Signing Projections

With the deadline being moved up by a month, we've seen many draft picks come to terms and report. I usually take the week following the draft to gather information and then make a (somewhat educated) guess at what draft picks will sign and which will return or go to college. (Going to have to shorten that time frame up in the future.)

Now that the draft has been shortened by 10 rounds, it is hard to use precedence to set a number on how many players the team will sign. I'm guessing it's going to be around 26.

I break the draftees into four tiers: Will sign, probable sign, doubtful sign, won't sign. Last year, the Twins signed a "doubtful sign" (Torres) and a "won't sign" (Malinowski). All of the players I thought would sign, eventually did. In 2010, the Twins didn't sign one player I thought they would (a senior - Gregg), one that I thought they might (Kuresa) and signed four that I didn't see coming.

Here are this year's draftees, broken into the four tiers. (Boldfaced names are those that have already signed/agreed to terms).

Will sign (19; 16 have signed): Byron Buxton , J.O. Berrios , Luke Bard, Mason Melotakis (signed for $68.5K under value), J.T. Chargois , Adam Brett Wa lker , Zach Jones, Ty ler Duffey, Jorge Fernandez, Christian Powell, D.J. Baxendale*, Taylor Rogers, Alex Muren, Erich Knab, Jarret Leverett, D.J. Hicks, Jonathan Murphy, B.K. Santy, Brian Haar.

*Baxendale is still pitching in the College World Series, so it's impossible to know/guess what his intentions are.

Probably sign (7; 3 have signed): Andre Martinez (signed for $60K over value), L.J. Mazzilli, Jake Proctor, Zach Larson, Bo Altobelli, Travis Huber, Jerad Grundy.

Doubtful sign (11; 2 have signed): Will Hurt, William LaMarche, Josh Graham, Jose Favela, Joel Licon, Justin Jones, Carson Goldsmith, Sean Hagan, Jared Wilson, Brandon Bayardi, Brad Schreiber.

Won't sign (6): Timmy Robinson, Andrew Farreira, Kaleb Merck, James Marvel, Austin Rel, Alex Liquori.

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Buxton's signing bonus will be the next domino to fall. If they are able to bank some of their pool (as of now, they have only banked $8,500), I think that improves the team's chances of signing Timmy Robinson and/or Josh Graham. James Marvel, who is heading to Duke, is a huge Twins fan... so he remains a darkhorse.

Regardless, this is me putting it out there for the whole world to see.

Merck has another year of eligibility left. He red-shirted in 2011 after undergoing TJ surgery. His Facebook status on draft day: “Horrible Day. Disappointed”

The Twins will probably save a half mill (or less) on Buxton, and that could very well go Mazzilli's way. What does he stand to gain re-entering as a college senior? He is interesting case though and I hope the Twins get it done with him.

The penalty would be the 75% tax on the overage. They have up to a $618,400 cushion, yes... but that cushion would cost them $1,082,217.50. I don't think the Twins are going to push it.

There was a senior drafted this year in the 4th round (I believe...) who took a bonus in between 5K and 10K. The comment he made afterwards was that he'll always be a 4th round pick and no one will remember his signing bonus. Mazzilli could do something like that.

I think, for the sake of the Twitter discussion I saw today, we should compare Mazzilli to Dan Uggla... and Luke Hughes.