool by less than five percent without forfeiting future picks. The $249K remaining in the team’s pool plus the maximum $863K overage means that Houston is still about $313K shy of incurring the loss of a first-round pick in the 2016 draft.

Sandoval’s bonus, then, results in a $550,800 overage on the Astros’ behalf. That overage will be taxed at 75 percent, meaning Houston is paying $413,100 in luxury taxes to acquire Sandoval. In essence, his $900K bonus will actually cost the club $1.313MM.

In Sandoval, the Astros are acquiring a player who ranked as the 135th prospect in this year’s draft, per Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel. Callis and MLB.com colleague Jonathan Mayo ranked Sandoval 139th, while the Baseball America staff ranked Sandoval 392nd among draft prospects.

Callis and Mayo call him an athletic, projectable left-hander who sits in the 88-90 range with his fastball but touches 91 and 92 mph at times. Per their scouting report, Sandoval flashes an “absolute hammer of a curve,” but the pitch is inconsistent. BA notes that his arm action can get a bit long, leading to issues repeating his delivery and, therefore, with his control. However, those issues diminished in his senior year of high school, they add.

The Astros have a pair of tough-to-sign player remaining unsigned in their post-10th-round crop in the form of prep righty Luken Baker (Texas) and prep righty Cole Sands (Florida), but Callis feels that the $313K they have remaining before incurring draft pick forfeiture won’t be enough to entice either player to forgo his commitment to college (Twitter link). The max that either player could be offered is $413,660.

D-Backs To Sign Second-Rounder Alex Young

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The Diamondbacks have agreed to terms with second-round pick Alex Young, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com (via Twitter). Young, a left-handed pitcher out of TCU, will receive the full slot value of $1,431,400 that comes with his No. 43 overall selection, according to Callis.

Entering the draft, Baseball America ranked Young as the No. 32 prospect in the draft, while Callis and colleague Jonathan Mayo ranked him 37th over at MLB.com. Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel rated Young as the draft’s No. 38 prospect.

As BA notes in their scouting report, Young jumped from the bullpen to the rotation in his junior year at TCU — a move that paid huge dividends for both team and player. He added an above-average changeup to an 89-92 mph fastball and knuckle curve, giving him a chance at three above-average pitches. Callis and Mayo note that while Young’s former teammate, Brandon Finnegan, has better pure stuff, Young has a better feel for pitching than Finnegan did at the same stage of his career. McDaniel feels that Young has the potential to move quickly through the minors and emerge as a fourth starter in the Majors.

The Diamondbacks have now agreed to terms with all of the players they selected in the top 10 rounds of the draft with the exception of No. 1 overall pick Dansby Swanson. Arizona has until July 17 to work out a deal with the Vanderbilt shortstop.

Latest On Braves’ First-Rounder Kolby Allard

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The Braves have signed all of their top picks with the exception of first-round selection Kolby Allard, and David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that it’s looking like there’s a “legit chance” that Allard will honor his commitment to UCLA rather than sign with Atlanta (Twitter links). O’Brien does add that there’s a chance this could be posturing in an attempt to get a bit more money out of the Braves.

Selected with the No. 14 overall pick in this year’s draft, Allard’s slot comes with a value of $2,842,200. However, Allard was at one time speculated to be selected within the top 10, if not top five picks of this year’s draft before a stress reaction in his back cost him about two months of his senior season at San Clemente High School in California. As such, it’s possible that Allard’s advisers are pushing for a bonus that’s more commensurate with higher draft slots.

The Braves were assigned a bonus pool of $10,684,100 (via Baseball America) heading into this year’s draft, and they’ve saved a total of $87,500 on the rest of their picks from the top 10 rounds, per MLB.com. The Braves can also exceed their allotted bonus pool by 4.99 percent before incurring the loss of a pick in next year’s draft, which comes out to about $533K. Paired with the $87,500 they’ve saved on their other top picks, that means the Braves could afford to offer Allard up to $3,462,000 (roughly $620,600 over slot) without losing a future pick. That value would be just slightly below the slot value of the No. 8 overall selection ($3,470,600).

Allard ranked sixth on the Top 100 of ESPN’s Keith Law heading into the draft, while MLB.com rated him 16th, and he placed 18th on the draft lists of BA and Fangraphs. Allard was considered the top prep arm in this year’s class thanks to a plus curve and an above-average fastball before injuring his back, per Law. Should Allard indeed end up attending UCLA, the Braves would be awarded with the 15th overall pick in next year’s draft (one slot lower than that of the failed signing).

Draft Signings: Thomas Eshelman, Bryan Hudson

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Let’s catch up on some recent draft signings, with slot values via Baseball America:

  • The Astros have locked up second-rounder Thomas Eshelman for a $1.1MM bonus that falls shy of the $1,325,700 slot value, Jim Callis of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Callis calls the righty the “best strike-thrower in NCAA history” — he averaged an unthinkable 0.42 BB/9 over this entire college career, per Baseball America — and indeed much of his value lies in his impeccable control. Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs had the highest grade on Eshelman, raning him 54th among draft-eligible players. Other evaluators placed him at or just out of the top 100. MLB.com explained that Eshelman’s fastball hovers in the 90 to 91 mph range, while his offspeed pitches are nothing particularly special.
  • Cubs third-rounder Bryan Hudson receives a well-over-slot $1.1MM bonus, per Callis (via Twitter). The slot value at 82nd overall was just $731K. He’s a tall, projectable righty who rated as high as 71st coming into the draft, with MLB.com giving that grade. Baseball America put him in the 101st slot, noting that Hudson features a good curve and has smooth mechanics for a hurler of his size.

White Sox Sign Carson Fulmer

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The White Sox announced today that they have signed first-round pick Carson Fulmer to a minor league contract with a $3,470,600 signing bonus. The announced bonus matches the full slot value of Fulmer’s No. 8 overall selection (slot value via Baseball America). A right-handed pitcher out of Vanderbilt, Fulmer was advised by and is now a client of Icon Sports Management.

Carson Fulmer

Fulmer was one of the most interesting available players heading into the draft, with big-time stuff and a track record of excellence in major college ball, but also questions about whether he’ll be a big league starter in the long run. Having dominated the SEC with a 1.83 ERA and 13.1 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9, and featuring a sustainable, mid-90s heater with a very good curve and promising change, Fulmer is about as MLB-ready as drafted players come.

So what’s the downside? To an extent, it comes down to how you value near-term contributions versus long-term expectations, as Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs explained before the draft. Those prospect observers that attributed significant value to his near-big league readiness rated Fulmer as a top-ten prospect (McDaniel had him fifth, MLB.com ranked him 3rd, and Baseball America placed him sixth on its list).

But others, concerned with Fulmer’s high-effort delivery, relatively small stature, and lack of a consistent third pitch, put more weight on the idea that he has too great a chance of being relegated tot he pen in the long run. Keith Law of ESPN.com fell in the latter camp, placing Fulmer way down in the 43rd spot on his board.

Chicago, obviously, decided that Fulmer’s risky (but still high-ceiling) future outlook was worth taking on in order to add such an immediately impactful arm. With Fulmer now set to join an increasingly impressive stable of controllable starters — led by Chris Sale but also including Jose Quintana and last year’s third overall pick, Carlos Rodon — the White Sox rotation has quite a bit o potential. The team has now signed all of its choices from the first ten rounds.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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