Andy Baggarly had a nice post on this a couple of weeks ago on his blog, I regularly check him out, lots of good stuff there. He wrote about how Giants fans should calm down about there not being any movement on the draft picks signing. Anyway, why bring this up so much later?
Baseball America has a post today on their blog, on the latest first-round signing, ending a drought of 15 days, when Brett Lawrie signed for $1.7M with the Brewers. He was the 16th pick, a Canuck, who is another sure-thing hitter who probably won't play at his drafted position that the Brewers selected (they did that last year too with LaPorta).
They noted, and it is data that supports of Baggarly's blog post, that last year, the first time with this deadline, while all 30 first-rounders signed, 13 of them didn't agree to terms (nearly 50%, that is, 43%) until the last two days that they could sign, August 14-15. And all of the Giants first four draft picks - Posey, Gillaspie, Kieschnick, and Crawford - were all considered first round possibilities at some point prior to the draft, so it will be harder to sign them all, but not impossible, as I had written before.
Gillaspie Signing Soon?
Also, according to this report, Gillaspie has agreed to sign with the Giants for $975,000 bonus and other incentives. A newspaper local to Gillaspie reported that he was seen getting onto a plane headed for Arizona on Monday morning, presumably to the Giant's minor league complex, which started the rumors going. But the Giants have officially said that his deal is not done yet.
The Giants picks after Posey are laggards though. Gillaspie is one of only two supplemental round picks who have not signed yet, and his reported bonus is basically what the pick ahead of him and pick behind him got, so right around slot. Kieschnick, the third rounder, is one of only three third rounders who have not signed yet. Crawford is one of only six fourth rounders who have not signed yet.
But this is not general Giants operating procedure, they have generally tried to sign all their draft picks quickly and get them into the system as fast as possible. It is when the draft picks, for whatever reasons, decide to drag out the negotiations, that it takes longer to sign them.
Given how Wendell Fairley has struggled this season, I wonder if he might be higher on the learning curve if he would have just forgoed the extra few thousand of dollars (literally and actually) and just signed for slot early on and got to go play some professional baseball last season, like Alderson, Noonan, Williams, and Culberson did.
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