Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s okay, though -- we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each morning, and find the things you need to see from within the SB Nation baseball network, as well as from elsewhere. Please hold your applause until the end, or at least until after you subscribe to the newsletter.
3 MLB 1st-round picks are unsigned with a week to go
Friday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes the remaining unsigned picks and both real and fake versions of the Home Run Derby lineup.
MLB.com
* * *
The MLB Draft was roughly a month ago, which means the deadline to sign its selections is coming up. Friday, July 15 is the final day to sign any picks from the 2016 draft, which shouldn’t be a huge problem for the vast majority of teams or selections. With one week to go, though, there are three first-round picks still unsigned, and 11 total unsigned from the first 10 rounds — those are the rounds where the draft budget applies, and failure to sign means a loss of a chunk of said budget.
Braxton Garrett, selected seventh-overall by the Marlins, is the first of those three still unsigned. At the time he was picked, it was known Garrett could be hard to agree with: the high school lefty has a commitment to Vanderbilt, and he’s represented by Scott Boras. The Marlins also didn’t have many high-priced picks they can sign for under-slot to get extra budget for Garrett, either, as they lost their second-round pick to sign free agent Wei-Yin Chen and traded their Competitive Balance pick.
As known as it was that Garrett would be difficult to sign, not all unresolved negotiations come from that kind of beginning: Anthony Kay was the 31st pick, selected by the Mets, and though he’s a college arm taken at the back-end of the first, he’s yet to agree to terms — and there hasn’t really been news as to why this is. In between you have Jason Groome, whom the Red Sox picked 12th-overall. Groome is fascinating, as many analysts had him in the top-three — and sometimes even higher — on their draft boards.
Groome also had a pre-draft deal for $4 million with a team that expected Groome to keep falling, which put him closer to top-five money than top-12 — so, Boston knows how much he should cost, but the two sides haven’t come to a final agreement on that. Groome has a commitment to a junior college, which would allow him to reenter next year’s draft, but if $4 million was enough to get him to eschew that once, it should do so again. In theory, anyway.
- The contestants for the 2016 Home Run Derby have been announced, and feature the likes of Giancarlo Stanton and Mark Trumbo. Hey, laugh at Trumbo all you want, but he’s always had serious power and currently leads the majors in dingers, with 26.
- Here, though, is our reveal for the Home Run Derby lineup you would absolutely watch over the real thing.
- Speaking of Giancarlo Stanton, here he is crushing a home run literally one second after a fan called him overrated.
- Oliver Perez is the first relief pitcher in five years to have two hits in a game. Not only that, but one of the hits was a double.
- Good news! Hyun-Jin Ryu finally returned to the mound for the Dodgers. Bad news! He gave up six runs to the Padres and Los Angeles lost.
- The Orioles scouted Sonny Gray and Ervin Santana on Wednesday, as they try to figure out just how they’re going to upgrade their rotation.
- The Red Sox, trailing the O’s in the AL East, scouted Jeremy Hellickson and Rich Hill for the same reason.
- The Giants need bullpen help, but they would probably have to empty their farm for it, and that assumes that the help they need even exists on the trade market.
- The Blue Jays are still considering adding Jay Bruce to their outfield. If the O’s, Sox, and Jays all manage to make deals before the deadline, the AL East is going to be even more fascinating than it’s been over the last two months of the season.
See More:
