5:04pm: Rutschman’s deal is official, Rich Dubroff of BaltimoreBaseball.com tweets. He signed for under slot at $8.1MM, according to Callis, who notes it surpasses the record $8MM the Pirates gave No. 1 overall pick Gerrit Cole in 2011.
9:27am: The Orioles are close to a deal with No. 1 overall draft pick Adley Rutschman, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). The former Oregon State catcher’s No. 1 overall slot carries a value of $8.42MM. Rutschman isn’t the only top O’s pick on whom there’s news today, however; MLB.com’s Jim Callis reports (also via Twitter) that the team’s second-rounder, Gunnar Henderson, has agreed to a deal worth $2.3MM. A high school shortstop out of Alabama, Henderson will receive a bonus that is well north of his No. 42 selection’s $1.771MM slot value.
Rutschman, 21, entered the draft as the consensus top talent on the board. The switch-hitter posted a ludicrous .411/.575/.751 batting line with 17 home runs, 10 doubles and a triple through 266 plate appearances in his junior season with the Beavers. Rutschman’s eye-popping batting average and considerable power numbers almost overshadow his plate discipline at first glance, but his 76-to-38 BB/K ratio is every bit as impressive as the rest of his numbers — if not more so.
Baseball America, MLB.com, Fangraphs and ESPN all ranked Rutschman as the top player in the 2019 draft. ESPN’s Keith Law noted that Rutschman’s defense and plus power give him a high floor with the ceiling of a repeated All-Star, while BA’s report touts him as a potential .300 hitter with plus defensive tools and “excellent” makeup and leadership abilities. Rutschman was the only player in the draft that Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen tabbed as a 60 FV (future value) player on the 20-80 scouting scale. Over at MLB.com, Callis and colleague Jonathan Mayo note that while some players who enter a season as a projected top talent struggle with that pressure and spotlight, Rutschman thrived and elevated his game en route to further cementing himself as this year’s best draft prospect.
Broadly speaking, Rutschman is regarded as a plus defender with power from both sides of the dish, strong plate discipline and a strong enough hit tool to post high batting averages as well. If all of that pans out, Rutschman has the makings of a franchise catcher for the new-look Baltimore front office.
Henderson, meanwhile, has yet to turn 18. Scouting reports were reflective of a split camp as to whether he can remain at shortstop or will need to move to third base down the road. MLB.com (No. 27) and Baseball America (No. 30) pegged him as a late-first-round talent, while ESPN (No. 40) and Fangraphs (No. 41) had him a bit lower. Henderson was Gatorade high school player of the year in Alabama and draws praise for his above-average power and the potential for an above-average hit tool. Henderson is young for his graduating class and still filling out his 6’3″ frame, leading to varying projections about his power potential and eventual defensive home. Even reports who project him to move to third base, though, suggest that he has the tools to be a quality defender there.
Dude should have stuck with kicking, this baseball thing clearly isn’t for him.
Hahaha.
Did he play soccer?
Football.
He tackled Christian mccaffrey
Just as excited that we signed Henderson. We have no infield prospects in the minors aside from Adam Hall. Whether Henderson plays 3B or SS long term won’t really matter; we desperately need both.
Mountcastle?
He’s either a First baseman, DH or maybe a left fielder. By infielder I meant someone other than a 1B btw. Should’ve added that note. There aren’t any infield prospects in the O’s system with a shot at being a solid big league regular other than now potentially Henderson and Hall.
Richie Martin isn’t a top prospect but has ample upside. Could be a part of the club for a while.
Richie has a long long way to go. A 24 year old who has now played a whole season and a half at AA in the last 2 years shouldn’t be that lost in the big leagues. He’ll be given every opportunity because there aren’t too many viable alternatives but I’m not expecting much.
He’s going to become lockdown defensively and the bat can only improve. The glove already plays quite well. Very athletic and capable ss.
You know his odds of even seeing the show are astronomical right?
The #38 pick in the draft has an astronomically poor chance of seeing the show? Not exactly pal. I’m speaking in terms of pure upside anyhow. Henderson is one of the few in our system in the infield who has that upside. I know you’re not familiar with the Orioles minor league system but it’s empty as far as infield prospects go. We have nothing but late round organizational fillers down there. Aside from Grenier, who can’t hit, and Adam Hall.
