The Yankees have agreed to a $1.8MM bonus with first-round pick Kyle Holder, MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo reports on Twitter. That represents a savings of $114,900 as against the allocated bonus money for the 30th overall pick.
Mayo and the MLB.com prospect team praised Holder as a premium defender at shortstop — arguably the best fielder at the position in this year’s draft. The question, then, is whether his bat can improve enough to make him a big league regular. Baseball America was highest on him coming into the draft, explaining that he has shown good contact ability.
Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs (66) and Keith Law of ESPN.com (95) are more bearish in rating Holder. The latter says that the collegiate infielder has “a high-effort swing without much explosiveness,” indicating that he has a lot of work to do in building a stroke to match his useful strength and hand-eye coordination.
Supposed to be a stud defensively, but the bat is a toss up. Well, I hope the bat comes for him and we have a bunch of young short stops eventually in our system :)
Yanks have certainly filled a need with the signing of Holder, not too many all around SS in the majors right now!
He may not make it to the bigs for a while. Maybe not even at all.