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Amateur Draft Signings: 6/27/20

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The latest draft signings…

Latest News

  • The Brewers have signed third-rounder Zavier Warren, who made the news official today on his own Twitter feed.  Warren will receive “slightly” less than the $637.6K slot value attached to the 92nd overall pick, Tony Paul of the Detroit News reports (Twitter link).  Milwaukee is also reportedly close to an official agreement with fifth-round pick Hayden Cantrelle, as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports that Cantrelle took his physical earlier this week and will receive a below-slot deal.  Cantrelle’s 151st overall draft position has a $353.7K slot value.  [UPDATE: Cantrelle has signed for $300K, as per Robert Murray]

Earlier Today

  • The Reds inked third-round pick Bryce Bonnin and fifth-rounder Joe Boyle, as reported by Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer.  Details on Boyle’s bonus aren’t yet known, though Bonnin signed for $700K, per MLB.com’s Jim Callis.  This falls slightly below the $721.9K slot value attached to the 84th overall pick.  Bonnin is a right-handed pitcher from Texas who previously went to the Cubs as a 26th-rounder in 2017. After attending Arkansas, Bonnin transferred to Texas Tech and became their Sunday starter in 2019, helping his club to a 12-1 record on days he took the hill. He finished the year with a 4.08 ERA before struggling over his four starts in 2020 (7.36 ERA).
  • Second-round pick Logan Allen signed yesterday with the Indians, but the financial details of his deal have come in. Allen signed for $1.125MM, a touch below slot ($1,276,400), tweets Callis. Allen was a two-way player in college, but like the Indians’ other Logan Allen, the southpaw’s most likely future is on the hill.
  • The Pirates announced today that they’ve signed fifth-round pick Logan Hofmann, with details first reported by Marc Delucchi and confirmed by Callis. Hofmann will receive a $125K signing bonus, which is under the $402K slot value for the 138th overall selection. Hofmann is a right-handed pitcher from Northwestern State, where he didn’t concede an earned run in 28 IP this spring.
  • The White Sox have signed fifth-rounder Bailey Horn, according to Callis. Horn, a left-handed pitcher from Auburn, will earn $150K, which comes in at less than half of the $386,600 slot value for the 142nd pick. Per Callis, Horn features a four-pitch mix, of which the slider is his best offering. By signing Horn and second-rounder Jared Kelley today, the White Sox now have all five of their draft picks under contract.

Cardinals Sign Dominican Prospect Edwin Nunez

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The Cardinals have signed international amateur free agent Edwin Nunez for $525K, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America.  This deal comes as part of the extended 2019-20 international signing period, which will run until October 15 and was re-opened again on Friday when the transactions freeze was lifted.

Like all other business in baseball, the international market was halted by the league’s COVID-19 shutdown, meaning Nunez had to wait a little longer to sign with his first big league organization.  Nunez’s entry into the pros had already been delayed a year, as the league declared him ineligible to sign during the 2018-19 international prospect period due to a discrepancy with his given age.  Nunez became eligible in April, and is now listed as 18 years old.

Despite his late entry into the signing period, Badler writes that Nunez “had emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in the 2019-20 class.”  A hard-throwing righty from the Dominican Republic, Nunez already has a high-90s fastball that has hit the 100mph threshold on occasion.  It isn’t out of the question that even more velocity could be unlocked, given Nunez’s young age and the potential for more bulk added to his 6’3″, 185-pound frame.  Beyond that big fastball, Nunez also has a largely untested changeup and a somewhat “inconsistent” curveball.

Orioles Sign Two Draft Picks

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5:36PM: Both players signed for their exact slot price, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter links).

5:05PM: The Orioles have signed two of their picks from the amateur draft, announcing that Competitive Balance Round A pick Jordan Westburg and second-rounder Hudson Haskin have agreed to deals with the club.

Financial terms weren’t announced, though the 30th overall selection (Westburg) has a $2,365,500 slot value and the 39th overall pick (Haskin) has a $1,906,800 slot price.  The O’s have already gone notably over slot with two of their other draft signings, though some type of below-slot deal is expected with second overall pick Heston Kjerstad, as Baltimore’s slight reach in taking Kjerstad at that selection was seen as a way to free up more pool money for signings in the rest of the team’s draft class.

Westburg was a consensus top-40 pick among pundits, with Fangraphs being the highest on him as the 32rd-ranked player on their draft board.  A 21-year-old shortstop, Westburg has been a big part of Mississippi State’s consecutive appearances in the College World Series, and he also performed well in the Cape Cod League last summer.  While seen as something of an inconsistent or raw hitter, Westburg has cut down on his strikeouts over his last three NCAA seasons, and could develop more power as he continues to build on his 6’3″, 203-pound frame.  That size could make Westburg a candidate to eventually move to third base, though he is considered to have the athleticism and throwing arm required to earn a look at shortstop.

Haskin, an outfielder out of Tulane, has drawn some comparison to Hunter Pence for, to quote, Baseball America’s scouting report, a swing that “works despite being ugly.”  Haskin’s lengthy swing has nonetheless delivered impressive results at the plate, and he could also potentially work as a big league center fielder given his plus speed and solid defense.  The Orioles were clearly higher on Haskin than most pundits — the 21-year-old was ranked 51st on Keith Law’s board, 74th by MLB Pipeline, 76th by Fangraphs, and only 211st by Baseball America.

Rockies Release Kelby Tomlinson

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The Rockies released infielder Kelby Tomlinson, reports MLBTR’s own Steve Adams. Tomlinson had signed with the team in January on a minor-league deal, but won’t be given the opportunity to continue his stint in Colorado.

With speculation about a possible Nolan Arenado trade running rampant at the time of his signing, Tomlinson might have seen a heightened role with the Rockies if Arenado were out of the picture, but with no such trade coming to fruition, the need for Tomlinson was limited. And with the likes of Brendan Rodgers, Josh Fuentes, Ryan McMahon, and others also in the picture, Tomlinson faced plenty of competition for playing time in the Colorado infield.

Tomlinson hasn’t appeared in regular-season action since 2018 when he was with the Giants. He played the entirety of last season at the Triple-A level in the Arizona and Seattle minor-league systems, posting an overall .602 OPS. In parts of four seasons with San Francisco, Tomlinson managed a .265/.331/.332 batting line.

Though he provides little in the way of power, Tomlinson could be a depth option for a club in need of reserve infielders. The 30-year-old can play shortstop, second base, and third base, and could be worth a spot on a team’s 60-player pool.

White Sox Sign Second-Round Pick Jared Kelley

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The White Sox have agreed to a deal with second-round draft pick Jared Kelley, according to Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. Kelley, an 18-year-old right-hander from Refugio High School in Texas, will receive a $3MM signing bonus, which comes in well above the $1.58MM slot value for the 47th overall pick.

Despite being chosen in the second round, Kelley by all accounts boasts the talent to warrant a first-round selection, with MLB Pipeline touting Kelley as the 12th-ranked prospect in this year’s draft class. That, along with a commitment to the University of Texas, means that Kelley commands a considerable signing bonus.

Kelley’s a big right-hander with a fastball to match, running the pitch up to 98 with an effortless delivery. The changeup is a surprisingly polished pitch for a high-schooler, and it’s easily his second-best offering. All that said, the biggest question in the way of Kelley’s path to becoming a top-flight Major League starter will be the development of his breaking ball, which is at best an average offering. Even if Kelley fails to develop and quality third pitch, the fastball-changeup combination will be enough to carry him to a high-leverage bullpen role. And while there’s value in that, such an outcome would still be considered a disappointment given Kelley’s high potential.

