The Rangers have agreed to terms with fourth-round pick Brock Porter on a deal for just under $4MM, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Levi Weaver of the Athletic first reported earlier in the week that Porter was likely to sign for a bonus around $3.7MM. Wherever the number precisely checks in, it’s well overslot for the fourth round. The 109th overall pick, with which he was selected, comes with a slot value of just $560.2K. Porter’s deal will land seven-to-eight times north of that mark.
That Porter’s bonus shattered the slot value isn’t a coincidence, of course. While he didn’t hear his name called until well into the draft’s second day, he was unanimously regarded by public prospect evaluators as a first-round talent. He placed between 11th and 24th on the pre-draft rankings at each of Baseball America, ESPN, The Athletic, MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs. On talent, Porter fit in the middle of the first round. His reported bonus, which is commensurate with the slot values of the picks in the 15-18 range, more accurately reflects his regard than does his draft position.
Porter, 19, is a right-hander out of a Michigan high school. He’s among the top arms in this year’s class, with both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline slotting him as their #1 pitcher in a draft that skewed position player heavy. The 6’3″ hurler can run his fastball into the upper-90s and draws strong marks for his secondary offerings. Evaluators suggest both his changeup and slider should be above-average to plus offerings. He’s physically projectable and has a solid strike-throwing track record, giving him mid-rotation or better upside.
High school pitching is a particularly risky draft demographic, but Porter has among the higher ceilings of anyone in the class. It’s easy to see why the Rangers prioritized buying him out of his commitment to Clemson. Texas made the surprising decision to take Kumar Rocker with the third overall pick, agreeing to terms with the former Vanderbilt star on a $5.2MM bonus that was nearly $2.5MM below slot. Those savings and then some were reallocated to Porter, whom the Rangers took in the fourth round but with their second pick of the draft. Texas forfeited their second and third-round selections as payment for signing qualified free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien last offseason. Other teams were apparently unwilling to match the Rangers bonus offer to Porter in the middle rounds, which is why Texas was able to get him in the fourth.
Rocker and Porter add another pair of high-upside arms to a Rangers system that also placed last year’s #2 overall pick Jack Leiter and Owen White among Baseball America’s recent Top 100 prospects. Former first-rounder Cole Winn was ranked among the league’s top arms heading into this season, although his stock has dipped a bit as he’s been hit hard at Triple-A. There’ll surely be some ups and downs amongst that group, but it’s a collection of potential quality starters whom the club hopes will progressively bolster the position player core that has started to emerge at the big league level.
The two of them are now basically the whole Rangers draft. $9.2m out of their $9.6m pool. Interesting strategy. I wouldn’t have gone there, not for two pitchers one of whom is coming off shoulder surgery and the other is 18 and throws 100, but maybe they pull an inside straight.
High-risk/high-reward draft. Interesting to see how that’ll play out.
I think they’ve found the new BROCK STAR!!!
Guess all the morons haven’t saw kumar pitch independent ball this season
Ha! I’m sure he was just terrific in those 20 innings against part time baseball players.
Whatever mets fans are just going to be pissing themselves when he turns into one of the rangers aces in a couple of years.hell must have done something right vs those part time ball players .he is starting at double a.
Just like Leiter started at AA? Remind me how that is going.
With his stuff he’d wipe the floor with A ball hitters. Leiter needed to be challenged and thats exactly what the rangers are doing.
So instead AA ball hitters are wiping the floor with Leiter after he was rushed? How is that a good minor league development approach? Teams that are competent at developing players, particularly pitchers, start college arms at A+ and then slowly move them with success. See Gavin Williams from CLE (same draft class). Leiter has gotten so turned around at AA, that he’s thrown all of 5 innings in July has a 6+ ERA, is walking over 5 guys per 9, and has allowed more hits than innings pitched. Gavin Williams was patiently started at A+ and since his promotion, has 31 IP at AA with a 2.30 ERA and just 17 hits. Leiter should repeat AA – it’s the Rangers so who knows? Williams is dominating AA now (after he did so at A+) and may be starting ’23 in discussion for AAA. One approach is working and one is not.
given their draft pick situation, kudos to them for adding and signing two elite talents with only 2 of the first 138 choices
Seems likely they will spend above their total pool. It’s just taxes on overages until it reaches 5% over.