1st round picks make the MLB around 70% of the time, and 2nd round picks make the MLB around 48% of the time. So even if you take the low end of his chances it’s 50/50.
It really doesn’t matter is we have no infield prospects at the moment. Draft the best player possible, regardless of position during the next three years. The O’s are looking like a 3-year 100+ loss team. Get the best played possible in the draft, trade anyone away for possible prospects, and use free agency to fill in needed position slots. It’s gonna hurt to watch the product on the field, but it paid off for the Astros. I have faith in the process and hope we can rebound in 5 to 6 years down the road.
I don’t think he would have gotten 8M to “keeeck a touchdown”…….(thank you, Garo Yepremian)
Good start for the O’s; now need a strong International class; it’s supposed to be a good bunch this year.
And it looks like they’ll get the #1 pick again next year, which is also supposed to be strong. Done right, shouldn’t take too long. And they have money.
Oh, is that what that reference was? A racist dig against people with foriegn sounding names from a maga hat wearing cretin?
Jorge before you get all up in arms about nothing perhaps you should google the man since you weren’t familiar. Please do so next time and keep MAGA crap out of the baseball board.
The first guy to ever bring racism into a conversation is usually the biggest racist there is.
And a registered Democrat to boot
Ah well, everybody’s a racist these days; Joe Biden, Mayor Pete; why not LBJ and Humphrey?……keep it up, my fellow Dems, you really want another 4 years, don’t you…….he couldn’t have won it last time without you…..and you’ll do your best to help him win again……..
Don’t group us all together dude! That’s half the problem. All these labels.
Why bring race into baseball, the players don’t seem to have that problem.
Edward Bennett Williams, Peter Angelos, we’re both Democrats. Williams refuse the sign any Latino players he didn’t like them. And Angelo’s was the owner it stopped the international scouting.. so keep politics out of sports. We don’t want MLB to turn into the NBA
Unless they go Wild in free agency (which I don’t see happening), Baltimore will be cellar dwellers for another 4-5 years. They are doing a complete rebuild and when you draft high school players (like Henderson), it takes them 3-4+ years to contribute at the MLB level. Toronto is doing something similar; but their prospects are much closer to the show than Baltimore’s. Rutschman was a great pick in that he should be ready in 2 years if things track well, but they have a LONG ways left to go before Baltimore fans can get excited about a perennial playoff team. They need to follow the Houston model to a T.
If they follow suit with the Houston model… within 3 years they’ll be a contending division team.
Houston doesn’t have to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays on the regular…
With signing Rutschman and Henderson, the O’s will easily be ranked in the top 15 farm systems if not top 10
We may approach the top 12, yes. But that will be short lived once we call up Hays, Mountcastle, and Akin. All 3 could be up this year. Diaz and Lowther aren’t far behind them. We’ll go up for awhile then probably take a dip down to 17-19 until the next draft class. Because we will have purged some depth from our system here shortly.
But they also have DL Hall and Rodriguez who seem to be pretty legit prospects and who knows what talent they’ll get signing international players so they might keep a solid farm system for a while
You haven’t been paying attention to the new philosophy. I’d be surprised if any of the three of them made it to Baltimore before September, if at all. Hays can’t stay healthy, Mountcastle can’t play defense, and Akin isn’t pitching particularly well in AAA. There is no reason to get any of them here, considering that the front office is okay with another 100+ loss season.
As long as Hays comes back healthy and relatively productive we’ll see him in CF. Broxton is just holding his spot warm. I can almost guarantee we’ll see Akin sometime in late July or August. He’s scuffled of late but barring a real struggle I think we’ll see what we have there. Ynoa and the opener slot in the rotation will have to be addressed at some point. I think that’ll be Akin and Eshelman’s slot to fill in. Once we DFA Wotherspoon and Gilmartin. You have to keep in mind that Cashner could be on the move as well.
Mountcastle is a question mark just because of how many 1B types we have on the roster. If Mancini is dealt I suspect you may see him but if not he will be in AAA.
My only concern is majority of the guys are in single A so still have a long way to go. The organization does finally have some serious talent. Hopefully better than the last calvary!
They will need another 2-3 years of top drafting and International signings to be in a better position to compete for the post season.