Mid-Atlantic Notes: Orioles, Mountcastle, Diaz, Nationals

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Keegan Akin, Ryan Mountcastle, Dean Kremer, and Bruce Zimmermann weren’t expected to make the Opening Day roster for the Baltimore Orioles, but with the first baseball of the season on the horizon, the Orioles have the chance to reevaluate, per MASN’s Roch Kubatko. The Orioles will have to balance service time concerns and the fear of rushing youngsters into an uncertain landscape with the stark fact that the game’s highest level is the only level available for competitive play this season. Prospects can continue to work out, either independently or as part of the 60-man extended rosters, but to get game reps, the majors is the only game in town. Mountcastle, coming off a .312/.344/.527 season in Triple-A, could find himself on the major-league roster, even if the Orioles would prefer – in a vacuum – to allow him more development time elsewhere.

  • Yusniel Diaz presents a similarly interesting case for the O’s, per Kubatko. Like Mountcastle, Diaz was expected to make his ML-debut at some point, but unlike Mountcastle, the Cuban outfielder has yet to appear higher than Double-A. Should they choose a more judicious approach, Baltimore can certainly make do with Anthony Santander, D.J. Stewart, Austin Hays, and Dwight Smith Jr. in the outfield. Still, every decision for the Orioles has to be made with the future in mind, and they’ll have to decide whether exposing someone like Diaz to major league pitching earlier than planned will benefit his long-term development. With Trey Mancini out for the year, there are plenty of at-bats to go around for corner outfield candidates.
  • Elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic, if the Nationals can lean on their big four in the rotation as they did in last year’s postseason, everything should be hunky-dory for the champs, per Byron Kerr of MASN. Of course, Manager Davey Martinez put those boys through a grind last October, with Patrick Corbin pushed to the limit as a swingman, and Max Scherzer’s shoulder barely holding up long enough to get through game seven of the World Series in Houston. The long layoff should help Scherzer, Corbin, Stephen Strasburg, and Anibal Sanchez avoid a World Series hangover, but the bullpen looks stronger as well. They’ll get a full season from Daniel Hudson, won’t have to lean as hard on Sean Doolittle, and Will Harris joins the team from Houston to shore up the backend. Doolittle has been one of the more vocal ballplayers during the pandemic, but as of now, no Nats have decided to sit out the season.

The Most Stacked Lineup Of The Millennium Missed The Playoffs

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With MVPs Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts sharing a lineup with thumpers like Justin Turner, Max Muncy, and Corey Seager, the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup is stacked. That’s five players who have proved capable of posting 5-6 WAR seasons. We can even include A.J. Pollock in that group (6.8 fWAR in 2015) if we’re being generous – though it would open some eyes to see Pollack produce at that level again (even for a 60-game span). The ceiling hasn’t been set on youngsters like Will Smith and Gavin Lux, who could very well enter that elite territory with a best-case development future. There’s no denying that the Dodgers have a loaded lineup – but has there been a more MVP-loaded lineup in recent history?

The most stacked lineup of the last twenty years belongs to an 85-win, 3rd place St. Louis Cardinals team from 2003. “Most-stacked,” of course, isn’t exactly an official metric, so let me define it. Fangraphs explains fWAR in their glossary by classifying a “good player” as worth 3-4 fWAR, an “All-Star” to be worth 4-5 fWAR, and a “superstar” as worth 5-6 fWAR. But for the “most-stacked” lineup, we want the cream of the crop. Fangraphs classifies MVPs as those worth 6+ fWAR in a given season, so I went looking for the lineup with the most “MVPs”, and I found the unequivocal champ with the 2003 St. Louis Cardinals.

Not only did the Cardinals carry four MVP-caliber bats that season, but they’re the only team since 2000 to accomplish that feat. There have been four other teams since 2000 with three bats in the lineup worth 6+ fWAR (2004 Orioles, 2003 Braves, 2004 Cardinals, 2011 Red Sox) – but only Tony La Russa’s Cardinals fielded a quartet of such players.

Albert Pujols (9.5 fWAR), Jim Edmonds (6.3 fWAR), Edgar Renteria (6.3 fWAR), and Scott Rolen (6.2 fWAR) each put up an “MVP-like” seasons in 2003. The 23-year-old Pujols would have been a shoo-in to snag the actual NL MVP, but that was the era of supernova Barry Bonds, who won his third of four consecutive MVPs (10.2 fWAR) that season. 