Picks 8-10 were senior signs so those guys were always going to be getting practically nothing, but their round 5 pick had a slot value of $418K, which is more than they even have left after signing picks 1 and 4, so everyone they picked besides Porter is taking a discount. What a maneuver.
Teams can spend over their pool allotments a little, so we’ll have to see the final numbers.
Huge upside and minor should scope surgery
While difficult to have pitchers make it all the way to the show and be successful, I am envious they have such great potential in that department. Pitching more important than anything else and very few teams have this many legit top of the rotation guys in their system.
Good strategy and deal for the Rangers. I’m not sure either will be an ace/#1, but a 2/3 would be a good outcome.
Or a 4/5 or 6/7
Signed one of the top D1 JUCO pitchers too. Leader in K’s⚾️
That was quicker than I expected. Im glad they got him signed. Nice draft!
It’s been reported by a cpl that texas had agreements with both prior to selecting them.
Yep. The only way this strategy works is if the kid waiting to get picked is telling everyone he won’t sign for less than 3.7M
Doesn’t work if the kid gets picked in the mid 1st round. Or if any of the other 29 teams signs their first round pick below slot and spends a later pick to sign him with the savings
He’s a high school pitcher, with a strong college commitment, and demanding a top 15 bonus, in a position player heavy draft. There’s a lot of reason to see why teams didn’t want to risk their entire draft pool on a high risk HS pitcher. If he demands 5M, you may screw your whole draft
And we don’t know, he easily could have told teams his price was even higher than the 3.7M he got, or that he wouldn’t sign at all, to honor his word to the Rangers gentleman’s agreement. Even if he was straight up, “beat the offer if you want me,” still plenty of reason to draft elsewhere
Surprised Porter lasted until the 4th round, Clemson commitment or not. Smart play by the Rangers to pick him after getting Rocker under slot value. One thing of concern is that Porter seems to have that Steven Strasburg delivery. I’d be careful signing him to a contract that goes beyond age 30…
Texas obviously had a deal in place with Porter ahead of the draft and his agent let every other team know that it would cost $3.8M or higher to sign him. It’s apparent that no other team was willing to pay him that high of a signing bonus, so Porter was more than happy to wait until the 4th round in order to hear his name called. This is a very unusual strategy for the regular amateur draft; teams rarely exceed their 5% overage but if Texas is unable to sign their other draftees at well below slot value, they lose that money from their pool and they will be way over their pool limit for signing Rocker & Porter (their 1st round and 4th round slot values). From what I recall, there are very severe penalties for going over the cap and to put all of your 18 draft pick eggs into a 2 egg basket is quite risky especially when one of those eggs is a high school pitcher. Hopefully they’ve done their homework and already have agreements with the college seniors they drafted to sign well below slot value deals to offset the sizable overage they have after signing Porter for $3.7M. If a few of their senior draftees refuse to sign for such a reduced bonus then they could be in trouble. Bold strategy, Cotton; let’s see how it works out!
My quick math this AM has the Rangers needing to make up about a million with the rest of their draft class to avoid penalties. Fine tune that after coffee. College seniors have very little leverage so they can make up some easily with those players. They can also just not sign some guys. They are allowed to do that if need be to avoid penalties.
It was a bold strategy, but they have ways to make it work out!
They probably can’t not-sign guys, as they need a savings at those slots, not just a push.
If they don’t sign, they lose that bonus amount from their pool
Simply put, the rangers knew or had a very good idea what it would take to sign all of their draft picks before selection. They needed them all to fall in line
Good call on being wary of future extensions for the kid who was drafted this week and has thrown exactly 0 pitches in professional baseball. I hope some team has you on retainer.
Did I miss the reason why he went in the 4th vs going in the 1st as projected? Top pitching prospect but no one wanted to pay him? Baseball drafts are weird. Always the fear of not being able to sign your guy.
