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Padres News: Padres Signing Picks for the Future

By Daryll Dorman

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It is now two weeks after the 2015 MLB Draft, and to their credit the San Diego Padres have now signed all nine of their top 10 picks; and did so with less pool money than other teams, as reported by Corey Brock of Padres.com.

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When they traded for James Shields and traded for Justin Upton they lost two picks, along with $4.5 M in pool money to sign draftees. That left them with just $3.6Million to sign their picks – second lowest among MLB teams. First year scouting director, Mark Connor, brushed off any thoughts that they influenced their draft picks though, saying “We still went after the players we wanted, we just had to be creative.”

The Padres first draft pick Austin Smith, drafted in the second round, got $1.2M which was slightly higher than his average slot wage. Their ninth and tenth round picks Jerry Keel (LHP) and OF Justin Pacchioli received just $10,000 compared to their average slot picks of over $150,000. This helped to round out some of their other picks where they did offer more money like second pick, pitcher Jacob Nix, $900,000 compared to his average slot money of $687,300.

So where will these picks end up? There isn’t the buzz that was created the last few years with SS Trea Turner and OF Hunter Renfroe, but being the first draft under A.J. Preller the expectations are high after he excelled in player development with Texas. Furthermore, the reality that the farm system has been depleted by a lot of talent that is already performing at the major league level for other teams while the Padres tread water means there is an extra importance on the farm system to perform.

More than any other sport, the MLB draft is a relative crapshoot except for the occasional Mike Trout, Kris Bryant, or Bryce Harper that comes along. If the Padres just get lucky on a few of these guys to fill spots on their roster of 2017 and beyond it will be considered a success.

Conner seems to think this group will turn out well for the Padres, “I think it’s a good class. At the end of the day, I felt our guys did a good job identifying talent. We took players that we liked. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.”

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