The Cardinals finished 5th in the majors in runs scored with 876, second in total fWAR on offense, fourth in wRC+. J.D. Drew, Tino Martinez, and Bo Hart were productive members of the lineup, So Taguchi gave them 59 plate appearances with a 109 wRC+, and Eduardo Perez (122 wRC+) was a successful power bat off the bench. Only at catcher did they really struggle offensively, where Mike Matheny hit .252/.320/.356 to total 0.4 fWAR while starting 121 games behind the dish. In short, the offense did its part. 

Unfortunately, the entirety of the Cardinals pitching staff mustered just 7.3 fWAR. They finished 19th in ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 26th in home runs per nine innings. The bullpen was a particular disaster, finishing the season dead last in the majors with -1.8 fWAR. The rotation boasted legitimate arms in Woody Williams, Matt Morris, and less so, Brett Tomko. Dan Haren made an okay major league debut with 14 starts and a 5.08 ERA/4.57 FIP. 

That said, they could have done without the 55 starts from Garrett Stephenson, in what would be his last dash as an MLB hurler, Sterling Hitchcock in his second-to-last season, 40-year-old Jeff Fassero, and Jason Simontacchi, who was coming off a surprisingly decent rookie season at age-28. 

Giving 34 percent of their starts to suboptimal contributors didn’t pave the runway for the bullpen to take flight, but the relief crew struggled all their own. In particular, the main culprits were (again) Fassero (56 games, 6.52 ERA/6.13 FIP), Dustin Hermanson (23 games, 5.46 ERA/5.49 FIP), Russ Springer (17 games, 8.31 ERA/8.97 FIP), and Esteban Yan (39 games, 6.02 ERA/5.59 FIP). It didn’t help that injuries limited closer Jason Isringhausen to 40 games and 22 saves. He would otherwise anchor the Cardinals’ bullpens of that era. 

The 2003 Cardinals paint a picture of the difficulties in team-building. Four monster seasons making up half their everyday lineup, and still the Cardinals only managed to eke out a third-place finish. They underperformed their Pythagorean record, but only by three wins. The Cubs won the division with exactly 88 wins, overperforming their Pythagorean record by – you guessed it – three wins.

Things can go right – so right – in any given season, and it still might not be enough to counterbalance what goes wrong. That’s not to say that the 2020 Dodgers are in trouble – but their spot in the postseason is hardly assured. The ’03 Cardinals had the most MVP-level bats of any team in the past 20 years, and yet it was only enough for 85 wins. The margin for error will only be smaller in a short season.

Of course, here’s the other funny little part of baseball. Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds/Renteria couldn’t power their way to the postseason in 2003, but the foundation in St. Louis was solid. They did reach the postseason in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006. La Russa’s Cardinals capped off the run with a World Series title. That season, they finished with 83 wins, one less than the “disappointment” their stacked lineup produced in 2003.

So the most-stacked lineup of the millennium missed the playoffs, and the “worst” division winner of the millennium won the World Series. If that’s not a good primer for the chaos to come in a short season, I don’t know what is. 

Latest On Teams With Positive Coronavirus Tests

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After multiple members of the Texas Rangers organization tested positive for COVID-19, some employees told ESPN that they “fear for their health and hope the organization will allow employees to work from home after feeling pressure to come into the office,” per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. That’s a troubling revelation coming out of Texas, and a reminder of the power that employers yield over their workers during this difficult time. The Rangers, of course, will have the opportunity to reassess their work-from-home policies in light of these positive tests – and hopefully do so. Given unemployment rates around the country, those with highly-coveted positions within sports franchises are in a difficult position should they disagree with their employers in terms of readiness to return to work. None of the Rangers’ positive tests belonged to players, coaches, or baseball personnel, per Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Teams generally face less public scrutiny with how they handle non-baseball-personnel staff, so let’s see how a couple other teams are handling confirmed positive tests…