He committed to Clemson. Word was he was likely going to college, scared off a lot of teams. Then he signs for just under $4M. If he just had played it straight, he probably would gotten picked high up in the first round and gotten $6M+
You do know that a total of ZERO high school pitchers have ever gotten a $6M signing bonus? Zero. Ever.
Zach Lee is highest bonus for a pitcher ever I could find, at 5.25M. Back in 2011. There are only 3 high schoolers at any position to get more than 6M. Harper, Beckham and Hosmer. End of list. Notice the trend? It doesn’t happen in todays game…
@Before McCourt – You must have been looking at an older database to get your data because you are incorrect here. In 2021, (3) non-college players received bonuses of over $6M. 2 high school players and (1) prep school player. Jackson Jobe, a high school pitcher, received a $6.9M signing bonus from Detroit as the 3rd overall pick, so that makes at least 1 high school pitcher who has been paid over $6M for his draft signing bonus. Marcelo Mayer, a high school shortstop was paid $6.64M by the Red Sox as the 4th overall pick. Also, if we are including prep school players, 18 year old SS, Jordan Lawler was paid $6.7M by Arizona as the 6th overall pick.
Due to Covid, the 2020 draft was top heavy with college players because scouts couldn’t really scout HS kids, but a couple of other high school players in 2019 were paid bonuses over $6M as well. Bobby Witt, Jr. was paid $7.7M KC-SS (3rd overall pick)and Riley Green was paid $6.18M DET-OF (6th overall pick).
So the trend of High School players and pitchers not being paid $6M+ is definitely starting to change. I just doubled you list with a little homework and I only went back to 2019. I’m willing to bet there are at least 2-3 more $6M HS players from the 2016 – 2018 draft classes and perhaps even another HS pitcher who was paid $6M+ during this timeframe.
@ Before McCourt – I found 2 other high school pitchers whose signing bonuses were over $7M:
Bubba Starling (2011) – $7.5M with Kansas City (#5 overall)
Hunter Greene (2017) – $7.23M with Cincinnati (#2 overall)
This makes me think that there are a lot more HS pitchers who can be added to the over $6M bonus list as well.
It was an article from 2021, thought it was safe to not cross check. I’ll own the mistake
But starling was drafted as a five tool CF prospect. From SI,
“ It was easy to see why, too. Starling was given a whopping $7.5 million signing bonus after being drafted, a testament to both his ability and draft slot. He was touted as a true five-tool prospect who could make a great center fielder one day. Through his first four seasons in the Royals’ minor league system, Starling had shown flashes of becoming that player. 2016 and 2017 saw him come crashing down to earth.”
si.com/mlb/royals/.amp/opinion/the-bubba-starling-…
Greene, was a miss. The rest were likely drafted after the article was written so… hey, that’s what I get for 2 minutes of research ha
Your conclusion that the trend is changing may very well be true. But there’s still plenty of precedence to suggest a $6M bonus for any HS pitcher is a tall demand and a rarity to be met in the grand scheme of the draft
Really, using your research, for pitchers, it happened first in 2017, didn’t happen again until 2021 and likely will not re-occur in 2022. Add whatever asterisks you want, but blaming Covid for 2020 is weak when it only happened in two drafts in 100 years, including a likely zero in 2022. Is it really a trend, or were those guys just exceptional talents?
We all make mistakes…thanks for owning it!
I didn’t look at any full draft data behind 2019, so there could be more. I happened to come across one article on the Top 5 highest signing bonuses for pitchers and that’s where Starling and Greene came from. Gerrit Cole (college player) still owns the highest bonus as a pitcher).
The 2020 Covid data is accurate. Many scouts were on record that they did not have enough data / games to risk drafting high school players, especially in a 5 round draft. High school players tend to “pop” in the junior or senior years and since there were no games they couldn’t scout them
Ya, not sure what he’s talking about. I know he specifically said HS *pitchers* but Byron Buxton had a $6 million signing bonus and that was back in 2012.
