NVR Logo
First-round baseball draft picks beat new deadline
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Save and Share Share
NEW YORK — Top pick David Price agreed Wednesday to an $11.25 million, six-year contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and all the other first-rounders also beat baseball’s new deadline for draft choices to sign.

Price, a hard-throwing left-hander from Vanderbilt, is guaranteed $8.5 million under the deal, which includes a $5.6 million signing bonus.
Agreements were announced Wednesday for 11 of the 30 first-round picks. Agent Scott Boras went right up to the final hours before the midnight EDT deadline with the second, fifth and 30th selections in June’s draft.

Michael Moustakas, a shortstop from Chatsworth High in California, agreed to a contract with the Kansas City Royals with a $4 million signing bonus. George Tech catcher Matt Wieters, selected fifth by Baltimore, received a $6 million signing bonus. The New York Yankees and right-hander Andrew Brackman, the No. 30 pick, agreed to a $4.55 million, four-year contract that includes a $3.35 million signing bonus. Brackman likely will have elbow ligament replacement surgery in the next few weeks.
Josh Vitters, a third baseman from Cypress High in California who was taken by the Chicago Cubs with the third pick, agreed to a minor league contract with a signing bonus of about $3.2 million.

Before Wednesday, the highest draft pick to agree to a deal had been Clemson left-hander Daniel Moskos, who was selected fourth by Pittsburgh and got a $2,475,000 signing bonus.
Price received the third-highest guarantee for a draft pick behind the Cubs’ Mark Prior ($10.5 million) and Texas’ Mark Teixeira ($9.5 million) in 2001 and the third-largest signing bonus behind Arizona’s Justin Upton ($6.1 million) in 2005 and Wieters, according to research by Baseball America.

Price, winner of the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top amateur player, was on the eighth hole of a golf course when he received a phone call from his representative, Bo McKinnis, that a deal had been struck. Price was confident an agreement would be reached.

“I didn’t really care if somebody else in the draft made more money. You’re going to make your money in the big leagues,” Price said.

Under a new baseball rule this year, teams had until Wednesday to reach agreements with their 2007 draft picks. Teams that fail to sign first- and second-round picks get a selection in the 2008 draft right after the same number pick.

After Wednesday, players are not eligible to sign, and many unsigned players could go back into next year’s draft pool. The commissioner’s office slotting recommendations to teams cut the figures for each position by about 10 percent.

Also agreeing on the final day were right-hander Jarrod Parker (No. 9) and Arizona at $2.1 million, left-hander Madison Bumgarner (No. 10) and San Francisco at about $2 million, right-hander Phillippe Aumont (No. 11) and Seattle at $1.9 million, third baseman Matt Dominguez (No. 12) and Florida at $1.8 million, and outfielder Wendell Fairley (No. 29) and San Francisco at about $1 million.

Detroit announced a four-year contract with right-hander Rick Porcello, another Boras client. The No. 27 pick was guaranteed $7,285,000 under the deal, agreed to earlier this week.

Washington and sixth-round draft pick Jack McGeary, a high school left-hander, agreed to a $1.8 million signing bonus.
No comments posted.
Comment Guidelines
The goal of the story comments section at NapaValleyRegister.com is to have an open, thought-provoking, civil community forum for all issues.
What gets your comment posted?
• Staying on topic
• Keeping your comment to 300 words or less
• Avoiding name-calling
• Addressing your comments to the message rather than the messenger
What gets your comment deleted?
• Personal attacks
• Derogatory remarks
• Name-calling of any sort
• Going off-topic
• Hate speech
• Racially-insensitive comments
• Implying guilt of a subject in a crime story before there is a court verdict
• Posting e-mail addresses
• Posting comments of a commercial nature
• POSTING WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
• Linking multiple comments together with "to be continued..." to get around the 300 word limit.
The fine print
- Comments are either approved or denied. We do not edit comments.
- You are welcome to modify and resubmit a denied comment.
- Comments may take several hours to be posted.
- Comments posted are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of NapaValleyRegister.com, its employees or its parent company.
- Do you have information on a story? Please go to our virtual newsroom to send us a news tip.
- If you feel a posted comment has violated our guidelines, please contact online@napanews.com or add a comment indicating you have an issue and our moderators will review the comment in question.
Search:
Web Search Powered
By Yahoo! Search
Napa Valley Register on Facebook
Copyright © 2009 Napa Valley Publishing, a member of Lee Enterprises, Inc.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy