June 28: Allan will sign his contract today, Heyman tweets. He’s expected to receive a $2.5MM signing bonus.
June 26: The Mets are in agreement on a deal with third-round selection Matthew Allan, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). Allan had been considered a first-round talent who came with some signability issues, so the Mets have likely promised the high school righty a bonus that is considerably higher than his $668K slot value in order to forgo his commitment to Florida. Notably, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo tweets that Allan has yet to take his physical.
Heading into the draft, Allan ranked as the No. 11 prospect in the draft, per ESPN’s Keith Law. MLB.com’s top 200 listed Allan at No. 13, while he was 16th on the top 500 over at Baseball America and 20th at Fangraphs. Law called Allan the best high school pitcher in this year’s draft, praising him for a 92-95 mph fastball and a curveball that is already regarded as a plus pitch. MLB.com’s report notes that Allen’s changeup took a step forward this season as well, giving the 6’3″, 210-pound righty the potential for a third above-average offering.
The Mets saved about $470K on top pick Brett Baty but also went considerably over slot in giving second-round pick Josh Wolf a $2.15MM bonus when his slot value was roughly $1.37MM. However, the Mets selected college seniors in each of the fourth through tenth rounds of the draft, leaving them a considerable bit of cash to allocate to Allan. Each received bonuses of $20K or less, and while that leaves New York with a topheavy draft class, they’ll come away with a pair of players who were widely considered to be among the 20 best talents available. Obviously, there’s plenty of variance in all MLB draftees — high schoolers in particular — so the Mets are taking a fairly high-risk approach in so aggressively frontloading their draft resources to secure this trio of prep stars.
Awesome!
Well, BVW may doing a bad job in other areas, but he did a great job with this pick.
He won’t be around to see the kids in Flushing. The glass es empty, not half full.
I mean, if you assume pre-draft rankings will come true. But in amateur talent acquisition, betting all your chips on a smaller number of guys is a dicey proposition. At least one of those top three guys had better be a star, because they mostly punted a chance at a big league regular for the rest of the top ten.
Really a big league regular In rounds 4 To 10……what are the odds of that?? Sounds like you afraid to give BVW and Mets scouts some credit for going chips in and looking for upside!
So did they actually draft lower rated players than were available in the other rounds? Or just players who had no leverage on whether to take the offer?
Can he close?
Preller should have gone with him in the 3rd round over Hudson Head.
HS pitchers are tough to gauge. There is so much that can happen between draft day and debut day (if it ever comes)
Same is true for Head
Can any of them take over Familia’s spot? Like.. now.
Bad moves judging by the high risk involved with high school players especially pitchers. I would bet even money the college seniors eventually do better career WAR wise…..
I would take that bet. I’m willing to bet high school pitchers have a better track record than college seniors.
♂️
All the college seniors in a teams draft should get together
(hello social media!) and collectively threaten not to sign unless they get FULL slot value.
If they all don’t sign, then the team loses all that bonus money to sign other players.
Leverage is best used collectively…..
Workers of the world unite!
Really good luck with that.
Some seniors off of good seasons get less than a $5,000 bonus. They know that’s their fate, as seniors.
Hence, why $30,000 looks so good.
Mark Appel got $6.35m as a college senior.
Yes 6 years ago. He also wasn’t your average college senior considering he was a top 10 pick the year before.
How does it matter if it was 6 years ago or if he was actually considered a premium prospect? He was still a college senior. i.e. no leverage.
You can’t tell the difference between Appel and the other 95% of college seniors?
Yes I can and while he was more talented than the rest, he still had no leverage. What was he gonna do if HOU didn’t overpay? Go play in the Indy League?
College seniors wouldn’t get drafted until the 30th round if they were demanding slot. They have zero leverage.
San Diego took a pitcher from San Jose St in round 8. He signed for $1000. Slot was around 180k.
Right or wrong, college seniors have no leverage.
Mark Appel got $6.35m as a college senior.
Speaking of lost 6$ million bonuses, was just reading Tyler kolek’s recent line today. Oy vey
His leverage waa that he was considered extremely talented. Teams wanted him.
And the Astros were the only team allowed to negotiate with him. His options were to sign with them, retire, go play in Japan or go play in the Indy league.
They are all signed. They simply want to play baseball and if it doesn’t work out they all have college degrees.
Sounds like you didn’t get drafted
Another great game by the bullpen tonight.
Why must the Mets draft like the Astros and Cubs yet try and swing away at the top level as if they’re the dodgers or Red Sox?
High School pitchers get a taste of a new reality when they get to the pros, everyone hits a fast ball… Most flounder… See Riley Pint…..
@skull I’ve seen Riley pitch in person. It’s a sloppy mess. You can throw 150 but who cares, especially because if you can’t find the plate how will you blow it by anyone
You should see Nikorak pitch too. That’s FUBAR.
Sorry for repeat comments and I don’t mean to be a jerk toward young players, but they’ve gotta somehow harness that velocity.
Roughly how many high school pitchers that get drafted reach the majors, 5%? These kids should all be used to acquire PROVEN major leaguers. They are all going to need TJS, lose another 18 months and by then, they 7 years into being a professional, 25+ and wasting bullpens due to pitch count and innings limits. Drafting high school pitchers is a waste of cash. At least college seniors are only 2-3 years away, not 7.
I think everyone should read the book ‘the arm’
Albeit it’s not the end all regarding nowadays pitching. But it’s an eye opener.
I mean Charlie Hough threw barely 80 mph and had a quarter century career. Yes different era, whatever. But Maddux and Glavine didn’t gas people. And they pitched during the “steroid era”. Now if they were juicing themselves that’s their issue and a completely new argument but again, just saying
To imply that Maddux and Glavine were juicing is extremely laughable.
I didn’t mean too though it would appear to be I guess. You just never know what kinda retort you’ll get here so wanted to go ahead and beat any potential devil’s advocate(s) to the punch.
How about Bartolo? This max effort all the time is ridiculous. Throw 85-90%, change eye levels, work in and out, throw strike one and try to finish what you start. All these pitch counts and innings limits…and you have more injuries than ever. Put the speed guns away already!
I’d consider Lester to be the modern day Glavine. The art of pitching has diminished as it’s become throwing fast enough to get passed the bat. Sure, they learn/throw a second, even third pitch, but not used enough (some cases not good enough) to keep the batter on their heels guessing. Thor is a good example of a pitcher who throws hard, but if the bat connects, it’s traveling – just as fast.
Brodie please load up the farm instead of depleting it
Also surprised they got Allan for that price. Good for them
On paper they walked away with a good draft. But unfortunately we won’t see any of the top 3 for at least 3-5 years and that’s if they are what these experts say they are. They brought these guys over for the front office that has the eye for finding talent so hopefully this is a start of fixing the minor league system. Now let’s do the same with the up coming international draft mr.minaya.
Wait….what?
Did the Mets do something…right?
Great signing. His TJ surgery will be scheduled in 5…4…3…2…
What the heck? He would have been under-slot if he had been taken where he was projected to go!
Wow – I cant wait to see them all at CitiField…right next to Jarred Kleenex.
Oh, yeah – BVW will probably trade them next winter for Johnny Cueto, Miguel Cabrera and Chris Davis.