10:23pm: Boston has announced the signings of both Benintendi and third-rounder Austin Rei. The catcher will receive an at-slot, $724,400 bonus, Callis tweets.
Rei is a defensive specialist; indeed, Callis calls his work behind the plate the best of all this year’s draft-eligible collegians. The questions come with the bat, though there are signs that Rei can contribute on offense. As MLB.com wrote in ranking him 87th on its board, Rei rates solidly in terms of bat speed and approach.
10:30am: The Red Sox have agreed to terms with No. 7 overall draft pick Andrew Benintendi, reports MLB.com’s Jim Callis (via Twitter). The lefty-swinging outfielder out of the University of Arkansas will receive the full slot bonus of $3,590,400, per Callis, who feels that Benintendi possessed the best all-around tools of any college hitter in this year’s draft class.
Callis and colleague Jonathan Mayo ranked Benintendi eighth among draft prospects, while Benintendi ranked ninth per Baseball America and per Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs. ESPN’s Keith Law ranked Benintendi a bit lower at No. 21, though he noted that, “No one has improved his stock this spring more than the sophomore draft-eligible Benintendi…” which is lofty but likely deserved praise after Benintendi led the SEC in OBP, homers and slugging percentage.
Callis and Mayo praised Benintendi’s smooth swing and ability to consistently barrel up the ball. That’s complemented by plus speed, the MLB.com duo notes, giving Benintendi a chance to be a base-stealing threat and to stick in center field. BA notes that Benintendi didn’t play summer ball last year and wasn’t even on some clubs’ radars entering the season, but he quickly caused a “who’s-who of scouting directors and front-office officials” to fly in to watch his performance as the season progressed. McDaniel pegs the potential of each of Benintendi’s five tools as solid-average or better, and BA notes that the only real knocks on the 5’10” outfielder are his size and lack of a lengthier track record.
With Benintendi’s agreement in place, eight of the Top 10 picks in this year’s draft have either signed or agreed to terms, though just three have signed for the full slot value of their pick. (Minnesota’s Tyler Jay and Philadelphia’s Cornelius Randolph are the others.)
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
As good as he is, this is probably a bit of a blunder by Cherington and his staff. They agreed to an $550K over-slot payout to Logan Allen, earlier. That means we needed to get some kind of significant discount ($250K??) off the slot amount on this pick. We might have trouble signing Austin Rei and Travis Lakins without a bit more cap flexibility.
They also saved $205K on their 7th-round pick, $158K on their 9th-round pick and $143K on their 10th-round selection. Plus they can exceed the pool by 4.9% without incurring any penalty other than a 75 percent tax on the overage. Loss of picks begins at a 5% overage.
Yes, my point is, they spent all of that savings on signing Logan Allen. That basically leaves only the 5% leeway as what we have available to go over slot for two very talented college underclassmen, who will be looking for more than slot money. That means just under $300K left for all remaining over-slot offers. The saving grace of this deal is that it greatly expands the amount of the 5% pool (from $120K to $295K).
And since you say “we” whenever you refer to the Red Sox, I would recommend heading down to Cherington’s office and voicing your concerns directly to his face.. Because clearly, he has no concerns about spending your money how he sees fit..
Ah, another who doesn’t understand the concept of the royal we.
I would note that the Sox having signed Rei at slot allays the fears I expressed above. That is pretty much like getting a $250K discount. We should now have no trouble signing all of our top 10 guys.
From what I’ve gathered it shouldn’t be a huge issue. Assuming Rei signs for slot, they have around 550k to sign Lakins and the later draft picks. Seems like enough to me. I highly doubt they’re gonna get to sign all of their guys anyways.
Wow, that’s a lot of money for a kid who’ll take 3-4 years to make the bigs—-if he ever does.
As is the case with all prospects drafted in the first round.
Some people here criticize the Red Sox at every opportunity. I don’t know if they are Yankees fans, negative Red Sox fans or something else, but it is astonishingly adolescent.
I also find it adolescent, or at least cliche..because it happens a lot…when Red Sox fans make trade proposals under the assumption that small market talent is freely available for them to suck up like a vacuum cleaner. I’ll be fair and say that Yankee fans used to do this often as well.
Every team has fans like that. Its usually more to with a general lack of knowledge and ignorance as to how prospects and players are valued. Fans of a certain team tend to have more extreme views on their own players then opposing teams. Look at Clay Bucholtz, some Red Sox fans would say hes an ace and others would say a number 5. neither is correct.
Now you know what it feels like for the teams that usually pick in the top 10 of the draft. This isn’t basketball, about 60% of first rounders get nothing more than a cup of coffee in the big leagues and yet they get major league money. But that’s the gamble that is the MLB draft.
What? Draft time was always exciting, even before this ridiculous forced slotting system now being enforced.
Low market teams that refused to spend are why it exists anyway, not the Kansas city and Pittsburgh’s of the league, who would occasionally spend upwards and over 15m and not all of that on it’s 1st round pick either, but multiple top talents taken in lower rounds.. Oh no.. It was teams.. Such as Tampa Bay and Houston not spending before, throw the Twins in that group also sometimes.
Large market teams that would hit the 10m figure included Boston (sometimes) and *maybe* the Cubs every once in awhile approaching the figure, the other large teams didn’t spend and that includes Anaheim, the Yanks, LAD.. Forced those cheap low teams to spend is all slotting did. There was NOTHING wrong with the old system, only the kid amateurs got hurt.
The slot value system was not implemented to get cheap teams to pay more. It was to avoid having rich teams pick a player in the low rounds and throw money at him who was seen as unsignable by teams picking early in the draft.
Problem: The early drafters would skip over a talented high school player because he committed to a given University. A rich team would pick him in the 12th round and throw something exceeding what a first round pick might get.
Solution: penalize teams making such offers by taking away high draft picks and charging them fines.
You will love this young man. A hell of a baseball player, will keep his mouth shut and come to work every day. Has tremendous skills and has dominated the best college league in the country. What is he worth? Only the Red Sox execs could decide that but Boston is a class organization and doesn’t screw up very often. I truly think you will enjoy Benentendi for a long time. I know the two years he spent here in Arkansas provided a real treat to just go to the ballpark and watch him play.