Padres MLB Draft: What's Left to Sign Cole Wilcox?

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Mark Connor congratulates AJ Preller and Logan White of the San Diego Padres, California. (Photo by Andy Hayt/San Diego Padres/Getty Images) /

The San Diego Padres have worked quickly to sign their selections from the 2020 MLB Draft, but they have one big one left to get done.

Many were surprised by how aggressive the San Diego Padres were in taking high school players in the 2020 MLB Draft.

It was thought that teams would be more likely to go the safe route and take college players in this unusual draft as most high school players would probably elect to go to college and hope for bigger money in a few years when things are hopefully back to normal.

And for the most part, teams did that, but not the Padres.

They took high school players with their first three picks and with four of their six picks.

When that happened I’ll admit I thought there was no way they’d get all of them signed. It was going to take a good amount of money to convince these high school to turn down college and a better draft in a few years.

They took care of the easy one first by signing fourth-round pick Levi Thomas for $80,000, which was well under the $533,000 slot value for that pick.

Next up was their fifth-round pick Jagger Haynes who I thought they had no shot at signing when they picked him. But instead they were able to convince him to sign him for nearly $100,000 under slot at $300,000.

And then they took care of the big one by inking their first-round pick, Robert Hassell, for $4.3 million, which was under the slot value for that pick at $5,176,900.

Earlier this week it was reported they also signed Justin Lange for $2 million and signed Owen Caissie for $1,200,004, which were both under slot value.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 20: Newly redesigned $100 notes. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) /

How much money is left?

With five of their six draft picks now locked up, we move on to figuring out how they can sign Cole Wilcox.

They started with $10,674,000 of draft pool money to use on their six picks. And there is some room to go over there before being penalized.

The Padres somehow were able to get all five of their other picks for under slot value.

A key one was Thomas. While I wrote about Thomas after he was picked and love his potential as a middle reliever one day, it was pretty obvious the Padres were hoping to save a lot of money with him.

And boy did they save some money signing him for $453,000 less than the value of that pick. I almost feel bad for the guy and how the Padres lowballed him.

Keep in mind, if the Padres didn’t sign him they would have lost the $533,000 for that pick. It’s not like they could have just let him walk and then still use the money for that pick on someone else.

They had to sign him in order to be able to use the savings on someone else.

San Diego saved $98,000 with Haynes, which is minuscule in comparison to the others.

Another huge one was Hassell where the Padres saved nearly $1 million — it was $876,900 in actuality.

With Lange they saved $148,100 and with Owens they saved $450,196.

Altogether, they saved $2,026,196 after signing those five players.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN- AUGUST 23: Cole Wilcox #30 of the USA Baseball. (Photo by Brace Hemmelgarn/Getty Images) /

What will it take to sign Wilcox

Let’s start with the fact that the pick value for the 80th overall pick in the MLB Draft is $767,800.

So you add that in with the total above that the Padres saved on other picks and they have a $2,793,996 available to offer Wilcox.

Now, you might think that’s plenty to sign a third-round pick. But keep in mind, Wilcox is a first-round talent that was ranked as the 23rd best prospect in this draft by MLB.com.

The only reason he fell to the Padres in the third round is that other teams felt they’d have trouble giving him enough money to sign him.

Wilcox was highly overlooked at Georgia because of Emerson Hancock who went sixth overall in this draft and will likely sign for around $5 million.

The value for the 23rd pick in the draft, which is where Wilcox was ranked, is $2.93 million.

So I do think the Padres have enough to convince Wilcox to sign.

And the Padres can go over their total pool money a bit without being penalized. Once you go over 5 percent of your total pool money you pay a tax of 75 percent, and if you go over by 10 percent you lose a draft pick and pay they tax.

A safe assumption is the Padres could spend an extra $400,000 without being taxed, which means they could possibly throw a little over $3 million at Wilcox if they have to.

And after I wrote this article I realized Jim Callis had already done the math for me.

That leaves 3rd-rd Cole Wilcox as the sole unsigned @MLBDraft pick for the @Padres. They can pay him $2,793,996 without exceeding their bonus pool, and $3,327,696 without going over by more than 5% (and forfeiting future picks).
— Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) June 24, 2020

I’m not sure that it will take that much to sign him.

But keep in mind, Wilcox could very well go back to Georgia next year as just a junior and be a top 10 pick next year where he could get close to $5 million.

Updated ZiPS Projections for 2020 Season. dark. Next

That’s a risk he would have to consider, but I think the Padres are well-positioned to sign Wilcox and put together one of the best draft hauls from the 2020 MLB Draft.

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