Might want to do a little more research next time
No he obviously cut a deal with the Rangers long before the draft that locked him into $4m unless he was taken in the top ten, which was always very unlikely.
If he had been picked at #14 (where MLBPipeline says he should have gone based on talent alone) this would have been below slot.
According to the article, talent wise, he was in the #11-30 range pre-draft. Like a decent dinner.
His bonus was in the 15-18 range. Hard to say he did poorly
Yeah that’s the interesting thing here to me regarding teams thinking he wouldn’t sign. CLE could have picked him at 16 and given him this same deal, just under $4M, because that was their slot in that pick. If you go a little further out to pick 20 with ATL, you have $3.4M so you have to go a but overslot at that point.
I think that means teams in the mid to late teens range didn’t want to pick him there and pay him around slot or slightly over. Teams further back in the 1st probably couldn’t swing it without wrecking their pool.
There’s the risk he doesn’t sign. College and bonus demand.
And there’s the inherent risk with every HS pitcher, that he flames out. If you pick him #15 let say and then 3 very good players end up being drafted by the end of the 1st round… that type of miss, with other mistakes, get GMs fired
I’m happy for the Rangers. I hope these guys are good.
As a Nats fan it’s painful times. But I think it’s the right move. You got to break it all down and rebuild. We’ve got 2019 in the meantime. Unless the Lerners are hard on clearing the books before they sell I would press for a boatload of prospects for Soto. Corbin’s bad contract only has two more years and the money isn’t all that much relatively speaking. Strasburg’s is a different story, however. And he does have a full no trade clause. The rise of the young Orioles is a good example to follow.
I was hating on the rangers system til I looked into it deeper. It’s loaded w a ton of teenagers who have excellent plate discipline already- like I’ve never seen before. That has to be very appealing to nationals as it gives you more time to build around those guys. A Jung/white combo may not be the headliner they are looking for but if you get those two and another 3/4 high upside teens – that’s a great haul !
I would be absolutely floored if the Rangers are in on Soto. I like him but we need pitching not hitting. He would cost a huge chunk of our pitching prospects.
Bs winn plus glut of inf of types we have in our top 20 prospects is nothing just leave leiter jung white rocker and brock along.
rocker and Brock can’t be traded. I can’t see how you get Soto without one or both of Leiter and Jung
Bs we have 7 top 100 prospects and 11 top 150 prospects according to baseball America. We have plenty of depth to fill Washington needs im fine trading jung .we have smith foscue duran and acuna and Harris as inf prospects already.we aren’t trading leiter.
If the Mets package is Baty, Ramirez, Vientos and Mauricio (their #’s 2-5), the Rangers would have to include Leiter, Jung, Carter and Duran to be competitive. Swap White for Duran if needed. That’s too much from a 70-75 win team. They need more than just one guy to turn it around.
Since Scott Boras is clearly running the Rangers now, there’s a very good chance that dale gets his wish. Boras knows he can force Daniels and Texas ownership to pay Soto whatever he wants. Daniels is Boras’ lap dog. It will not help the Rangers to have more than 50 percent of their payroll tied up in three players. Adding Corbin’s salary won’t help either. It’s the wrong move for the Rangers, which, as most Texas fans know, means Daniels and company will overpay in prospects and salary any day now.
As a fan I would prefer this not to be the case but it would be funny if so. The fits that would be thrown would be gold.
The Rangers could trade for Soto by unloading the farm. They’d be left with Seager, Semien, Gray and Soto at a combined $100m per year for 4 guys. They would have no farm from which to complement these guys. They would still have a below average pitching staff. Seems like a repeat of the Arod years.
Got essentially first round money. Rangers were in a perfect spot to do something like this by agreeing to a big under slot contract with Rocker, setting up this deal. Still going to have to make some of that up elsewhere, But a brilliant maneuver by the Rangers.
Maybe. Both guys are extreme risks. Rocker’s coming off shoulder surgery and Porter is a hard throwing high school righty from a cold weather state, which is a resume teams tend to be very wary of for good reason. We’ll see.
The Rangers drafted college seniors and grad students after Rocker and Porter. They didn’t have a choice about returning to school and had to accept the low offers they were offered by the Rangers.
They have to be able to offer slot value unless they agreed with them beforehand. If they didn’t agree beforehand and just took those guys anyway, they’re in trouble.
A team can draft all the pitching in the world but still fail because they don’t have the competence to develop any of it. Someone please name the last homegrown Rangers pitcher that was a legitimate front of the rotation guy.
CJ Wilson probably
I believe you are correct. Drafted in 2001. Had some really good years with Rangers and Angels. Retired at age 34 after a reasonably good season.
It’s crazy to see the Rangers turning into a good drafting team. I believe Jon Daniels was a good GM but his biggest weakness was by far was the draft. Now with Chris Young helping in the front office, their drafting has done a complete 180.
I do not believe good GMs produce the garbage baseball that the Rangers have for the last 6 years. It’s been 6 years since a winning record and here they are: on pace for a 70-75 win season, with a top heavy salaried roster, a 40man roster with an average age 0f 29, and no certainties on any young player in the system being a core building block. There is no other front office in baseball that could have outrun these failures.
Jon Daniels absolutely deserves criticism. Was a change in the front office overdue? Absolutely as you already detailed. But Jon Daniels was a good GM. He produced two AL champion teams and a consistent winner for nearly a decade. Did he fumble the rebuild? Absolutely. Why? Primarily for the reason I originally posted….he is a terrible drafter. Always has been.
The drafts have been substandard, but the player development post-draft has been much worse. The International signings have been awful the last 5 years and his trades of the last decade have been non-events to colossal failures. In baseball, a few winning seasons a decade ago should not constitute a lifetime contract. If it were a player, would you roll anyone out in a lineup when they’ve been a bottom 5% of the league for 6 straight seasons? No.
He produced two AL champion teams and a consistent winner for nearly a decade.
====================================
But whose work was that? Preller is crazier than a ADHD bed bug, but no one develops a farm as well as he did. My working thesis is the Preller did all the work, but but didn’t have the authority to muck it all up.
Who is advocating for him to have a lifetime contract? I literally just said that it was overdue for a change at GM.
And I absolutely agree that player development has been the worst part of the Rangers franchise. I’ve said it multiple times on this website. I’ve even listed all the players in the Rangers that peaked in their rookie season and progressively got worse through their careers during JD’s reign and that the players that achieved the most with Rangers did not come up through their system, but were from outside their system during JDs run.
But to say the Rangers had a “few winning seasons” during Jon Daniels tenure is a major misrepresentation. They won more games from 2009 – 2016 than almost anyone, two world series appearances, one out away from a WS ring twice, and 4 division championships. If you eliminate the one year anomaly during that run, they averaged 91 wins a season. Easily by FAR the Texas Rangers best decade in their history.
Should JD have been removed as GM sooner? Absolutely. Did he mess up the rebuild? Absolutely. Did he lose a lot of talent in the Front Office that he did not replace until recently? Absolutely.
I agree that Preller AND Thad Levine were the real stars in that front office and until recently with the additions to Chris Young, their vacancies hadn’t remotely been filled. Thad unfortunately does not get the credit he deserves, unlike Preller. Thad has done a great job with the Twins.
But that’s also part of the GM’s job. JD assembled a great front office team and couldn’t keep it together (that’s just how that goes) BUT he should of addressed those losses much sooner. Chris Young seems to be along those lines of a Preller/Thad.
again – that’s been a decade ago.
The current state is: 6 straight losing seasons, an older 40man roster, no clear certain young building blocks and a top heavy salaried roster. When ’22 is done and dusted, the Rangers will have the third longest active postseason drought in baseball. This isn’t a team with an upward trajectory. This is a team that is in the midst of a 6 year skid. Who do you want steering out of that skid? The guys that that got you into that predicament or fresh guys with fresh minds?