I have faith in their coaching and development people for the first time in a very long time.
at least 2-3 seasons. Especially playing in the AL East.
The Orioles took 41 players in the draft. Of those, 8 were high schoolers. Of those eight, 6 were in their last 7 picks. Every player they selected from round 6 to 33 were college players. So, I wouldn’t too much about the rebuild taking longer because of the high school players they drafted.
mlb.com/draft/tracker/all/team/orioles
And those last 6 were largely insurance picks in case Gunnar didn’t sign and we had extra pool space to throw around. That was a very uninformed opinion above.
That’s not how pool money works, if the player at that slot doesn’t sign you loose the allotment
Lose* And that’s not the point. Other than Gunnar we took a bunch of college guys who are likely to sign under slot. Without his signing we would’ve still had extra space. He absorbed 600k of that extra space. That extra 600K could’ve went to one or two of the late round high school kids had he not signed. His assigned slot money makes no difference in that equation. Now that he’s signed I’m sure we won’t sign those late round HS guys. But had he not they would’ve been some degree of insurance.
But you need to remember that if 3-4 players from an entire draft class become above average players in MLB, your draft is considered highly successful. MLB drafts are so difficult to rate until 3-4 years after they are done. So I truly believe this is a 4-5 year project unless they spend serious money on free agents to supplement the 4-5% of prospects that actually pan out.
But you need to remember that if 3-4 players from an entire draft class become above average players in MLB, your draft is considered highly successful. MLB drafts are so difficult to rate until 3-4 years after they are done. So I truly believe this is a 4-5 year project unless they spend serious money on free agents to supplement the 4-5% of prospects who actually pan out.
Hopefully the Rutschman signing will move things along for the other top picks.
At the very least the team will know how much slot money hey have to use.
Was thinking the exact same thing… would love to see what Vaughn can do for the Sox.
I think he’ll be a bust like mark Appel or Matt Bush.
Matt Bush was a hot-headed high schooler at ss, Mark Appel a pitcher. Not really great comps.
In other news ElMago also thinks Rutschman could be the next Jamarcus Russell. Why? No reason he just felt like writing some garbage today.
We’ll find out in 4 years if he’s a Johnny bench or geovany soto. Just because he was the number 1 pick doesn’t make him a guaranteed star like all the talking heads assume. Keep on trolling.
Him being the number 1 pick doesn’t make him a future star, but it does have a better track record than any other pick at producing future stars, and he is the most advanced player to be picked number 1 probably ever considering his ridiculously plate discipline, combination of barrel skills and power, and across the board above average defensive talents at a premium position.
These are all reason he will be a star, can you give me one that makes you think he will be a bust, other than “sometimes guys bust”?
Unless the Cubs had the #1 pick. Then he’d be on his way to the Hall of Fame already, of course.
Cubs 1. Don’t need a catcher any time soon. Contreas is already one of if not the best catcher in baseball. They have a pretty good backup in victor Caratini and Miguel Amaya in minors. They are very. Content with that position. they need pitching. And they drafted pitching. The #15 overall top prospect and #4 in the Cubs system was just called up. They are well on their way to a very good future rotation..
He’s being overhyped. I just dont see a future star within him. He’s like a geovany soto or Jason kendall. Kendall was a good defensive catcher but had zero power. Soto was overhyped from the day he was called up to the Cubs. I don’t think he’s even playing anymore. Soto was terrible behind the plate and had below average power.
And you think Adley has below average power? I see the problem now. You know absolutely nothing about his game.
Woo Hoo! They saved a whole
$120,000 with this long shot pup…..
Math is hard
It’s incredibly hard. Just ask Jorge
Jorge swung and missed 3x on this article. But at least he took his ball and went home after.
Why bring race into baseball, the players don’t seem to have that problem.
Edward Bennett Williams, Peter Angelos, we’re both Democrats. Williams refuse the sign any Latino players he didn’t like them. And Angelo’s was the owner it stopped the international scouting.. so keep politics out of sports. We don’t want MLB to turn into the NBA
I found it. I found the wackiest comment in the article. I win!
Things are looking up. . Orioles are finally making the right decisions enjoy watching the rebuild.
The signing makes this rebuild exponentially more palatable. Trust the process.