The Rockies have agreed to terms with first-round pick Zac Veen, Carlos Collazo of Baseball America reports (via Twitter). He’ll take home a $5MM bonus that checks in slightly north of his No. 9 overall selection’s $4.949MM slot value. Veen had been committed to Florida but will forgo that commitment to embark on his pro career.
A high school outfielder out of Florida, Veen was a consensus top 10 talent in this year’s draft based his 6’5″, 200-pound frame, plus raw power, potential for an above-average hit tool and above-average speed. Veen is a center fielder right now, though many scouting reports on him project that he’ll move to a corner as he fills out (and, perhaps, adds more power to his game). The Athletic’s Keith Law calls Veen the “best combination of probability and upside” among this year’s crop of high school bats.
The 18-year-old Veen ranked no “worse” than seventh in this year’s class on any of the rankings from Baseball America, MLB.com, FanGraphs, ESPN or The Athletic, and the Rockies were surely pleased to be able to select him with the ninth overall pick. Both Baseball America (No. 75) and FanGraphs (No. 80) already have Veen as a top-100 prospect in MLB on their updated rankings, so he’ll add some much-needed talent to what is regarded as a thin Rockies farm system.
6 foot 5 and 200 pounds in high school? wowza
My brother played high school baseball at 6 foot 8 n 285 pounds as a RF
Basically Adam Dunn n Aaron Judge size
My brother did not play high school baseball at 6’2” and 285 lbs. Coach couldn’t find him a position.
Yeah and that is exactly why this was a poor choice to draft this kid #1. At 6 5 200 lb and he’s 18 and an outfielder? I could see in about a year or two him being the slowest runner on the field and being moved to first base. So now you’re looking at a poor defensive 1b/DH type number one draft pick. Rockies are stupid
Ok
I’m buying the hype on this kid and combine that with playing at coors he’s going to be a star
Ok so Veen actually did sign for less than Hassell this time. It’s not like Quantrill or Weathers.
Hassell signed for $4.3M, which is less than the $5M Veen signed for, not quite sure what you a trying to get at here?
I meant to say “Hassell actually did sign for less than Veen this time.” BIG oof.
Was getting at how in 2016 and 2018 Preller drafted a guy in the first round who wasn’t BPA, people said that if he had taken who I wanted he wouldn’t have been able to sign him or that signing him wouldn’t have left him enough $ to sign his other draftees and then he paid his guy more $ than the guy I wanted him to draft ended up getting.
I would have preferred Liberatore being the pick in 2018, much more upside than Weathers, but the Quantrill pick in 2016 seemed spot on. Sure the signing bonus was higher than anyone expected, but the pick it self seemed like a sound choice.
Who would you have preferred the Padres select in 2016? And please don’t say Gavin Lux. :)
I was hankering for Jay Groome at the time. I will gladly hold the proverbial “L” on that one.
Hindsight being 20/20, Gavin Lux or Dakota Hudson is who the Padres should have taken at #8.
So because he matured early he is going to be slow and unathletic? “ilnowmorebaseball” should get out and actually watch more baseball and sports. Big athletic body’s can break down, but so can small ones. Rockies can’t sign free agent starting pitchers without overpaying and hard to trade for good young pitching so I am puzzled why they don’t draft more pitchers, but to say this kid is going to fail because he is big and strong is stupid.
Hopefully they don’t have enough money for Romo now.
I could see him at first base in a few years. Hopefully he has enough speed to cover the huge outfield in Denver, but first seems like a natural.