Jon Daniels wasn’t removed as the Rangers’ GM. He was promoted upwards and is now the GM’s boss. This is 100% still Jon Daniels’ franchise and the organization charts haven’t changed other than penciling in Chris Young somewhere in the organization doing something that is supervised by Jon Daniels. What’s needed is to remove everybody. If Chris Young is the guy, let him stay and have him hire the replacements. But to characterize the Rangers as being anything other than Jon Daniels’ team in the present isn’t reality.
*Again* you completely misrepresented that entire time period, classifying it as only a “few good seasons” in order to try to strengthen your argument against JD.
Again, never said Jon Daniels should stay or that he shouldn’t of been let go long ago (I’ve actually argued the opposite).
I see GMs similar to players. They have their peaks and valleys and their primes. JD already experienced his prime. He should of been let go a few years ago. Does that mean during his prime he was a bad GM? No. He was a good GM. Now he’s head of baseball ops and Chris Young is the GM.
And if you can’t tell the change in the franchise since Chris Young has taken over as GM then you’re just a blind jilted person and there’s no use in continuing to talk to you.
You are correct up until recently, and this could be pointed to the fact of Chris Young or the combination of both. With the haul the rangers got from Gallo, there is a foundation of exciting young talent for the rangers to build on. And with the exception of pitching prospects (who until this year have shown promise), they have shown improvement and reason to think they can contribute and will do so. I’ll add that with these two picks alone the Rangers added to not only depth in pitching but talent in there system. Even with the down years from Winn and company.
Yes – it was exactly just a few good few seasons. Post 2011 (a world series appearance and 11 years ago), the Rangers have averaged a 78-84 record. Remove the fluke of ’16 and its 75-87. There have been no post season series wins in that 11 year period. Prior to the World Series in 2010, there were 4 seasons of 81-81 average baseball. In 17 years of running this franchise, he’s produced winning records in less than half of those years.
How do you think those facts would hold up for legitimate franchises? How would those facts be received in New York, Boston, St Louis, San Francisco, Dodger blue or Toronto?
As for some sort of Chris Young revelation – his tenure has produced a winning percentage equating to a 67-95. And that includes the impact of committing a half billion dollars to three guys with an average age of 31 who together have shown no ability so far to get the Rangers past .500. Additionally, during his two year tenure, both Cole Winn and Jack Leiter have regressed substantially and no core building blocks have produced consistently above the AA level.
You guys left off the bad manager hires from Daniels. Basically first time managers, or JD’s puppets, in Jeff Bannister and Chris Woodward, who nobody else wants. Their one and only MLB managing job will be with the Rangers. Ron Washington was the same, but he had the luxury of a stacked roster, and a good pitching coach.
The Rangers drafts haven’t changed much in my opinion. Only the first couple of picks each year, which can be huge. It seems to me that Young has say on the on the first couple of picks, then it reverts to the Daniels/Fagg standard it has been for years. They love high school players. College kids who are “finds” from Juco, Community College, and College’s nobody has ever heard of. And they draft Georgia heavy for some reason. They always have. It’s as if the Rangers have four scouts in the entire organization, and three live in Georgia. The only difference is that the first rounders, sometimes second rounders, are from major college programs. After that, they stay away from those, for the most part. It’s a bad strategy. Always has been. Just take a look at the Dodgers and Rays drafts from this season. Two teams notorious for great drafting and developing. They do the opposite. That’s not a coincidence.
You hit the nail on the head. Successful organizations build their teams from homegrown guys. Sound drafting and patient, methodical development of those guys. Consistent coaching voices from the major league level down to rookie league. The Rangers have none of that under the ’06 -’22 regime.
As best as can be derived from the last 6 years, the Rangers primary philosophy has been to rush guys in the minors (which they term ‘aggressive assignments’), dumpster dive for roster filler, trade said roster filler for AAA role players, and overbid on age 30 free agents because they can’t develop their own guys. That has never been a recipe for baseball success and never will be.
I am not a fan of the TX FO, not a fan of Rocker, and not a fan of HS RHPs. But this feels like a nice move by Texas. I was hoping that the RS would go after Porter with their #3, but I’m not sure they had enough savings available.