The Padres have agreed to terms with righty Jacob Nix on a $900K signing bonus, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick reports on Twitter. The 86th choice in the draft came with a $687,300 pick value, meaning that San Diego went over $200K over slot to add Nix.
Of course, Nix thought he had an even larger bonus locked up last year with the Astros, before he was caught up in the Brady Aiken saga. He ultimately landed at IMG Academy for a year and brought a grievance action against Houston (reportedly settling for a six-figure payout).
Now advised by MVP Sports, Nix drew plenty of top-forty pre-draft ratings. Keith Law of ESPN.com was highest on Nix, rating him the 32nd-best player available and saying he has mid-rotation starter upside. Baseball America and MLB.com concurred that Nix had back of first-round talent, while Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs dropped Nix to 81st on his list.
He turned down a little over $600K in the revised offer from the Astros last year. Was it really worth it? Pushing his career back a year for $300K?
Seems like a fair tradeoff to me. He obviously did not want to be with the Astros after the entire Aiken thing. He gets less than they first offered, but pulled back, but more than they re-bid him on, plus the settlement amount. And he gets a fresh start.
I would hardly call $300K chump change, it represents a 50% increase from his revised offer last year. That is a pretty solid return. Besides he also received an undisclosed settlement from the Astros, reportedly for the full $1.5 million the Astros initially offered.
The amount of the settlement was never revealed, but reports said it was a low 6 figure amount. Definitely not the full $1.5MM.
While $300K isn’t chump change for most professions – Baseball Player isn’t a normal profession. Seems odd to me that he willingly sabotaged his career over such a small amount of money…but maybe it will work out for him.
He did no such thing, the offer was pulled when they couldn’t work out a deal with Aiken. Had they not pulled it and he accepted it they would have been over their pool and sacrificed this years’ first round draft pick.
Not to mention they actually settled out of court – so he probably came out ahead on this deal. His career probably won’t be pushed back either – he’ll just move quicker through the system – essentially count this past year as a year in low A ball.
They pulled the $1.4MM offer and sent him a revised $616K offer to stay under the spending cap. He turned down the $616K and took the year off.
Can I ask the moderator to unsubscribe me from the site entirely? I plan to read but not comment from this point forward. Thank you.