  • The Brewers are newly among those clubs with positive COVID-19 tests within the organization, writes Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Many of those who tested positive were asymptomatic, but apparently not all of them. It’s unclear at this time if those positive tests were from staff members or players. Regardless, the Brewers are forging ahead, set to bring a group of 45 players to compete for the eventual 30-man regular-season roster. The rest of the 60-man roster will train at the team’s Class A facility in Appleton, Wisconsin. Players will face intake testing for COVID-19 as they arrive at team facilities.
  • The Indians have had players test positive from their homes, the team facility in Arizona, and from the Dominican Republic, per The Athletic’s Zack Meisel. Team President Chris Antonetti says that the cases have been isolated and there have not been any large-scale breakouts. Interestingly, some staff members have decided to sit out the season, though no players within the organization have as of yet decided to abstain from play. Clearly, the concerns are real across the league, and it’s up to teams to work with their staff and players to make sure everyone feels safe heading into this truncated season. The players face the most visibility, but there are obviously many more employees from every team who will face increased risk in the coming months now that baseball is coming back.

Explaining The 2020 MLB Roster Rules

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Major League Baseball is days away from a rapid-fire Summer Training, which will set the stage for a mad 60-game dash for postseason position, followed by a typically wild October … all while trying to manage the many challenges posed by the still-raging pandemic that disrupted the 2020 season in the first place. Sounds like a lot when you put it that way.

As one might expect, the typical roster rules for a MLB season would not work well in this scenario. Among other things, there’s a need for an actively engaged reserve corps of players with the minor-league season still on ice. Teams need a way to protect players who are injured or who contract COVID-19. The issue is all the more pressing in the early stages of the season.

MLBTR has learned and clarified many of the key details regarding the new roster rules. Here’s how things will work for the 2020 campaign:

  • Each team can establish a maximum 60-man player pool, with the initial list due by Sunday at 3pm CST. Teams are not required to fill all sixty slots.
  • No other players will be permitted to participate in camp. Teams are permitted to operate two separate camps if they so choose. All teams will operate an alternative training site once the season begins.
  • Players on the 40-man roster need not be included in the 60-man player pool. Likewise, of course, pool players need not be on the 40-man roster — unless and until they are added to the active MLB roster.
  • If a player is removed from a 60-man player pool, he cannot be added back to that team’s pool but can be added to another team’s pool. Players cannot be freely removed from the 60-man player pool without roster implications. Put otherwise: other than injured list placement, suspension, and some other infrequent designations, teams will be forced to surrender (or risk surrendering) control over a player (trade, release, DFA, outright, etc.) to remove him from the 60-man player pool.
  • Teams may otherwise add already controlled or newly acquired players to their 60-man player pool. Players can be signed to the 60-man player pool without being added to the 40-man roster, but that requires 60-man player pool space (just like a typical minor-league deal requires space at a certain affiliate).
  • The active MLB roster will consist of up to 30 players (and at least 25 players) at the start of the season. After two weeks of play, that number goes down to 28. After two more weeks, it drops again to 26, with a 27th player available for double-headers.
  • Teams will travel with an unofficial 3-man taxi squad, the identity of which need not be disclosed. One player must be a catcher. There is no official designation or roster status associated with being a member of that group.
  • As usual, a player must be on a 40-man roster in order to be added to the active MLB roster.
  • Once a player is placed on the active roster, standard rules apply. Players eligible to be optioned can be sent back to camp just as if it were a minor-league affiliate. An optioned player must stay on optional assignment for ten days, unless called back owing to an injured list placement. Players who are not eligible to be optioned must be designated for assignment (and then traded or exposed to outright waivers) to be removed from the active roster.
  • The trade deadline is August 31st. ONLY players in the 60-man player pool may be traded. Any player that is traded must go into an acquiring team’s player pool. (As a practical matter, it seems there’s nothing to stop teams from adding prospects to the 60-man player pool specifically in order to trade them. The acquiring team would need to be capable of carrying such players in their own 60-man player pool while still fielding a 26-man active roster of capable big leaguers.)

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