The Padres have come to terms on a deal with first-round pick Jackson Merrill, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com (Twitter link). He’ll receive a $1.8MM signing bonus that checks in well shy of the $2.5701MM slot value associated with the #27 overall selection.
Of course, Merrill’s willingness to sign for less than slot value played a role in the Friars selecting him in that spot in the first place. Each of Baseball America, Keith Law of the Athletic and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs slotted Merrill between 72nd and 101st in their pre-draft rankings. It’s safe to presume Padres’ evaluators are higher on Merrill than those public prognosticators, but the Friars were no doubt aware he’d be willing to take an underslot deal in the first round to forego his commitment to the University of Kentucky.
Evaluators write that Merrill came on strong towards the end of his high school season. The Maryland native has a prototype infielder’s build with some power projection and bat speed. BA and Law express some trepidation about the consistency of his hit tool, though, and all three outlets agree he’s likely to outgrow shortstop down the line.
Merrill’s underslot agreement saves a little less than $800K for the Padres to reallocate to some of their later selections. Second-rounder James Wood is the only other prep player among San Diego’s top ten picks, so it’s likely he’ll wound up with a bonus significantly above the $1.1MM slot value associated with the 62nd pick.
Hope they can get Wood signed and still have enough money leftover for one of Jump or Burns. Taking all those college seniors in rounds 4-10, might just make that possible.
That’s what I was thinking. I wasn’t a huge fan of their draft this year, but if they could sign Jump or Burns that would change. Personally, I like Jump better and he’s from the area which could help with sign ability but I like both a lot
If Wood signs for slot value or slightly above I would think Gasser, Kopps and Wolf would sign for below and they just may be able to sign one of them
Union Tribune is reporting Gasser signed for full slot, then they saved $287K on Kopps, $138K on Wolf, $75K on Hawkins, $63K on Dunn, so that’s like a cumulative $1.3M in savings so far when added to Merril.
They can save a little more on the 6th, 7th and 10th rounders that remain unsigned, but those picks are like cumulatively worth a little under $600K and they’re going to have to pay those guys something. From what I’m reading Wood in the 2nd is actually supposed to go over slot, but if we just assume he goes for slot value and those other 3 sign for like a total of $100K or something low, that gives them about $1.8M in savings, plus they can exceed the pool allotment by up to $340K before they lose draft picks so that gets us to like $2.1M max to spend here.
$2.1M is in between the slot value is for the 34th and 35th overall selections. I think if Jump or Burns would sign for that kind of money someone would have taken them in the comp or second rounds because talent wise they could go there. Padres can certainly give it a good run, but I don’t see the money working to get either of them. I would love for Preller to prove me wrong though.
If we just assume Wood is signing for slot, then we’ll draw bad conclusions based on a faulty starting point.
Ehh I think you’re missing my point. Wood is most likely going to sign for over slot, the savings are probably partially for him. But if we’re going to try to see the maximum possible amount that the Padres could have available for Jump or Burns then we should pencil him and the other remaining unsigned in for the lowest possibly feasible amounts.
What we see is that even when doing that, assuming the best possible scenario for the Padres, there’s only $2.1M available, which really isn’t enough for either Jump or Burns. Now if Wood was a college senior who they could sign for like $100K or something, and they were able to free up an extra million dollars, then it’s interesting and more feasible that they could sign one of those guys, but unless we make some assumptions based off of what we know about Woods, then we’re not able to get to that point.
That’s true, though not many people thought Wilcox would sign last year, right?
Those two are not signing. The savings are for Wood and possibly Rincones.
Remember that the team can exceed their bonus pool by up to 5% and not have to give up any draft picks. Just have to pay an overage tax. With as much $ as they are paying Myers and Hosmer to suck they have no excuse for not doing this if that’s what it takes. They actually did this last year when they paid Cole Wilcox $3.3m to leave UGA.
Padres have the longest active streak of signing everyone they drafted in the first 10 rounds, a streak that dates all the way back to 2012.
And Whitson should have signed in 2010…..big mistake on his part.
Wood signed for 2.6 million so that’s a no on Jump and Burns
The Padres are already over their alloyed draft pool.
google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j…
Alotted. I hate autocorrect!