The Giants have agreed to a $2.5MM bonus with third-round selection Kyle Harrison, according to Marc Delucchi (via Twitter). If indeed a contract is finalized, Harrison will forego his commitment to UCLA.
That’s a big number for a player chosen with the 85th overall selection, which came with a $710,700 slot allocation. But the Giants will evidently find a way to free up some funds by inking below-slot deals with other draft choices.
Harrison, a Bay Area high school southpaw, wasn’t generally graded as a top-end prospect entering the draft. But MLB.com (63rd) and Baseball America (71st) did rate him among the hundred best players available.
The lefty will enter the San Francisco organization with high hopes given the big bonus. Reports generally frame him as a fairly polished and crafty hurler rather than a high-upside power arm. It seems evident that the Giants see a clear path to a big league rotation, if not alaso some front-of-the-rotation potential.
Good Grief. Thats a HUGE overpay for a HS arm not ranked in the Top 50. The Giants are such a Mess
Who’s ranking? There are more than one.
At least they didn’t waste the No.9 overall pick on a football player!! Nice job Billy Boy!!! The a’s are such a mess that they can’t get out of their own way to build a ballpark that’s not overflowing with poop! And they can’t afford to pay their minor leaguers $400 per week? Now that’s a mess!
Dude supports the A’s and wants to talk about a mess lol
why did they do that? Im genuinely curious.
He has future 1st round upside. So rather than wait for that upside to materialise, and risk not getting him in a future draft, they are overpaying now to insure they get their guy
They’re paying him north of what the 28th-29th selection of the 1st round received. They must see much bigger upside than what the scouts here are listing.
Jordan, I was gonna post virtually the same thing until I saw ur post. Nice post.
I’ll add that I’ve read from evaluators (scouts, J Mayo, mlb.com etc) that he was expected to do very well at UCLA. And that that expectation would elevate him to a late first round or early second round pick next year. That essentially repeats ur post jordan
Not repeats ur post, it supports ur post
Some teams pass on players if they don’t feel like they can sign them. Since they knew he would have to be paid to waive college, a top end talent fell into the Giants lap. Plus, the kid not only has talent, but he’s pretty mature for his age. He’ll be able to handle the spotlight well.
Giants massivley reached with two 2nd round picks so they could give first round money to a prospect ranked in the 60s. They had the strangest draft of any team.
Stranger then Boston’s?
I think Boston’s draft could work out quite well. Their 3rd round pick seems to have superstar power potential — granted he’s also only 17 so there’s HUGE risk there too. But assuming they can sign Yorke to a deal far enough below slot value that they can sign their 3rd round pick too — it could turn out to be a great overall draft a few years from now.
Boston didn’t have much to work with here.
Maybe, just maybe, in a year that lacked as much scouting video as all other years the Giants know more about this local kid than most?
Wow that’s a big bonus for a 3rd round pick… how are the Giants even going to finagle their draft pool to sign him? They must be really confident that their 1st round selection is willing to sign for WAY less than slot value — because otherwise there’s no real way to clear THAT much $. Unless somehow they’ve got a deal(s) in place with their 4th/5th round selections to sign for almost nothing — but even then to find an additional $1.8M seems really difficult when you’re only working with 4 other players (or maybe 5 — not sure if SF had an extra/comp pick in there as well)
Giants had 7 selections in this draft because of the Will Smith an Madison Bumgarner comp selections in between rounds 2 and 3.
Spending that much of your pool on this guy calls into question the rest of their draft decisions. They passed up Top-15 pitchers who were still on the board to draft hitters for a system in desperate need of new pitching stock, and they dump this much of their pool on the last of their 5/85 picks? Even if the rest of their draft signs under-slot, this wasn’t that great of a haul to brag about when you needed 2-3 of these arms to make the big club by ’23.
You don’t draft for need in baseball
While they need both of course, I expect the giants to continue to load up on position players in their system since they will always be able to lure free agent pitchers. The track record on FA hitters is not good.
So true!
Their track record with pitchers is just as bad. Zito, Cueto and Shark were all massive wastes
Shark has just about redeemed himself. Cueto still has a chance to redeem himself; he definitely has the potential to do so.
Cueto had a great 1st year with the team, mediocre by his standards 2nd year, was having a great third year before the injury and badically lost his 4th year. With the exception of signing players with a history of injuries, you can’t call Cueto a bust due to getting injured because when they signed him he did not have that stigma. Hopefully he bounces back whenever they start playing again.
Shark was a poor signing to begin with as the money and his career numbers just did not add up. He had a solid year last year, and had he been pitching similarly this season (if there was a season) he would have been great trade bait.
It’s funny I have not seen any article about all the loses that have come from COVID taking away the season. One of which I just mentioned, deadline trades that could have been taking place this season which may have impacted the upcoming seasons.