A couple of high profile picks inked deals just before the deadline last night:

• Second overall pick Mike Moustakas signed with KC for $4M. Man, I can’t even fathom what kind of fallout there would have been if this deal didn’t get done.
• Third overall pick Josh Vitters signed for $3.2M as expected and now bleeds Cubbie blue.
• Fifth overall pick Matt Weiters came to an agreement with Team Angelos for straight $6M bonus. The $6M payout is the largest up front bonus in draft history. Frankly, I’m shocked Weiters didn’t get a ML deal.
• Ninth overall pick Jarrod Parker agreed to a $2.1M deal with the D-Backs. Watch out for this kid, he’s the HS version of Tim Lincecum.
• Finally, in a bit of a shocker, the Nats and 6th rounder Jack McGeary agreed to a $1.8M bonus, a record for the round. As you may recall, McGeary had a strong commitment to Stanford and was not excepted to sign. Well, he’s still going to go to Stanford, as the deal has provisions in place that will allow McGeary to attend school as a full-time student and play baseball during the summers. The Nats also threw in an addition $200 grand to play his tuition. Since he signed a pro deal, McGeary is ineligible for the Stanford baseball squad. Talk about a sweet deal, the kid got the best of both worlds.

So, is it too early to start talking ‘08 draft?

In addition to the Andrew Brackman megadeal (largest bonus they’ve ever given to a drafted player, and the 3rd largest they’ve ever given period, behind, ugh, Hideki Irabu & Jose Contreras), the Yanks also locked up the following players:

• California high school catcher Austin Romine, second round ($500,000).
• Texas third baseman Brad Suttle, fourth round ($1,300,000).
• Texas high school outfielder Taylor Grote, eighth round ($250,000).
• Louisiana high school shortstop Carmen Angelini, 10th round ($1,000,000).

All the deals are over slot, while the Suttle and Angelini deals are records for their respective rounds. Suttle may be the big name, but I think Angelini’s the better prospect. Overall it was a nice haul this year for the Yanks (you can see all their picks and whether or not they signed here), they added some legit position player prospects to all those arms, and continued to flex their financial muscles by taking signability guys in the later rounds. Bravo front office, bravo.

Updates on some prominent non-Yankee draftees after the jump.

(more…)

From the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

Even with Wednesday’s midnight signing deadline quickly approaching, Columbus High catcher Chase Weems was never worried whether he’d sign with the New York Yankees.

Weems, who was taken with the final pick in the sixth round of June’s Major League Baseball amateur draft, is expected to sign with the Yankees today, according to his father Rick Weems.

The Blue Devils catcher was able to remain calm and relaxed being that he and Yankees agreed to the terms of his signing bonus on June 9 — the day after he was drafted — Rick Weems told the Ledger-Enquirer.
…
Rick Weems wouldn’t release the amount of the signing bonus, saying the Yankees asked them not to reveal it. He did indicate that it would be “way over the slotted” — or recommended — amount.

Rick Weems also said it would be about second-round money.

Second round money huh? Nice pull by Weems and his agent, that should be good for around $300-500k. Weems isn’t as good a prospect as 2nd rounder Austin Romine, but he’s a darn good prospect in his own right, and improves the Yanks’ depth behind the plate considerably.

(more…)

Bullet-point style…

• Rick Porcello is about to become a very, very rich man kid. There’s a chance the Porcello deal could affect how much the Yanks give Andrew Brackman, but frankly, they’re rumored to already be giving him $3M, which is more than anyone else would have offered.
• Word on the street is that second round pick Austin Romine is already in Tampa getting his workout on, although a deal has not been made official. IPK & Joba did something similar last year, and obviously they both went on to sign. I take this as a good sign.
• Nothing new the report on 4th rounder Brad Suttle (3B, Texas) or 10th rounder Carmen Angelini (SS, some HS in Louisiana), both are expected to sign well above slot deals, Suttle around $1M and Angelini around $900k.
• The Yanks have made some minor signings, locking up 29th rounder Matt Pilgreen (RHP, Louisiana-Lafayette) and 37th rounder Steven Strausbaugh (OF, Western Carolina). No word on where the two will be assigned.
• Last I heard, the Yanks had signed the fewest picks from the top 10 rounds, and the fewest picks overall. It’s about quality, not quantity I say.
• Officially, the draft deadline is midnight tomorrow, so in reality you won’t get the full details on all the deals/signings until Thursday.
• Looking back on it a year later, I think I over-estimated how long it’ll take Yankee fans to fall in love with Joba. The cool part is that the scouting report I gave back then was accurate; Nardi Contreras cleaned up Joba’s mechanics last year during Instruction League last fall, and bam, 92-93 became 98-99.

