Here are today’s minor moves from around the league…
- The Orioles have re-signed outfielder Julio Borbon to a minor league contract, reports Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. Borbon has taken 863 MLB plate appearances, compiling a composite .272/.318/.347 slash with 47 stolen bases. But the 30-year-old last saw the Majors in 2013 and has spent the past two seasons in the Baltimore organization at Triple-A. His numbers dipped in his second go-around with Norfolk; last year, Borbon batted just .269/.299/.321, though he contributed on the basepaths, as usual, by swiping 23 bases in 114 games despite that modest OBP.
- Baseball America’s John Manuel tweets that the Red Sox have released right-hander Karsten Whitson. The 24-year-old Whitson was selected ninth overall by the Padres in 2010 as a high schooler, but he turned down a $2.1MM signing bonus to attend the University of Florida. Unfortunately, Whitson began to battle shoulder injuries after an excellent freshman season and ultimately wound up signing for $100K as an 11th-round pick by the Red Sox in 2014. Whitson pitched just seven innings for the Sox’ short-season Class-A affiliate in 2014 — his lone professional experience to date.
Shame about Whitson, never want to see a kid like that have his career ruined by injuries. That being said, considering the massive amount of pitching depth the Sox have in the organization, he probably would never have made the majors anyway. Good luck to you Karsten, wherever you end up going in life!
Dude he lost 2 million dollars to go to college. That’s a real shame. He could have easily went to college and took care of his parents/siblings and friends if he taken the money had baseball not worked out, 100k is a small fortune.
I just feel so bad for him to be honest.
Read somewhere.. Maybe on Soxprospects when he was drafted last year that it wasn’t even all him, that he wanted to take the money from the Pad’s, but his agent/advisor, whose name don’t remember then was in it for blood and got into a peeing match with then Pad’s GM over only a cpl hundred k. As the deadline ended, he was actually bawling over not getting a deal done.
Know have and am critical of agents putting themselves before clients, this is a case of it happening. If go back to some posts,from draft day last year on SP, pretty sure can find it. This kid lost out big time it would seem.
Most of the reporting in San Diego at the time seemed to indicate the person responsible for the late change in the dollar amount was Whitson’s father, not his agent.