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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Giants Sign Conor Gillaspie

According to this report and sfgiants.com, the Giants have signed Conor Gillaspie. The amount was not announced, but it usually leaks out relatively quickly. I think it will basically be around just under $1M, like the pick ahead of and behind him, though they could throw him the bone and give him $1M, like they did Fairley last year.

No news on the other picks, particularly Posey, other than, "When players first go through the Draft, they have expectations as to what they'll get depending on where they're chosen." One could add that it depends on where they think they should have been chosen.

Either way, $4-6M for Posey is probably around what he will get, that's what Matt Weiter got last season as the top college catcher worthy enough of Top 5 pick selection, that is about what the top picks got last season, and about what Tim Beckham got for being the #1 pick this year and where Posey was supposedly being strongly considered for the top pick until the rumor that he was looking for $12M came out and suddenly Beckham was the prospect for the Rays. And the Giants are willing to give him a major league contract, meaning he'll be up to the big show within 3 seasons.

Perhaps Posey thinks he deserves more for being the Golden Spike winner as well as the NCAA offensive leader in a number of offensive categories, maybe he thinks he has a greater leverage than the Giants in that they greatly need to sign him but he has nothing to prove in not signing and going back to college, and in addition he risks both injury and a drop-down in production (after leading the NCAA and getting the Golden Spike, anything less would be a come-down), which would cost him literally millions if he falls out of the Top 5.

Perhaps Posey is waiting to see what #2 Pedro Alvarez and #3 Eric Hosmer get, in order to demand more from the Giants. Both of them are Boras clients and probably are asking for the moon right now, and being two of the top picks, they are probably not signing until the last minute. Could Posey be waiting to see if he get more leverage by seeing what they sign for? That's possible but both will probably sign at the last minute, leaving very little time for negotiations and leverage.

As I noted before, by delaying his introduction to professional baseball by a couple of hundred at-bats, that could push back his reaching the majors by a year. That could cost him one year of major league pay later in his career, which would cost him more than his bonus that he's fighting so hard for. Thus, instead of maybe making the majors in 2009-2010, he would be looking more at 2010-2011 instead. Hopefully he's not wasting his time fighting for that last $1M, last $100K, because he would lose more than that ultimately in missing time he could be spending showing he's ready for the big show.

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