I’ll post any signing news as I get it, so check back often.

In the 24th round of the amateur draft this year, the Yanks made a Hail Mary selection when they announced their pick of Greg Peavey. Considered one of the top young arms in the nation, Peavey was impressive this summer while pitching in a summer league near Oregon State’s campus in Corvallis, and he says that he was impressed with the Yanks’ offer. However, Peavey has opted for college over the pros for now. In two years, when Peavey is draft-eligible again, expect him to go higher than he did this year.

Via this mailbag comes some word on the Yanks draft picks. According to Peter Abraham, Scott Boras, agent for Andrew Brackman, the Yanks’ number one pick, is confident the two sides will reach a deal before next Wednesday’s deadline. Abraham also notes a rumor we’ve heard for a while: The Yanks and Carmen Angelini (10th round) have come to terms on a deal for which MLB is delaying approval due, unsurprisingly, to the fact that the Yanks are well over slot. Angelini had been ticketed for Rice before the Yanks’ wallet intervened.

From BA’s Draft Blog:

“I think the negotiations with a guy like Brackman . . . go between (general manager) Brian Cashman and Scott Boras,” Oppenheimer said. “My conversations with Andrew are, ‘hang in there, we’re working on it, we’ll get it done, keep yourself in shape and get yourself ready to go.’ Those conversations are pretty simple.

“The ones that really count are between Brian and Scott, and I’m real optimistic we’re going to get it done and he seems real positive about it, as well.”

A terrific, if unproven talent, the 6-foot-10 righthander cordially shook hands and spoke with fans during the game, and seemed genuinely optimistic he would sign with the Yankees by the Aug. 15 signing deadline. “Everything is going along exactly like we hoped it would work out,” he said.
…
“Right now, I’m just tossing, throwing on the side, working out one to two hours a day, lifting and staying in shape,” Brackman said. “I haven’t felt pain in a while. Hopefully when signing day comes, I can get right out there.”
…
“Healthy or injured, we’re going to do everything we can to get him signed,” Oppenheimer said.

Dude, how nuts is the minor league pitching depth going to be if/when they sign Brackman, Chris Carpenter and/or Greg Peavey? Makes you want to do this…

The Cape Cod Baseball League is “it” for amateurs. Each summer the best of the best college players head up to the Cape to strut their stuff for scouts in anticipation of the following year’s draft, and in some cases they are trying to make themselves a few extra thousand bucks if they were already drafted. Many players have headed to the Cape with little hype, but left as top notch prospects; just ask Timmy Lincecum what his 0.69 ERA & .104 BAA did for him last year.Â

One player on the Cape looking to drive up his signing bonus is RHP Chris Carpenter, the Yanks’ 18th round pick out of Kent State in this year’s draft. A second rounder based on talent, Carpenter fell because of signability (as a draft-eligible sophomore, he’s got some extra negotiating leverage) and health concerns (Tommy John surgery and a separate elbow surgery to clean out scar tissue in recent years). In two starts for the Chatham A’s, Carpenter has gone 9 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 13 K, which isn’t as great as it may look when you consider that the CCBL is quite possibly the pitcher friendliest baseball league on the planet.

(more…)

The last guy picked in the entire draft has signed:

The Nahant-born [Larry] Day got pre-draft invitation to work out for the Yankees in Yankee Stadium courtesy of ex-Harvard coach Matt Hyde, now a Northeast scout for the Yanks.

“I still never expected to be drafted. That was my gut feeling,” Day said.

Now for the kicker: he was the last player chosen in the draft, No. 1,453 overall.
…
Day signed with the organization and learned that he’ll probably be assigned to Staten Island (N.Y.) Saturday in the all-rookie New York-Penn League.

“My bonus? When you’re the last guy chosen, it’s not all about the money,” he chuckled.

There’s a bunch of rumors floating around message boards that a couple other guys have signed, but I have yet to see confirmation of this. BA is slow to update the signings in their draft database this year, although you can see that the Mets have begun to lock guys up.

John posted his comparison of the Yanks real draft with our Mock Draft, the results:

Same first round pick, which is intriguing. The Mock draft has a higher upside with the third and fourth round guys who dropped due to signability in real life. Suttle was more popular in the mock draft than in the real draft apparently. Which class would you rather have? If the Mock guys are signable (and the Yankees have the money to do it) that’s quite attractive, but on the other hand I like both Pope and Suttle, too.

I like my draft better, and that’s almost entirely because I made the picks. And dammit, Barry Enright will be a solid Major League starter some day!

But hey, I took Brackman and Venditte, the Yanks took Brackman and Venditte … great minds think alike.