Saturday saw a smattering of players get inked to major bonuses, including Cardinals first-rounder JJ Wetherholt and Cubs first-rounder Cam Smith. A few more notable signings from the past day:
- The Marlins agreed to a $2.8MM deal with second-rounder Carter Johnson, per Craig Mish of the Miami Herald. That’s significantly higher than the $1.6MM slot value for the 56th overall pick, and comes on the heels of Miami signing their first-rounder to a deal that came in well below slot value yesterday. Johnson, a high school shortstop committed to Alabama, was ranked fairly highly across the board, with The Athletic’s Keith Law rating him as the 26th-best prospect in this year’s class on the high end while MLB Pipeline ranked him on the low end at 40th in the class. While evaluators suggest he has a good feel for hitting, he’s nearly universally expected to end up at second or third base long-term due in part to his large frame; he’s listed at 6’2”, 180 lbs.
- The Mets agreed to a $2,031,700 deal with second-rounder Jonathan Santucci today, according to MLB.com’s Jim Callis. The deal is full slot value for the 45th overall selection. Santucci is a college southpaw listed a 6’2”, 205 lbs. Evaluators seem fairly split on the Duke product, with Baseball America (#32) and MLB Pipeline (#37) both ranking the lefty within the top 40 prospects in this year’s draft while evaluators at Fangraphs (#50) as well as Law (#50) and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel (#64) are much less bullish. As noted by Law in his writeup of Santucci, the lefty’s stuff is impressive but he’s missed considerable time throughout his college career due to an elbow fracture last spring and a rib injury that cost him a few starts this season. Given Santucci’s notable injury history, it’s not necessarily surprising that evaluators are split on the lefty, and Law adds that “His draft status is probably more a function of what teams see in his medical reports than what the scouts and analysts say.”
