The Royals have announced a deal with left-hander Frank Mozzicato, selected seventh overall by K.C. in last week’s amateur draft. MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis reports (Twitter link) that Mozzicato signed for a bonus of $3.55MM, considerably below the $5,432,400 slot value attached to the seventh overall pick.
The savings will allow to the Royals to spend more of their $10,917,700 bonus pool on their other picks, and there was some expectation that Mozzicato would take a below-slot deal since Kansas City exceeded the projections of draft pundits by taking Mozzicato with the seventh pick. There was a fairly wide range of opinion about Mozzicato’s draft stock, with ESPN.com’s Kiley McDaniel coming in highest by ranking Mozzicato as the 21st-best prospect in the class. (Fangraphs had the left-hander 29th, MLB Pipeline 39th, Baseball America 41st, and The Athletic’s Keith Law 54th.)
Mozzicato elevated his profile with an outstanding finish to his Connecticut high school career this spring, including a rather incredible stretch of four consecutive no-hitters. As noted in Fangraphs’ scouting report, “it’s tough to measure the performance of Northeast prep players due to the level of competition,” but clearly the Royals feel Mozzicato’s potential was worthy of such a high pick.
A plus curveball is Mozzicato’s signature pitch, receiving a 60 grade (on the 20-80 scouting scale) from both Pipeline and BA. McDaniel even writes that some scouts were even more bullish on Mozzicato’s curve, putting it in the 65-70 range. “Mozzicato already manipulates speeds on his curveball based on the situation like a veteran, with an ability to consistently execute and command the pitch well beyond his years,” according to Baseball America. Beyond the big breaking ball, Mozzicato has a fastball that sits in the early 90’s but with the potential for more velocity to be added.
It has to be for way under slot value. If it’s slot value they messed up.
Why should he sign for less than slot?
Because he was ranked liked 40th and was drafted in the top 10. The only reason they would do that is because they had an agreement to sign under slot before he was picked.
Oh so now because a bunch of guys who don’t work for any MLB team say he was the 40th best prospect available he HAS to sign a below slot deal?
He will absolutely sign for probably half of slot
He doesn’t HAVE to sign for anything, but he likely agreed to a below slot deal before the draft which is why KC took him so far before he was projected to be drafted. KC wanted to save some money so they could use it to sign some other draft picks later in the draft
Yeah, but they forgot to draft players they could spend the savings on.
This MLB writer disagrees with you. https://www.mlb.com/royals/news/2021-mlb-draft-top-teams?t=mlb-draft-coverage
say he was the 40th best prospect available
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That’s how the system works. A bunch of experts work out your ranking. If you are ranked worse than your draft slot, you get paid under-slot. If you are ranked better than your draft slot, say Mayer for the RS for example, you likely get paid over-slot.
This is not particularly complicated. Again, with the RS, they have two guys that will almost surely get paid over-slot in Mayer and Fabian, and a couple of college seniors that were drafted almost entirely because they will sign under-slot.
Not entirely true. They drafted enough high school players that will require a little more to lure away from college.
That’s not true, they’ve got two kids they need to sign away from LSU and a college sophomore catcher to sign away from NC State
It’s a common strategy teams use to save money that is used to pay over slot on later draft picks. Take a player that you like that isn’t likely to get picked this early. Take players later that most teams avoid because of salary demands.
Why should he sign under-slot? He already has a baseball scholarship from UConn.
What happens if he gets hurt? Underperforms? Take the money while you can.
@thegoat
It’s not that he should sign under slot price, it is simply that it was agreed on that he would sign below slot value of a top 10 pick if drafted sooner then he most likely would have been, because if he was drafted 40th or even 20th he wouldnt be eligible for a 5 million slot value. So It’s not complicated, there is no moral high road here or what a player should get blah blah. 2 partys made a agreement they are both happy with.
jimthegoat4 hours ago
Why should he sign under-slot? He already has a baseball scholarship from UConn.
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That’s kind of a ridiculous question. They gave him $3,550,000. I worked hard for my degrees, but if you want to send me $3,550,000, I’ll let you have both of them.
Jimthegoat is new to how the mlb draft works.
Which is fine. But this is also not a difficult concept to get your hands around. The idea that a 40th ranked player will get somewhere around 40th ranked pay, is fairly straightforward.
And the question about why shouldn’t he go to college instead of accepting $3.5M and starting his pro career? Most of these players aren’t planning on becoming engineers.
@Justajaysfan pre-draft deals aren’t legally binding. And Mozzicato had all the leverage in the world as a high school draftee. And was probably underrated at #40. You need to stop being a slave to pre-draft rankings.
The guy was right on.. signed for 2/3 slot value. He said if it was full slot, the Royals messed up. You’re just being a jerk for no reason honestly