10:10am: When the deal is official, it will be for $6MM, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on Twitter.
8:34am: The Giants have agreed to sign shortstop Lucius Fox to an approximately $6.5MM bonus, Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Fox, who’ll officially sign out of the Bahamas, entered the July 2 period as a consensus top-five prospect.
Fox had been said to be a Dodgers target, but news emerged yesterday that he was likely heading to their NL West rivals. He was a consensus top-five available player, with Sanchez and Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel placing him third and Ben Badler of Baseball America slotting Fox in the fourth spot.
This signings demonstrates some of the interesting interplay between the draft and international market. Fox is a native of the Bahamas, but had been playing high school ball in Florida. But he was successfully able to sign as an international free agent after returning to the Bahamas and winning a petition with Major League Baseball. That gave the MVP Sports Group client a chance to cash in on a much bigger bonus than he likely would have achieved through the draft.
Fox is said to be an excellent athlete, and he offers a high-contact bat — though he lacks power. He could be a quality up-the-middle defender, per Badler (subscription link), who says there’s a possibility that Fox will end up in center. McDaniel notes that Fox could also play second, but may also have a chance at sticking at his natural shortstop and will likely begin his professional career there.
San Francisco had just $2,130,900 in available pool capacity coming into the day, per Baseball America, meaning that it will owe a significant penalty fee on top of the dollars owed to Fox. And the Giants will be among those teams that is heavily restricted from major spending (bonuses of $300K or more) over the next two signing periods.
Bruce Wayne couldn’t match that pittance?
Seriously, it’s good to see the Giants have completely moved away from only paying top dollar for proven veterans. They’ll have to be even more active, though, to get enough of these lottery tickets for a significant number of them begin to pay off.
Was wondering if someone would ask if Bruce Wayne knew about this
Good to see the Giants land a top international prospect. Since Sandoval signing in ’03, there hasn’t been an impact INTL FA that the Giants have signed. Hopefully he can transition to CF and take over for Pagan following his departure after 2016.
I doubt it’ll only take him a couple years to develop. I understand that he is a bit older than most international prospects, but I don’t think you can expect him in a Giants uniform any earlier than 2018.
I know, but I’m just hoping that he can transition to the outfield because we have Crawford, Panik, Belt, and Duffy as a team controlled infield who could all get contract extensions soon, with Pagan and Aoki leaving in only a couple seasons as FAs, and unlikely to be re-signed.
MLB should be embarrassed that this guy was able to so blatantly circumvent the systems they put in place.
Unbelievable.